COB Newsletter

Reflecting On A Transformative Year As the Spring 2025 semester draws to a close and we reflect on another academic year, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to our students, faculty, staff, and supporters. This year has brought many meaningful achievements, but also a sharper awareness of the complex and evolving challenges facing higher education today. Every academic year brings milestones worth celebrating. Yet this one has underscored the urgent need for institutions like ours to adapt, innovate, and lead. Rising operational costs, shifting public perception, declining enrollments, and increasing demands for flexible, affordable, and career-focused education are reshaping how we serve our students and fulfill our mission. These challenges are no longer abstract; they are present in every classroom, every advising conversation, and every campus experience. At the Paul and Virginia Engler College of Business, we are proud to meet these realities head-on. Our faculty are not only educators but... Read more

It is not uncommon for students to find their life partners while at university, but it is a lot less common for a couple to enroll while already married. That’s the story of Megan and Doug Shields of Littlefield Texas, who routinely commute to the WT campus two days a week for the 180-mile round trip. Thankfully, online class options allow them to do the rest from home. Megan, 28, is double majoring in Management and Marketing, while Doug, 35, is double majoring in Finance and Economics. Planning their course schedules can be a logistical nightmare, since the fields are so disparate. Had they chosen the same major or majors, it would have been much easier, but they both chose to follow their hearts. The availability of required courses either online or on-campus is one thing, but pairing those considerations to minimize total travel is quite another. It is no... Read more

If the idea of sticking around for one master’s degree sounds daunting, consider the notion of two. That is exactly what Susan Fleming has done this past year. Upon completing her MBA at WT last August, she immediately turned her attention toward our new MS-SHRM (Strategic Human Resources Management) degree, and is the first graduate from this new degree program. But first a little back story. “I graduated high school at the age of 16. I got married and started a family, and never finished college. In 2017 I attended South Plains College and finished my Associate’s degree in Business there. I decided realistically that was not enough for me and I wanted a bachelor’s,” she said. And so a search for a suitable university with flexible online courses and programs ensued. “I had always heard great things about WT and decided to look into it. I came here with... Read more

One of the implicit goals we have at the Engler College of Business is to instill the idea of being a lifelong learner. But sometimes we attract students who have already embraced that idea, and come to us in search of degrees to add to their lengthy list of academic accomplishments. Kevin Furlong is one of those rare individuals. He completed an undergraduate degree, and then spread across his 59 years he completed a Medical school degree and four-year Pharmacy degree. He is now one year into his MBA at WT, this yet another puzzle piece in his quest not only to acquire knowledge, but also to enhance his career. He is employed at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. A Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and a board-certified endocrinologist, he has an insatiable appetite to know more. He didn’t start out on this road, though, because as a youth, he wanted... Read more

Spring is in the air, and with the semester rapidly drawing to a close, it is the Engler COB’s tradition to honor our most outstanding students as well as community members. This year’s Engler COB Symposium was held on April 23rd in Legacy Hall, and was also shared via Zoom for online students afar. The event kicked off with the induction of 42 students into WT’s chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma. Requirements for admission are Top 10% of the undergraduate class, and Top 20% of the graduate class. BGS is an honor society available only to students whose business programs are accredited by AACSB, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Next, several discipline-specific honor society chapters inducted their best students. Alpha Mu Alpha (Marketing) welcomed two new members, while Omicron Delta Epsilon (Economics) inducted six and Upsilon Pi Epsilon (Computer Information Systems) honored 20. Student Organization Leadership Awards... Read more

Sometimes life deals out cards that make finishing your education difficult. Ryan Spillman, from Lockhart Texas, found himself with multiple circumstances in 2019 that made it impossible for him to continue his studies at the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M. At that point, “College did not seem like an option for me,” he said. He knew he would have to find a very flexible online program and have financial security to ever finish his degree. A few years later, though, he started looking at Texas A&M University System schools, and found WT. he was blown away with the depth and breadth of our online offerings. Then a new job presented itself, and the timing was right, providing the necessary finances to pay for his education. Spillman, who is 25, applied to the Engler COB, was accepted along with more than 50 transfer credits, and started his education with... Read more

The number of Engler COB grads, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, who have gone on to do great things comprises a very long list. From Marketing to Economics, Management to Computer Information Systems, and everything in between, our grads are the best advertising we could ever have. And Anupam “AJ” Johri, Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Management Director at Morgan Stanley in Dallas, is one such example. AJ graduated with his WT MBA in 1993, and went to work for Dean Witter Reynolds in Amarillo. That company was ultimately acquired by Morgan Stanley, and he found himself moving to the Big D. Today, his success finds him one of the top-ranked wealth managers in Texas, according to Barron’s, with $2 billion under his guidance. He recalled growing up in an upper-middle class class family in India. “When I was growing up in the early 80s, if you were... Read more

Faculty and students took the inaugural Buff Business Trek to Southwest Airlines’ headquarters at Love Field in Dallas on Jan. 16 before spring semester classes began at WT. The Buff Business Trek initiative supports the Engler Edge, a program designed to increase the leadership, business acumen and communication effectiveness for all graduates of the programs in the Engler College of Business.   Highlights of the program include a visit to the Southwest Training Center’s full motion Level D flight simulators, Southwest’s historical archives, training and development areas for flight crew, Network Operations Center, and interaction with many other WT alums working for Southwest, including Dillon Vaughan (BBA Finance 2016; MBA General Business 2018) and Judd Baker (BA Broadcast Media, 2018).   This program provides a vital connection between current and former students where our alumni served as exemplary ambassadors of Southwest Airlines’ corporate culture.  A key takeaway for all involved was the... Read more

Each Spring the Engler College of Business honors faculty and staff for being outstanding in various aspects of academic life. The annual Faculty/Staff Awards is where these accolades are passed out, and due recognition given. This year’s event was held on April 11th in the Alumni Banquet Hall on campus. This year the Teaching Excellence Award was given to Dr. Oscar Solis, Associate Professor of Finance and Edwards Professor of Financial Planning. Solis is known for his highly engaging teaching style, and is well liked among his students. Managing one’s finances is no small task, and Solis makes the methods and numbers come to life. Students leave with life skills, not just fading memories of late-night cram sessions. Dr. Bin Shao, Professor of Decision Management and Terry Professor of Business, won the Research Excellence Award. Known for her Supply Chain Management course, Shao toils in the trenches of AI and... Read more

For the majority of our students as well as junior faculty, the idea of retirement is such a far-off concept as to barely even register on their radar. But if you work long enough, eventually it becomes not just an interesting concept, but also reality. Such is the case for David Clark, Instructor in Accounting, who is retiring this May with 14 years of service. Clark, 61, earned his BBA in Accounting from WT in 1986, his CPA in 1987, and his MPA (now known as MACC) in 2013. “I came here as a Pre-Med major, but in my sophomore year I switched to Accounting as my major, and Pre-Med as my minor. I had taken Accounting in high school, and I liked it,” Clark recalled. He had served on former Engler COB Dean Dr. Neil Terry’s Advisory Council in 2011, and decided to leave behind a career in healthcare... Read more

ThEngler College of Business launched a new master’s degree in Human Resources this academic year, and already it has experienced rapid growth. The MS-SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Management) currently has 22 students enrolled, exceeding initial expectations. “We are hoping to get to 40-50 students when the new semester starts, said Dr. Andrew Li, Management Discipline Coordinator. “We have updated the curriculum to make it more appealing to HR practitioners. For example in Fall 2025 we are going to offer a course related to HR Analytics, and in Spring 2026 we are going to offer an OSHA class. Those are classes that are very specific to HR and may be appealing to HR professionals.” The Management faculty has also been working diligently to grow the program. “We have done a lot of promotions,” Li continued. “For example, we have reached out to the chapter presidents of Texas SHRM to invite them... Read more

The Engler College of Business is proud of its various forms of communication. In addition to this three-time yearly newsletter, we host ProfSpeak, the faculty blog, as well as BuffSpeak, our podcast. Both continue to rack up impressive numbers of eyeballs and eardrums. Faculty have been contributing to the blog since Fall 2020, with more than 220 posts available for reading. They are organized by topical area to make it easier to find particular subject matter. A recent post by Dr. Jonathan Shaffer, Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives & Pickens Professor of Management, has garnered high readership because of research he and his colleagues recently undertook that explored the effects of cannabis use on career outcomes. March Madness may have already come and gone, but Dr. Anne-Christine Barthel (Associate Professor of Economics and Decision Management & Hodges Professor of Business) provided readers with a thought-provoking look at the gambler’s fallacy.... Read more