Subsequent pages will detail my pedagogical approach, research, publications, and courses. This page details my academic journey, academic awards, and some interesting vignettes along the way.
Short Summary
My first collegiate teaching assignment was at the United States Military Academy in 1993. I started in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as an instructor and was promoted to assistant professor in 1995. I went through promotion and advancement to associate professor in 2001 and again in 2007 for promotion to professor at West Point. After retiring from the military in 2010, I taught as an adjunct professor at Georgia State University in the Mark Robinson School of Business until 2016 when I competed for and was selected as a non-tenure track professor. At about the same time, the Computer Science department at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) appointed me a non-tenure track professor as part of the hiring process to Vice President and Chief Information Officer. I continue to teach while balancing teaching against my administrative responsibilities.
Academic Awards
As my daughter Michelle astutely noted, she is cursed as the only professor she knows with a 5 star rating on RateMyProfessor is her dad. I have been fortunate enough to teach 92 courses over a 30 year span with the majority of the teaching being done as a secondary role to my primary job. I just believe you have to eat your own dogfood which for technology leaders means you have to teach using the technology your department is providing. It has been very illuminating to the challenges of the faculty. Thus, it is surprising that I have any teaching awards at all let alone one global award, one national award, and three departmental awards from two different universities. I also picked up a number of Best Paper awards reflecting some degree of research excellence as well. These are listed below in chronological order:
| Year | Award |
| 2016 | Top Professor, MSIS program, Georgia State University |
| 2016 | Top Professor, MIT program, Georgia State University |
| 2015 | Top Professor, MIT program, Georgia State University |
| 2014 | Global Leading Educator, Desire2Learn |
| 2009 | Fellow, American Council of Education |
| 2007 | National Educator of the Year, Federal Information Systems and Security Educator’s Association |
| 1997 | Outstanding Paper, AACE ED-MEDIA World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia |
| 1996 | Outstanding Paper, AACE ED-MEDIA World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia |
| 1996 | Phi Kappa Phi Academic Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research |
| 1996 | Invitation for display as Ars Electronica Course of the Future |
| 1995 | Ben Dasher Best Paper Award, IEEE/ASEE Frontiers in Education Conference |
| 1995 | Best Overall Paper, The Journal of Information Systems Education |
Academic Stories and Vignettes
There are a number of academic stories and vignettes that occurred along the way that have proven amusing or insightful over the last 30 years. You may peruse them in subsequent sections and chapters.