>> Well, why don't we begin with your background.
And I know you grew up in Texas and you made
some nice comments when you set
up the scholarship in honor of your parents.
Why don't you talk a little bit
about your family growing up?
>> Sure. I'm very happy to.
So I did grow up in Central Texas.
My dad was a minister of Baptist Church.
The little town is called Temple, Texas,
about 35,000 residence there and grew up there
from the time that I was about
eight until I graduated from high school.
And so my dad was a real prominent figure in my life.
He was a minister,
as I mentioned, for his whole career, all of his life.
And I watched my dad a lot.
I saw my dad in a pulpit a lot and I watched my dad lead.
Little did I know at that time that
those things were really having an impact on me
because very often now when I'm speaking or
when I'm trying to make decisions,
I can really feel the presence or the legacy of my dad.
I grew up in again, small town, Texas.
My mom was a stay at home mom.
I was the youngest of four children.
So my closest sibling is seven years older than I am.
So I have a brother that's 12 years older,
a sister that's nine, and
then another sister that's seven years older.
So I'm the youngest child,
but I'm also somewhat of
an only child because they were raised together,
and then I was the last kid at home.
I had a very good upbringing,
very good family life.
My dad was a quiet guy,
but definitely a strong leader.
Obviously, his faith was a very big part of who he was.
My mom also quiet
but yet still a very powerful force in our family.
>> And for the record,
Ed and Nova Stewart?
>> Correct. My dad was
Ed Stewart and my mom, Nova Muir Stewart.
>> And why don't you talk a little
bit more about how your father influenced you?
What characteristics did he have
that you think have stuck with you?
>> So I think my dad was definitely a person
who was led by his values and he lived by his values.
And so that was very important to him.
He was somebody who always treated people
fairly and he wanted people to be treated fairly.
He was a tall man,
so he was a dominant figure,
but yet at the same time, he
was very gentle spirited and very kind.
And so through the years,
my dad's been gone about 23 years,
so he died in 1999,
but through the years, I've had a lot
of people who come to me and said,
do you know your dad had a big impact on my life
and a minister is there when the babies are born,
they're there for the baptism,
and they're there at the wedding and at funerals.
And so my dad played
a really dominant role in a lot of people's lives.
And so it's sometimes you
don't realize the impact
that somebody has until they're gone.
And I have always said that I feel
my dad's legacy on my life probably much
more now than even when he was alive.
If you had something going on in your life,
he wasn't going to be somebody
who shared a lot of words with you,
he wasn't going to overwhelm you with words,
but he was just going to say those few sentences
that would really be impactful.
So I'll tell you, there are
a lot of times that I will go to speak,
especially if I go to speak at a podium.
And remember, I watched my dad
preach from a pulpit for many years,
and I'll feel him in that moment.
And sometimes I'll even reach and hold
the podium like I remember my dad home.
And it's not intentional.
It's just there, but I'll feel that sense of him.
>> He as a preacher,
dynamic and porpita,
how would you describe him?
Scholarly. How would you describe him?
>> So he was very studious and took very seriously
preparing for a sermon and he would
prepare all week long
and he would spend a lot of time in his studies.
I used to have people ask me,
what's your dad do all week?
He preaches on Sunday,
what does he do the rest of the week?
And obviously, he would spend a lot
of time with church members,
but he also spent a lot of time studying,
and that was a big part of who he was.
He always hand wrote his sermons out.
And so I can still see these white sheets of
paper that had the scribble on them,
and in doing that,
he would essentially memorize or
write that sermon on his
heart so that he could deliver it.
So my dad, again, was a quiet guy.
Now he had a sense of humor and he'd be
very playful with you,
but when he preached,
he'd raise his voice,
he'd get a little excited.
And so sometimes people that didn't know
my dad outside of the pulpit would often think,
your dad is really pretty intense.
So it was always funny to see that duality of him.
>> You've said before, I think that
his parents wanted him to be a truck driver.
>> They did.
>> So did he come from a working
class background, farming background?
>> He came from a working class family.
So his dad was a locksmith and his mom was a stay at
home mom and he had two sisters,
one older and one younger,
raised in Fort Worth, Texas.
And so there was really no
going to school after high school.
And of course, he was coming of age, I guess,
in the late 40s, early 50s.
And the plan for him was to get a job,
but I think he really felt a calling on
his life and he was
engaged as a young man
very much in his church and had a minister,
the minister of that church
that really had a big impact on him.
And my dad felt
called to be a minister and called to preach.
Ultimately went to Abilene Christian College,
graduated from there, and then
ultimately went to seminary.
>> What seminary.
>> He went to Southwestern Baptist Seminary
which is in Fort Worth and graduated there.
I think it was a bachelor's from there as well as
a bachelor's from Abilene Christian.
And you know what? That's not accurate.
It was Harden Simmons, not Abilene Christian,
Harden Simmons University where he graduated from.
And my mom took some classes there.
She was studying English, did not graduate,
started having had my brother
when they were pretty young, about 21.
And then my sisters followed after that.
>> I've heard horror stories
about being a preacher's kid before.
What was your experience?
>> It's mixed feelings, I think.
I'm grateful for the faith tradition that I grew up in,
and I'm grateful for
the values that my parents instilled.
There is certainly a fish bowl aspect of
being a preacher's kid
that I think is a little bit difficult.
And at that time, so
growing up in the '70s, at that time,
there was a lot of scrutiny on ministers families
and especially on their kids and their wives
and so I always
felt like I had to behave or my daddy could lose his job.
So that was always a little bit of pressure in that way.
So I was a really pretty good kid,
didn't get into a lot of trouble,
wasn't super rebellious in any form whatsoever,
but as I reflect back on it,
I think a lot of times the focus was on our behavior,
maybe not so much our development
emotionally and socially and mentally,
but really on whether we were behaving
and if we weren't might cost daddy his job.
So that's probably not
the way I would want to raise my child,
I'd rather it be more about
those core values and why
they matter and why they're important,
not so much just to focus on the behavior.
So but I'm grateful for especially as I get older,
and I think more and more about
just the values that were instilled.
I'm very grateful for that.
>> How long did he stay as pastor in Temple?
>> So he started in 1970 and he retired in 1990.
So my dad was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis probably at
about I guess he was about age 57,
58 in that time frame.
And his form of MS was very debilitating.
So it was painful on his limbs and
then ultimately was really
impacting his mobility and ability to get around.
Before that, my dad had been extremely active.
He was always working
in the yard, always building something.
So he I think was
his second love beyond
being a minister was building things with his hands.
And so he built a lot of furniture.
We have a lot of that furniture in our home today,
had a lathe in his garage and he would go
out and had a friend who had a cabinet shop.
So he really learned how to use
those tools to build things,
but that became harder and
harder to do as the MS took over,
and so he continued to do the best as best he could,
always had a spirit of joy,
but retired probably about '60,
'61, a little bit earlier and then
we lost him about a decade later.
I think just the strain on his body.
So his type of MS was
chronic progressive is what they
call it and it gets worse and worse,
but always had a good spirit.
>> Well, I think I know you said
before that your mother was a Sunday school teacher.
>> She was yeah.
[LAUGHTER] Yes.
My mom was very much of an introvert,
very quiet but always taught.
Usually taught fifth grade
Sunday school for years and years.
Very sweet spirited, but again, very quiet timid.
Still had a fun sense of humor,
and so those of us in the family would get to see
that a little bit more, but very gracious.
Certainly, the pastor's wife that stood by
her husband and really supported him and all that he did.
Very sweet spirit. We lost her
about eight years ago, 2014.
>> Well, growing up in a Baptist family in Texas,
I guess nobody was pushing you towards the ministry,
but how did you grow interested in accounting?
This is my next question.
And then, of course, information systems,
but accounting first, I guess.
>> Yeah. So I went off as a freshman at Baylor
and really did not have a clue as to what I wanted to do.
And at that particular time,
one of the best degrees that you could get would be
an accounting degree and an IS degree together.
That's at the time, if you think about in the 80s,
information systems and computer technology was
being used a lot more not only in business,
but in home life as well.
And accounting was just and I think still is
just a good career path to go.
Even if you don't do a lot in accounting,
just understanding accounting and
understanding financial statements can
be really helpful in business,
but I'll tell you, there was no scientific way
that I became an accounting major.
I was really a little clueless as to
what I was going to study, probably my sophomore year.
I was talking to my mom. Mom said, why not business.
I said, sure, let's do business.
And then I had a good friend
of mine who was studying accounting.
And so she and I ultimately
became roommates and are still great friends to this day.
I just did what she was doing, so to speak.
I didn't do it as well as she did,
though. That's the problem.
And really struggled,
probably wasn't the major I should have pursued however,
it's had a lot of benefits throughout the years.
I will tell you it's been a degree that
has helped me in numerous ways throughout the years.
My time at Baylor, I was I was lost,
not really sure, didn't
have a lot of direction at that time.
Again, my dad had some higher education,
my mom did not,
but certainly I was on my own in terms of
navigating the degree path forward.
>> Let's see, you graduated in '84, I believe.
>> I did.
>> And I was trying to think,
how big was Baylor at that time?
>> That's a great question.
I may not get this exactly right,
but I want to say it was around 10,000 or 11,000.
And so now they're around 15, I think.
And so they've controlled
their growth or their intent is to be around that size.
I think they've certainly grown,
but they're they've not grown exponentially.
>> Was it very selective?
>> Probably not as selective as it is now.
I'm sure I could get in there now,
but my sisters had both gone to Baylor before me,
and so I just never thought about going anywhere else,
and I applied and always
assumed I would get in and I did get
in and love the time there.
The thing that when I think about my time at
Baylor and I think about being in
this role now as president at Kennesaw,
as I mentioned earlier, I struggled
as an undergrad a whole lot.
I struggled just with having
the confidence I needed to have to having
emotional maturity to know how to
navigate life at that stage.
And then being in
a major that probably wasn't the best fit for me.
So I think about that now and I think
about what can we do to help support our students.
And a lot of our students are first generation students,
and so how can we help them make
these decisions that are so important for their lives?
And I will tell you,
I love my time at
Baylor and I reflect back on that time and
just such a tremendous growth, but again,
it was a time of struggling
and I flunked out of a couple of classes,
almost didn't graduate, had to
retake a lot of my classes.
>> That's hard to believe.
>> It's just absolutely true.
A few years ago, I did
a graduation speech not long after I became dean,
and that was the focus of that.
So in that sense,
I'm certainly in that time frame in my life,
I would have never thought I would
be in a position like this,
but I think it gives me some empathy,
especially when I remember just the struggles and I have.
>> What do you think the right major
for you would have been?
>> Wow, that's a great question.
That's a wonderful question.
I probably like so many I
think students at the undergrad
level, they like psychology.
We have a huge psychology department
here and I'm reflecting back now on what I know now,
I think psychology coupled with management,
you get into the organizational behavior area,
I think that would have been really fun,
but I'm reflecting back. [LAUGHTER]
>> When I think of Baylor I think of
the great womens basketball team.
>> When I was at Baylor, athletics, it was not positive.
That was part of a strategic plan
that came out, I want to say,
in the '90s that
really transformed that campus to what it is today,
both from a research perspective,
an athletic perspective, a foundations perspective.
When I was at Baylor, Baylor struggled athletically.
With football, I think we won
a championship one of the years that I was there,
but really struggled athletically,
but they turned that around and made really excellence of
priority across all dimensions and I had
a strategic plan that just
incrementally over the years they executed.
>> Did you engage in any extra
curricular activity at your time at Baylor?
>> I was in a fraternity that was
a co Ed fraternity called Alpha Phi Omega,
and Alpha Phi Omega it's a service organization.
I was actually part of
the founding group of
students that started that chapter at Baylor.
It's still there today. Love that time.
Love the people that I got to meet there.
I got to be the vice president of
service during my tenure.
An organization that did provide
some social opportunities,
but the real focus was
on the different service projects we.
>> So did you go direct to
the masters program after you graduated?
>> Well, if you remember,
I wasn't a very good student.
>> I wonder.
>> I wasn't a very good student.
In fact, but I was also real stubborn.
So I had this accounting IS
degree ultimately graduated just a summer school late,
but I was stubborn and
I told you that accounting IS
was one of the best degrees that you could get.
Well, another great degree that you
could get would be a master's of tax.
I decided, well, I'm going to get a master's
of tax. That'll be a good thing to do.
The problem was whenever I was applying for that degree,
and I'll never forget this conversation.
It was a real pivotal conversation
to me because sometimes
when you're lost and you don't have
the confidence that you should have,
you just stay in a path and you need
somebody to counsel you out of that path.
And so I was on the phone with
an admissions counselor for this master's in tax program,
and she was looking at my grades.
She had them right before me, and she said,
"I'm not real sure that you
need to continue in the accounting path
given where you've been," and I needed to hear that.
I needed to hear that another path
that I was trying to go down was what?
Not what I needed to do.
And she said said,
you don't need to pursue tax.
She said, you might want to think about an MBA,
which would be a more general degree,
but you've got to get your grades up in
order to be admitted.
And so I graduated in '84,
and I spent that whole next year
just taking classes to get
my grades up so I could get admitted.
So I was a postbaculiate student.
I think I took about 24 hours and had to make all A's,
which was a big task because I
hadn't made any A's in my undergraduate.
>> Oh my goodness. I feel for how you feel.
>> No, it's very true.
And you know it's why I say I
understand an academic struggle,
and a lot of that again,
was about confidence, was about finding myself.
But that was a real pivotal time in my life,
because I had to pay for
my poor performance as an undergrad and I spent a year.
And I remember calling my dad says this is something.
So the woman on the phone saying,
you don't need to do that.
You can think about this,
but even to do this,
you're going to have to really
pay some penance to do that.
I called my dad, Baylor wasn't cheap.
It's not cheap now. It wasn't inexpensive then.
And I called my dad and I was crying,
and I said, I'm not going to
make it into the master's program.
I said, in order for me to
get into the bachelor's program,
I've got to take 24 hours of
course work and make all A's in it.
And I just remember my dad saying,
it was a very pivotal moment in my life,
and he said, well, Cat,
if that's what we got to do,
that's what we got to do.
And so it was a moment where my dad,
he didn't say, well, that's what you have to do.
That's what you have to do.
He said, that's what we got to do.
And so he could
have been mad at me for all those bad grades.
He could have lectured me,
but instead he came alongside me.
And I remember I think that
was a moment where I picked my chin
up and I thought if he can believe in me at that level,
then I'll believe in myself.
So I did that. I got a job.
I think at that time, I had a job on campus and
I did that year and
then I was admitted into the MBA program.
And ever since then, I'm not struggled academically.
But I will tell you, those bad accounting grades
will sneak up on me every now and then still.
>> So you got an MBA in information systems.
So how did you get to information systems?
Is that what your counselor recommended?
>> So I had accounting,
and I coupled it with a minor in IS,
and I always liked the IS.
While I struggled in accounting, I always liked IS.
And it's a very different time in
information systems than what it is today.
And again, during that period of time,
businesses were really embracing personal computing
and different applications that
they weren't using before.
>> Use of computers were just coming in.
>> Correct. 1981 for the IBM PC.
So all that was just happening.
I was good at it.
It was it was something that I felt confidence in.
I like the IS part,
which was taking the business and the development angle
and applying it to some problem and some solution.
And that was more intuitive to me and
something that I embraced and I did a good job at,
and it came easier to me.
And so it's a general MBA with
a concentration and information systems.
I was a graduate student at that time,
worked with some faculty
and had a graduate assistantship.
Eventually, I did get another job.
And while I was getting my MBA,
I worked at an oil company in Waco,
and actually did accounting for them,
so worked in their accounting and
their systems area for a period of time,
small independent producer who
had his had oil fields out in West Texas,
so worked for him for a number of years.
>> Were you good at math?
>> I was always okay at math.
And I got better at it as I went into
my doctoral program and did
more statistics and analytical,
but it wasn't not naturally.
I've always been okay, good enough at it.
>> I was thinking with accounting,
you were dealing with figures all the time.
>> Yeah.
>> So you got a master's in '86,
and then you were a lecturer there for a while,
weren't you? How did that happen?
>> So nobody more surprised than me,
the kid that almost flunked out.
And had a good friend of mine
who I actually met her at church,
but she was a faculty member, ironically,
an accounting faculty member at Baylor.
And as I was getting my masters, she loved teaching.
She just finished her PhD
and came to Baylor as
an assistant professor and she loved teaching,
loved the academic life.
And she said to me one day, she said, "Do you know,
have you ever thought about being a professor?"
And I laughed and I said,
"No," because I was still carrying around
the negativity from being an undergrad.
And I said, absolutely not.
She said, you should think about it.
She said, go to the chair of
the IS department and tell him that you would like to
teach a class for him if he ever has any vacancies.
And so I did as I was told,
and I went and talked to
a man by the name of Regine Ramseier.
>> Ramseier.
>> Regine Ramseier. He was the department chair
in IS at that time, and he said, okay.
And then a few weeks later,
he had somebody leave and he said,
not only do I have one class for you, I have four.
So will you come teach for me in the fall?
So I became a lecturer there.
So it was really, again,
somebody just saying something to me
that put me on a path,
because they saw something in me that I didn't see,
and I was very grateful for that.
>> You never thought about being an education major?
>> Never.
>> Never. So this is brand new, out of the blue.
>> And it was because she was speaking
out of something that she loved.
So she loved, and to this day,
she still teaches accounting at Baylor
and absolutely loves the classroom.
I think probably more now than
she did, even at that time.
>> What was her name?
>> Her name is Jane Baldwin.
So Prof. Baldwin and she again,
teaches accounting at Baylor.
So she loved it.
She she thought I'd be good at it,
spoke it into me.
And so I taught there for a couple of years
and if you're going to be in this field,
it's a good idea to get the doctorate.
So I began always thinking about
how at what point I would leave.
So I decided I'd stay and do that for three years.
I'd completed my masters.
I was no longer working at the oil company,
and I'd stay at Baylor for three years.
So I was a lecturer, taught
information systems introduction.
I actually taught some statistics during that time,
taught some application courses,
and then knew that by 1990,
I was going to go off and get my PhD.
>> Did your missed to have enjoyed teaching?
>> I love teaching.
And one of the things that is a theme for me is that,
I'm actually very afraid to speak.
So public speaking terrifies me.
And so teaching has
been a way of learning how to do that.
And so very nervous.
I still remember the first class I ever taught,
standing behind the podium,
my knees are knocking together. I'm nervous.
And I'll still get nervous to this day.
Of course, after a number of years,
you learn how to deal with that and how to address that.
But love the classroom,
loved interacting with the students.
At that time, I was 25 and they're 19,
so I'm not that much older than they are,
but just loved the interaction
with them and the ability to see lights come on.
I also was a staff member at Baylor,
and ran their computer labs for a number of years.
And so I interacted with students.
That was actually before I became a faculty member.
So I interacted with students in that capacity as well.
>> I used to wonder when I was in graduate school,
why they were preparing us so
much in terms of
knowledge base and not teaching us how to teach.
>> Right. And that was really the case through.
I mean, I was never taught how to teach.
It was something more.
>> So how did you do?
Just by trial and error?
>> Well, the good thing is you have colleagues.
So colleagues can help you.
So how do you put a syllabus
together, and they help you with that.
How do you teach certain type of
material, and they help you with that?
So Baylor, they had
a new teacher orientation
that was something that I went through,
that was pretty pivotal for me,
and I still remember, I'll tell you-all,
I remember there was a master teacher at Baylor.
Her name was Ann Miller. She taught English. Ann Miller.
>> Miller.
>> And she is no longer alive today,
but she was a master teacher, legendary at Baylor.
And remember I said I was scared to teach.
I'm scared to teach.
And Ann Miller taught this orientation to new teachers.
And I remember her sitting on the edge of the desk,
it's vivid in my mind to this day,
and she's just talking from her experience.
And Ann Miller, a master teacher, beautiful,
eloquent teacher, said, every first class,
I feel exactly the same.
And the way she described it,
she said, I'm always afraid.
She said, raw fear grips my breast.
Only an English teacher could say it that eloquently.
But I thought if Ann Miller feels that way,
and she can do it, then I can do it too.
So there's that mentoring
that comes alongside you that makes all the difference.
>> Nice thing about teaching is you had
multiple chances to start over.
So why in South Carolina?
How did you get to the PhD program there?
>> So I knew I wanted to go somewhere where it was warm,
didn't want to go cold,
so to go anywhere that it was cold.
So I requested information at that time.
You didn't go online and look at
a school on a website because there wasn't such a thing.
But what I did was request brochures
and information from a lot of
different schools throughout the country,
especially if it was in warmer climate.
I lived in Texas most of my life.
I also wanted to go somewhere different,
and I knew this was a moment in time.
I was in my late 20s that I really wanted to do that,
and always planned to go back to Baylor,
always planned to go back to Texas.
And so I had a bunch of brochures,
and I would go through those brochures and look at them.
And I remember, I'd talk to friends about them,
so lots of academic colleagues that were at Baylor,
and I would sit and talk with them
and they'd make recommendations,
especially in the IS field,
they'd talk about people that they knew.
But ultimately, I took
the brochures to a local restaurant one night,
got a cup of coffee,
and I got a piece of pie
and I started going through them.
And I narrowed it down I think to five or six.
And when I got to the South Carolina one,
I don't know what it was,
but I said, that's it.
That's the one I'm going to go to.
I had a good friend of mine that was
in North Carolina at the time,
so I knew somebody in the area.
I got accepted to several different programs,
but really felt it was really
between South Carolina and University of Arkansas,
and just felt like I wanted to move to Colombia.
Never been to South Carolina and never been to Colombia.
Colombia was the big city for me compared to Temple,
and which is funny now when I think about it,
but that was really how I
got there and ended up being a very small group of us.
There were just about three of us that
were in the eye that started together that year.
>> So you got your doctorate in '96.
You started there in '90?
>> Correct. So I crammed
that four-year program into about five-a-and-a-half.
>> I think that's probably a powerful course.
>> I stayed there for five years,
so I went '90 and left in '95.
>> Well, the title of your dissertation is a mouthful,
The Investigation of Individual Attitude Toward
an Information Technology-enabled Information Practice.
>> Well, that is a mouthful.
>> And then you've got a colon,
A Prescription for Corporate Information Policy.
To me, the last part is clearer than the first part.
>> Sure. That is a mouthful.
>> But I did look at your dissertation last night.
And why don't you just talk about it a little bit,
and maybe mentors Varun Grover, for instance.
>> Who was he?
>> Varun Grover, and
Dr. Grover was at
South Carolina for a number of years and went to Clemson.
I believe he's at University of Arkansas right now.
And just really an incredible mentor,
an incredible example of
what it means to be a great academic,
especially in the research space,
very accomplished scholar and also just a good person.
At that time, very young in his career at that time.
And obviously, I was young.
He had just been at South Carolina for a few years,
but very accomplished,
and started out being
a great researcher and publisher very early on.
He primarily impacted me by example by just watching him
and classic dissertation leadership
where you present something,
he looks at it, gives you feedback,
you go back and you do it again,
and over and over and over again.
The topic that I actually did,
so one thing I don't advise people to
do a dissertation like I did mine,
so I was not very holistic in my doctoral career.
I did things very incrementally.
So I would take the classwork,
I did the comprehensive exams,
and then I got to the dissertation.
Would be a lot better to think about
that dissertation early on.
But when I was studying for my comprehensive exams,
a new edition of
our lead journal came out and it had an article in there
by a woman by the name of Mary Cullman,
and the article was called How Did They Get My Name.
And at that time,
if you went to your mailbox,
you get some marketing material.
So you remember we're talking about 1992, '93,
and you get marketing material, and you would go,
how did this company get my name?
We don't think a thing about it now because we know
our information is shared all the time.
But at that time, there was this notion about do we
have any privacy and especially information privacy.
So if I go to a car dealer and I give them
information about me in order to secure that loan,
what are they doing with that information?
Are they using it just for
the primary purpose of giving me
a loan for that car or are they
selling it for secondary purposes?
And how do I feel about it?
So that was really the focus of what my dissertation was.
And the thing was, Mary Cullman was
very much of a pioneer
in looking at privacy as
an ethical issue in IT and in the IS field.
And so I wanted to
do my work in the area of information privacy.
So now when we think about privacy, it's everywhere.
There's discussions about privacy.
There's all laws and regulations about privacy,
whether it's in the healthcare arena or
in the banking arena or wherever.
Not the case back then,
because the uses of the technology
were preceding our discussions
about whether we like those uses or not.
And so I decided to pursue this idea of privacy,
but I really had to convince
my committee that it was a strategic topic.
They didn't think it was.
They were like, oh, 1992,
so remember the technology, the Internet.
1992 was when Congress
said that we could use
the Internet for commercial purposes.
So remember, prior to that time,
we weren't on the Internet.
>> The World Wide Web is coming right about that time.
>> Yes, sir, right about that time.
>> And so they are old school then?
>> Well, they were trying to make me say,
why is this strategic for
a company to care about privacy?
So we know today
companies talk about privacy all the time and
I'll see commercials and you've got
companies that their job
as a third party vendor is to help
a company protect the privacy of information.
In Higher Ed, we have FRPA it's very
important that we're protecting
the privacy of our students.
But we weren't having those conversations
back then like we do now.
And so I chuckle every
time I see there'll be a new mandate.
Even in the USG,
we'll have a new mandate for protection of
employee privacy or of consumer privacy.
And it's not physical privacy,
although that's always important,
but it's information privacy.
So my study looked at how
consumers think about information privacy
and are they concerned about it?
And so I developed a model that examined that. Yeah.
>> I remember probably about that time that there
was a big concern on this campus
the administration wanted to know what we were doing with
our phones maybe even before emails,
how much we were using it for personal purposes
as opposed to private purposes.
>> Private purposes.
>> And they raise a real question in
some people's mind about how private our calls were.
>> Sure. Well,
those are issues that certainly have evolved over time,
we all have our laptops and we have
our phones and different uses of them.
>> So you're really cutting edge, I guess.
>> [LAUGHTER] Well, there certainly were
academic scholars in the IS field that were looking at
ethical issues of the information age
and privacy was one of them.
It just really began to take off and it makes
sense that it took off at
that time because as you mentioned,
the World Wide Web was coming into
and the fundamental issue at that time was,
was our information secure and to
what extent it was it being shared.
We now know it's shared
a great deal and credit card companies,
corporations are going to do everything they
can to protect your information.
Sometimes that fails, but they're very
motivated to protect it because
that is going to encourage you to buy.
>> Now, you sent out surveys to consumers,
you say that in your dissertation.
What does that mean?
>> So I used what was called
a modified mall intercept program.
So I would actually have
incentives that I would offer to individuals,
but I would set up in
places like a mall so that people would
come by and they could register,
had to give up some of their privacy to do my survey,
but they were willing to do so
and so that's how I gathered my data.
>> So you had 400 people that agreed to do it.
>> Yeah, you had to do that and stratified samples.
>> So what are some of the conclusions that you reached?
>> So the model looked at what
predicted concerns that people would have.
And my goodness, I haven't looked at this in a long time.
But there was an instrument that
another scholar had created that measured concern
for information privacy and see if I can get them.
It had dimensions such as collection.
Are you concerned about people
collecting information about you?
Had concerns about access,
who has access to the information that you have?
And also secondary use,
are they taking that information and
using it for another purpose?
And there's another one that I'm not
going to be able to pull out.
And so we were using that tool or I used
that tool to predict whether people
had concerns about a given practice.
So overall,
you would certainly see that people had concerns,
but then it was very dependent upon what
that particular practice was.
>> So you finished in 96
and then you go straight to Georgia State?
>> Yeah.
>> How did that come about?
>> Love my time at Georgia State.
Really when I was graduating from South Carolina,
I had to make a decision as to whether I'd
go back to home,
back to Texas and back to Baylor
or if I wanted to stay out in the Southeast.
And I really had grown to love
the Southeast during that time,
and so chose to stay here
and I still thought that at some point
I would migrate back to
Texas but ended up not being that.
Love my time at Georgia State.
Georgia State, at that point in time
was really coming into its own as a research institution.
And the department that I went into,
the information systems department had hired
some of the best researchers in
the IS field in the nation.
And so I got to work with those individuals.
As a freshly minted, naive PhD,
I was able to work
with people like Detmer Straub and Dan Robe,
Ef McLain, really fathers in the IS field and those
that really had created the field,
but also the groundwork
and the foundation of research in that field.
So it was just a wonderful time
for me to get to work with
those individuals to learn what it is to be
at a research institution and what that means.
And so I cherish
those times and the relationships that I made there.
Still have a really good friend
of mine who's still there.
Her name is Vita Sdorey,
and Vita is renowned in the area
of database and data science.
>> Vita what?
>> Sdorey, last name, S-D-O-R-E-Y.
She's renowned in the area of database.
So it's fun now because she knew me as a young,
freshly minted PhD and I'm
still watching her career and
seeing all the great things that she's doing.
So we got together
just a few weeks ago and
got to play catch up a little bit.
>> You actually joined the faculty there in 1995
before you got your doctorate
right after you had done all your work?
>> I did, yeah.
So I started there in 1995,
and I had not finished
my dissertation at that time and then ultimately
finished in probably about a year later
and then I graduated
in 2006, I mean, 1996.
I'm sorry. It's a long time ago, 1996.
So I did leave
South Carolina having not finished my doctorate.
So that's a hard way to start a new job.
>> If you came in as an assistant professor as an ABD.
>> I did, I came in as ABD.
>> But you were almost through.
>> Yeah.
>> I guess you'd done all the research and all the work.
>> I had, but you know what they always say if you leave,
it's going to take you much longer than it would.
So I guess I started in fall 1995 and had
it finished in time to graduate in 1996.
But, man, it's hard work starting a new job,
moving to a new city and finishing up that dissertation.
>> I'm sure.
>> Yeah.
>> Right before we reached South Carolina,
I was noticing that there's
at least one woman on your committee, Kathleen Whitcomb.
And the Dean was female, Carol Garrison?
>> I did not know the Dean at that time.
>> You didn't?
>> No, I didn't.
>> The Dean of the Graduate School I guess.
>> That would've been at the university level,
I think, the dean of the graduate.
>> Right, Dean of the Graduate School.
Is it predominantly male faculty?
>> Very much so. And of
the PhD students that came in that year,
I was the only female in this department.
So there were three of us that were IS.
The other two were male,
and then the other two gentlemen that came in,
they were in operations research.
So very, very male dominated.
I think in that particular department,
Kathleen may have been
the only female in that department at that time.
I cannot think. Maybe there was one other
probably out of 18, 19.
>> What about at Georgia State when you got there?
>> Very much the same.
The IS field is not a field to
this day where there are a lot of
females where there are a lot of women.
I think again, probably a faculty of 20 or
25 at Georgia State and there were three,
maybe four of us that were female.
You'll see that it's maybe a little better now than it
was then in terms of more women in the field?
>> But not much?
>> Not much, yeah.
So it's IS is technically
a STEM field and we struggle with getting
enough women into the STEM area, so yeah.
>> Well, so you were at Georgia State
for seven years, 1995-2002?
>> I was, yeah.
>> And what were you associate professor by that time?
>> No, I was an assistant professor when I left.
So Georgia State was very much of a research institution.
And when I was there,
I love what I learned there,
but I didn't always feel like I fit there.
And the way I've described it
is I would say it was somewhat
of a fish swimming upstream.
But not only that, I was in the wrong stream.
So I began to look for a place
that would just be a better fit for me.
And at that time, I started thinking
about going back to Texas,
going back to Waco.
But I had this opportunity at Kennesaw
and Kennesaw had a position.
Ironically, it was in the accounting department.
So remember how I said that accounting
would come out and help me every now and then.
So it was in the accounting department here at KSU,
and accounting in the business school at
that time IS was in that department.
And so they had just a few faculty that were
teaching in the accounting department
that would teach some basic IS courses.
I think there were three or four of us.
And so I applied for that position.
That's how I got here to Kennesaw.
And that position was, really designed.
They wanted somebody who
knew something about accounting so that
they could develop some
accounting information systems courses.
So that old accounting degree
that I had was coming in handy.
So that was really what got me in the door here at KSU.
>> Who was the department chair?
>> John McCallister was
the department chair at that time.
Yeah. Good guy.
>> So 2002, you come to Kennesaw because it's a
better fit and let's see, 2002, Tim Mescon?
>> Yes. You sure was, yeah.
>> Yeah. And before I forget it altogether,
I forgot to ask you a question when we were still
back at Baylor when you were teaching there.
You got an award as
an Outstanding Teacher Award at Baylor,
I believe that fraternity Alpha Cap.
>> Right.
>> Talk about that a little bit.
>> Well, I was extremely honored by that and
oftentimes you will have students in your classes
that are also in these business fraternities.
Alpha Kappa Psi is
a business fraternity and
they'll nominate you if they feel like
you've had an impact on them and
so was greatly honored by that
and grateful that students connected with the teaching.
>> So we've got you to Kennesaw now,
and I know we're going to have to wind up pretty
soon because it's five after 10. I don't have to go all.
>> We can go to 25 after.
>> We can go to 25 after?
>> Yeah. I do have a 10:30.
>> Well, fabulous. Then let me just ask you,
it wasn't long before you got into administration,
how did that happen?
>> Sure. So please know,
I never intended to get into administration.
So I came to Kennesaw to teach,
to be a researcher, to do service.
That was really why I came here.
And so I developed
a lot of different classes while I was here.
I think I developed nine different classes
just during the first few years.
So a lot of undergrad classes,
but also several master's class
at the MBA level and taught in the MAC program,
the Master's of Accounting Program.
So I was doing an IS audit and control class,
which was a lot of fun, did that at the undergrad level.
So I was doing a lot of teaching,
a lot of course development.
And I was one of three or
four IS faculty in the bigger accounting department.
The accounting department at that time,
probably had 25, 26 people in it.
So John McCallister,
who was the chair, took a deanship in Jacksonville,
Florida at the University of North Florida
and he and I were
actually going into a meeting to meet with
the Dean about an IS topic.
So I still remember him putting his hand on the door,
going into the Dean's suite and he said,
"Hey, I'm going to get that Dean's job."
And he said, "Do you know who they think
should be the interim chair?"
And I had no concept at all of it being me.
And he said he said, "You."
And I said, "That seems highly unlikely."
So I was a little floored like step back because I had
no aspirations and just didn't see
myself in that type of role at all.
Another faculty member, Dana Hermanson
said something similar to me.
And so I think
I had taught by that point for
a number of years and had enjoyed it,
but I certainly was looking for other opportunities.
I wasn't really thinking administrative.
I was really thinking more, what could I do to elevate
my research and take that up a few notches.
And so Tim Mescon,
I'm sure Tim probably wouldn't
have known me from Adam, and if he did,
he would have thought that I
think a couple of faculty had said
you should have her be the interim.
And I think he would have thought that quiet one,
the one that never says anything.
And so he gave me a chance
and so I served as Interim Chair.
I think it was in 2005.
That was the year that they recruited
Ken Harmon to come into that role
and I enjoyed it.
I just found out that I
liked being in meetings, which is weird.
I liked figuring out how to solve problems.
I was also as green as you could be and didn't
understand a lot of the processes
and the way that things needed to be done.
So I was on a really, really steep learning curve.
But Dr. Mescon and I worked well together.
I think he liked that I wanted to
get in and make things better and solve some problems.
So we hired Ken Harmon in during
that year and I went back to faculty for a few months,
I think for a semester,
and then Tim Mescon asked me to be an associate dean.
So I went up into the dean's office.
So I was able to get
this opportunity to see how department worked,
which is so important,
I think in an administrative career.
And then I also now,
as an associate dean,
I was really responsible
for the operations of the college,
both the academic affairs side.
But he was really he's number two and so very quickly,
I began learning from him what he was doing.
He would give me different projects.
So it was a great learning opportunity
with a big learning curve.
>> Just talk about what Kennesaw was like in
your perspective when you came here in 2002,
not so much scholarship or research.
We weren't R1.
>> Right.
>> So what was your impression of Kennesaw?
You said it was a better fit for you.
>> So there was obviously a big focus on the classroom.
And especially the people
that I interacted with in the business school,
certainly the folks in accounting,
they had a real passion for the classroom.
That accounting department was very focused
on students being prepared for the marketplace,
being prepared in an exceptional way.
And that was both
as professionals in
the accounting in the accounting firm,
but also technically prepared that they could do it.
And so you could really feel that, you could sense that.
The big difference that I felt.
So remember that I'm coming from
a department that is purely an IS department.
And so everything is about IS.
And now I'm in a department that's
predominantly an accounting department with some IS.
And so that was a big difference.
I had to change gears,
and that took me a little while to adjust to that.
But I certainly felt the passion
of the faculty and the staff towards the classroom.
That would have been the biggest thing that
I felt at that time.
>> I was amazed, just looking back,
you had business law in that department too.
>> It's still there.
>> Is it still there?
>> Accounting and Business Law. IS is no longer there,
but Accounting and Business Law are there.
>> They're still together?
>> Absolutely. And that's not unusual.
So the CPA exam has a Business Law component to it,
so it's not unusual to see that.
>> Well, we've had some fabulous
Accounting professors over the years
>> We sure have. We still do.
>> I've interviewed Dana Hermanson a couple of times
and Divesh Sharma.
>> Yes.
>> Some good people over there.
>> We do.
>> I think back when I first got here, there was a woman.
Her name was Paula Morris. You may know Paula.
>> Yeah, sure.
>> So when I think about the heart and
soul of that department at
that particular time, Jane Campbell,
who was here at the time as well, again,
these are individuals that love
the classroom, love the students.
Linda Malgeri is another one,
and wanted to prepare them for the profession.
Accounting is a profession,
and they wanted to prepare them for that profession.
>> Did you come in as an Associate Professor?
>> I did.
>> So you got a promotion to Accountant?
>> I did.
>> I absolutely did.
>> So I came in as an associate at that time.
>> So you become an associate then.
And what year would that have been, 2006 or?
>> I think it was around,
let's see, 2006.
>> I should probably have that date somewhere.
>> Let me think, probably 2007,
maybe January of 2007, I think.
>> Because it's August of 2008 when Tim
left to President of Columbus State.
>> So I think in January of 2007,
I became his Associate Dean.
I worked with him for about a year and a half
before he left. And you are correct.
So he left here to be President of Columbus State.
One of the things that he wanted to do before he
left was to build a doctoral program.
He didn't build it, but he got
the doctoral program approved at
the Board of Regents in spring of 2008.
And I think that was just something
he wanted to do before he concluded his deanship.
He was dean here for 18,
19 years, so for a long time.
And he told me that. He said this was my goal.
So he assumed that presidency,
and I was able to step in that year as
interim and really began
the task of implementing that doctoral program,
which was something that I worked on from '08,
'09 on up until 2019 when I left the deanship.
The doctoral program is just an interesting program,
sometimes an interesting beast to navigate,
and how do you staff it, and how do you bring it back?
So it was a wonderful journey.
So I became Interim Dean.
I didn't feel prepared
to be an Interim Department Chair,
certainly didn't feel prepared to be an Interim Dean.
But you just kind of dig in.
I will always say I may not be
the smartest person in the room,
but nobody's going to outwork me.
I've got a lot of elbow grease,
so I'm going to get in there and work
hard and figure it out.
Made a lot of mistakes.
We always make mistakes.
But I think when you're a green administrator,
you step on it a few times.
But I do try to learn from those mistakes.
So great time, great year '08,
and really liked being the Dean.
It was a lot of fun to be Dean.
Now, you're going to see a pattern here.
So we hired Ken Harmon to be our Dean in '09.
>> He keeps replacing you, doesn't he?
>> So I'm preparing the way for Ken Harmon.
That's how I feel all the time.
>> That's a good way to put it.
>> So Ken at that point became our Dean
and really did a fabulous job,
and he was with us for only a year,
if you think back to that time,
because he was then tapped very
quickly by Dan Papp to come up
and be Provost in fall 2010 as Interim Provost,
and then of course, he ends up staying in that role.
So I go back to the Dean's job at
that point and end up being interim for
about three more years.
>> I guess my biggest surprise from
interviewing Ken Harmon was trying to imagine
him with long hair and playing a guitar and doing
all the rhythm and blues or
whatever he was performing with his band.
>> He loves music, still does.
Betty Siegel was President when you came.
>> Yes.
>> Talk about your relationship with her.
Did you get to know her at all?
>> I did get to have a few conversations with Betty.
And Betty was always good about
stopping and talking to somebody
and distilling, asking questions.
She was always somebody who would ask questions.
And so it was during the time,
I believe, that it was a Department Chair.
I was Interim Department Chair.
I think I ran into her at one of
the progressive dinners that we would
have for new faculty at that time.
And she just asked me about what I
was doing and what I thought about the role,
and what I was going to accomplish that year.
And then I had a few other opportunities
through the years to meet with her,
especially when I was Dean.
She and I were
honored by the Morse Brown Foundation
on the same evening.
So I got to sit at a table with her and Joel,
and that was real memorable for
me to get to visit with her.
So I think what I think about Betty
most is her energy and just how energetic she was,
and how that energy filled a room,
and how she really led from that space.
She did a lot of mentoring of women,
moving them into administrative positions,
I know, throughout her 25 years here.
But you came in right at the end of that, I guess.
>> I did. I think
certainly I was a faculty member during that time,
and I believe I
believe Dan and Ken started at the same time.
So I think that's Fall 2006.
And so Ken came at that time,
and then Dan as well.
And I'm grateful for that that I have some time where
I was here under Betty's leadership,
which was real special.
>> Well, I guess you got to know her damn
pretty well as Interim Dean
>> I did. At that time,
Lynn Black was here.
So Lynn was the one who initially put me into that role.
And I stayed in contact with Lynn, not regularly,
but through the years, he and I
will exchange emails every now and then.
He and I actually came to Kennesaw.
He came in Fall 2002.
So he and I were in new faculty orientation together.
We sat at the same table.
And then, ultimately,
he was the one that asked me to serve as
Interim Dean during that time.
And then I did get to know
Dan through the years that I was a Dean.
A lot of times, those
are interactions that you have in events,
and you get to have some conversations with them.
In some cases, there might
be projects that you're working on.
And as Business Dean,
there might be a project that he's interested
in that involves the college.
>> Well, let me ask you one last question
before we break for today,
and might be a good way.
And we'll talk about
your administrative experiences the
next time we get together.
You got a Master's degree in
Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University.
How did that come about?
I don't have dates on that,
I don't think. When did that happen?
>> So I actually graduated in 2018, so that was late.
>> 2018?
>> Correct. So I became Dean in Coles.
I was Interim Dean, but I became
Dean in about April of 2012.
And during that next year,
I'm hanging out with the Dean
from the College of the Arts,
Patty Poulter, and the Dean from
Humanities and Social Sciences, Robin Dorff.
And when I say hanging out,
we're interacting a lot in Dean's meetings.
We would go to some conferences together that would
have some common themes.
And I just over time realized
that even though I had three degrees in business,
I had an MBA, a BBA,
and a PhD in business,
that there was just something that,
from an education point of view,
I felt was lacking.
And so I thought I'm going to go and get a master's.
And at first, I thought I would do something in the arts,
but then I realized you've got
to be artistic, and I'm not.
And so I just started looking at different programs.
And I saw this program.
There's a program at Rutgers I was interested in.
There was also this program at Johns Hopkins.
And so I applied to it
and was accepted into that program.
By the way, they wanted to know why my grades
were so bad as an undergrad in Accounting. [LAUGHTER].
>> Well, you
had a PhD, that ought to account for something.
>> I did, but they still wanted me to know.
[LAUGHTER] But they still wanted to know about
those poor grades in Accounting at Baylor.
And so what I loved
about this degree, so part of it was, again,
I sometimes felt uneducated
because I had all these degrees in business,
but there was something missing.
And I also had never
taken classes just for the joy of it.
I was always pursuing a degree.
And so even though I would
be pursuing this Master's of Liberal Arts,
I was really doing it for me.
I was doing it because I wanted to and
because I wanted to learn in this place.
I also know that
in these administrative jobs, we're all busy.
And for me to just sit down and read about ethics,
and the course that I took on ethics,
I'm probably not going to do that.
So the structure of a course,
the structure of higher ed,
was something that I really gravitate towards.
And so I applied to and was accepted in
this Master's of Liberal Arts program
is one of the best experiences I've ever done.
The MLA program at
Johns Hopkins is an interdisciplinary program,
so they don't really have a
defined core that you have to take.
It was 10 classes.
They have a set of classes you choose from.
And so I took a couple of
classes in religion, which was wonderful.
I took a class in family dynamics.
I took a class in politics.
I took one in the metamorphosis of art.
I took a theater course.
Probably one of my favorite classes
was something called Reading the Sea.
Actually, no, it's not. It's called Writing the Sea.
And it was actually held in Annapolis.
I went to Annapolis for a couple of weeks,
and it was a writing course,
but you learned to write by reading.
And so they would bring in different authors that had
written some books about the sea.
And it was just a wonderful experience.
Took a digital humanities class,
so learned about that area,
which I knew nothing about.
>> Well, I was going to ask you,
was this mainly online these courses?
>> Most of them were online.
That was another thing for me is obviously,
Kennesaw State does a lot of online programming,
but I never taught online and never took a class online.
And so I'm a big believer that
you can certainly learn online,
especially when courses are designed well.
And these instructors did
a lot in the area of group discussions,
and it helped me
to have the time to reflect and structure my thoughts.
And so it was a wonderful experience.
And I went to graduation.
So in 2018 of May 2018-
>> You walked through graduation.
>> -I walked through graduation and loved every moment.
There's not a graduation
I've ever had that I haven't graduated from.
So it was fun,
a big coliseum,
and my name was called,
and I walked and shook the hand of the dean.
[LAUGHTER] I'd do it again in a minute. It was wonderful.
>> I remember Robert Ormsby,
the former General Manager of Lockheed,
he said that he knew a whole lot more about Shakespeare
than any English major knew about quantum physics.
[LAUGHTER] I think it's probably good for all of us
to go into a different discipline
and learn something different.
>> I'll share a little story about that.
I'll share two stories about that.
One of them was there was one course I had.
So Johns Hopkins does A pluses,
so you can get an A plus,
you can get an A, you can get an A minus.
And so there was a class that I was taking.
It was an environmental class.
And the instructor, brilliant,
she lived in a yurt in Montana,
I think, and loved the class.
It was a brilliant course and a brilliant instructor.
I took the class and I had 100 on everything.
And so I just assumed I got an A plus,
never once checked the grade.
So semester ended,
and next semester and for some reason,
I went in and I was looking at my grades.
I was already taking the next class,
looking at my grades,
sitting in my Dean's office in Coles,
and I got an A, and it was environmental class.
I thought that was wrong.
I was supposed to have an A plus in that class.
>> You couldn't.
>> So I set up my computer and I said,
am I as Dean of the Business School going to email
this instructor as a student
[LAUGHTER] and ask about my grades?
So how many grade appeals do I do?
And I already looked.
I was already past time.
It was already too late to appeal the grade, but I did.
I emailed her and I said, hey, just,
you know, notice that. I never heard back from her.
It was already past the time,
but I thought I got at least ask.
There was this real having been academic and having
been a teacher and having been
an administrator for so many years,
and now to be on the other side of the podium,
to be a student in the class.
>> It was a good experience.
>> It was a great experience.
And it really was this moment of where I went,
wow, this is what
students feel and this is what they experience,
and even the power dynamic that you feel.
I'll tell you one more story about my MLA experience.
And this was probably summative for
me in terms of that experience.
It was the same class.
It was an environmental class,
and I was to do a report on an environmentalist.
And so I don't know why,
but I selected a guy by the name of David Brower.
So David Brower had developed a number
of environmental organizations,
and he was also [OVERLAPPING].
>> That parallel part.
>> That's part of the story.
[LAUGHTER] And he was
Executive Director of the Sierra Club,
and he started the John Muir Institute.
He was just an environmentalist
from this very heart and from who he was.
And I really didn't know a darn thing about David Brower.
So I was doing all this research about
him and, obviously,
he wouldn't be real excited about a lot of development,
a lot of industrialization.
He was about preserving nature.
And so I was writing that paper and few days later,
I was in my office in Coles,
the window in the Dean's office looks out on the atrium.
And I looked down and there was our division
of global affairs within
the department within the college,
within the business school,
had a bulletin board where it was promoting
different study abroad and
how you could learn about the world.
And there was our globe that we have of David Brower
climbing the globe on that poster.
And I thought, David wouldn't like that.
David would not be
about promoting international business.
[LAUGHTER] But here we
are because he's walking on top of a globe.
Here we are using that to promote international business.
Now, I would never have known that.
And I just stood there, and I thought,
isn't that interesting?
We just go by these things every day.
As I did my paper, I Googled them,
and up comes Kennesaw State University because of
the sculpture that we have on our campus.
>> You had to be there when the globe exploded.
>> I was here when the globe exploded.
>> And I remember when the artist was here,
when the sculptor was here and he was creating.
But it was just real surreal
for me that I'm taking this class.
I'm investigating and writing a paper on a gentleman
who's lived his life and has since passed,
and had this big environmental effect,
and then the connection to Kennesaw State University.
And not only that, the impact that we're using
his image probably in a way that he
would not been at all been happy about.
So it was just a real coming together moment for me.
>> Well, thank you. We'll wind it up here for today.
>> My pleasure. Thank you.