Paul L. Pfeiffer Professional and Creative Teaching Award
"The Paul L. Pfeiffer Professional and Creative Teaching Award was created by the late Paul L. Pfeiffer, emeritus professor of marketing, to recognize excellence in teaching combined with practical business experience."
2009 Winner
Gregory P. Hackett joined the Kent faculty in August of 2006 as the Goodyear Executive Professor and served in this role through May of 2009. In addition to teaching the Exploring Business class to hundreds of students each year, Greg also organized the Pilliod Lecture series where distinguished speakers addressed topics of interest and importance to both the academic and business communities.
Prior to joining Kent State, Greg was founder of The Hackett Group, the world's foremost benchmarking firm in the knowledge-worker field, which he established in 1992 and merged with AnswerThink Consulting Group in 1997. During 20 years of management consulting experience, Greg led numerous assignments for clients across all major industry segments worldwide. He is a leading-edge thinker and pioneer regarding structural change, organizational reengineering and tactical planning. Prior to forming The Hackett Group, Greg had a 10-year tenure at Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc., where he conducted organizational restructuring assignments in finance, manufacturing, sales and marketing in a variety of industries.
Greg holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Kent State University and a master of business administration degree from Miami University of Ohio, where he has been a member of the Advisory Council of its business school. He is a published authority on operations improvement and has been a frequent and popular lecturer at professional society and industry association conferences throughout the United States and abroad. He is a long-time member of the editorial advisory board of CFO magazine and was a founding judge of the REACH Awards, the financial reengineering equivalent of The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards. In addition to being the 2009 winner of the Paul L. Pfeiffer Professional and Creative Teaching Award, Greg was also recognized with the 2009 Teaching Excellence Award.
2008 Winner
Julie Messing brings over 18 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience to the University setting. She brings extensive knowledge of marketing, management, product development and innovation and business planning within the highly regulated industries of insurance and banking. During her years in the financial services industry, Julie worked her way up from entry-level marketing to Senior Vice President. She is also President of her own business consulting organization, Transitions Advisory Group, Inc. Transitions provides business consulting services to organizations experiencing or preparing for change. Ms. Messing has also been active with the Junior League, and she provides counseling support for new and prospective business owners. She also completed a leadership-based program in Columbus, Ohio and has served on not-for-profit boards in the Columbus area.
Currently, Julie is an Instructor and the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation. In her role at Kent State she is responsible for developing and implementing the entrepreneurship program. The program consists of several components: a minor, a major, a living-learning community, speaker series, Entrepreneurship Extravaganza and an entrepreneurial lab. She works closely with the business community to bring opportunities to the classroom, as well as support the economic development in northeast Ohio.
Ms. Messing is an enthusiastic instructor who brings “real life” applications and business colleagues to the classroom environment.
2007 Winner
Kevin E. Dow is an assistant professor of accounting information systems at Kent State University. He received his doctorate from the University of South Carolina. His research interests include the study of knowledge management, business value of information technology, and the management of information system development. His prior work has been published in Information Systems Research, the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, the International Journal of eCollaboration, the Journal of Emerging Tehnologies in Accounting, the Journal of Computer Information Systems, and Management Accounting Quarterly.
2006 Winner
David Dumpe is a non-tenure-track professor of Finance in the College of Business. He received his Ph.D. from Kent State University in 1996 with a major in finance and a minor in International Economics. He is responsible for upper division undergraduate and graduate courses in financial management.He coordinates all of the sections of basic financial management courses and is the finance internship coordinator.His professional teaching actually began in 1976 when he was an Instructor Navigator in the US Air Force - Strategic Air Command where he taught navigation theory and evaluated student performance during both simulator and actual airborne training missions. After his military duty, he spent seven years as Vice President and General Mananger in his father´s automotive business. He sold that business and became Executive Vice President of administration and finance for Story & Clark Pianos Inc. He was a teaching fellow at Kent while he worked on his doctorate. After receiving his Ph.D. from Kent he taught at several academic institutions before returning to Kent as a visiting professor.
2005 Winner
Richard J. Curcio is a professor of Finance in the College of Business. He received his Ph.D. in Finance and B.S. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University. He teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has a wide range of teaching and research interests. Dr. Curcio served as Chairperson of Kent State University's Department of Finance and Public Administration from 1975-1983. Prior to coming to Kent, he was an administrator in the mathematics department of Pennsylvania State University and a research chemist with the Beryllium Corporation. During his time at Kent State, Dr. Curcio has organized and conducted executive training sessions for such companies and organizations as the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation and Salem Community Hospital. Dr. Curcio firmly believes that coupling practical experience with the teaching theory is the most effective approach to the teaching of business.
2004 Winner
Dr. Buchi Felix Offodile, professor of operations management and chair of the Department of Management and Information Systems, is this year’s recipient.Offodile teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and has a wide range of teaching and research interests including the areas of technology assessment, manufacturing automation, quality management and resource and supply chain management. His research has been published in several academic journals. Although much of Offodile’s more than 20 years of teaching experience has been at the university level, he is active in the community and also teaches at K-12 schools, churches, libraries and other organizations where he shares his experiences with students of all ages. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Offodile has written The Orphan Girl, a unique book filled with 260 pages of a collection of 41 stories from each of the West African countries.
2003 Winner
Michael Mayo, Acting Chair of the Marketing Department, conducts research in the areas of marketing ethics, international marketing, and sales management. In ethics, he has examined the decision-making process underlying how marketing managers and consumers resolve moral dilemmas. His work with Cathy Goodwin (University of Manitoba) on how sales representatives cope with the loss of a major account won the "BEST PAPER" award at the 1993 American Marketing Association conference. A Ph.D. from Kent State University and completed post-doctoral studies at the University of California - Berkley. Dr. Mayo teaches in the doctoral, MBA, undergraduate and executive programs. Mayo’s students give him high ratings in communicating enthusiasm in class. His students comment that he brings current and real-life examples to class and keeps them informed of job opportunities.
2002 Winner
Kathryn Wilson received her Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Wisconsin. Her primary teaching interests are microeconomics, public economics, and labor economics. She has done research in a number of different areas, including educational attainment, teen out-of-wedlock births, disability, and retirement.