NCU: On The Road

Professional Development: The Mark of a Lifelong Learner

The mark of a true professional is someone who wants to get better, even after they’ve reached a successful point in their career. In keeping with NCU’s Value of Excellence, “We value leadership and strive for continuous improvement in everything we do,” Northcentral hires highly- credentialed faculty with expertise and teaching experience in their subject area. In the words of Center for Faculty Excellence Director Barry Grant, “We expect, and indeed, require our faculty to be life-long learners, current in their field. Our faculty must engage in at least one professional development activity every year. Professional development activities include attending a professional conference, participating in a professional organization, or writing an article or book. The more faculty are engaged professionally in their fields, the richer and more powerful is the learning experience of our students!”

VERITAS recently touched base with the following dynamic faculty members to find out more about their own commitment to continuous professional development.

As a faculty mentor for intelligence and homeland security courses, I took a one-year fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As a Harvard National Security Fellow, I was able to audit courses taught by some of the preeminent experts in the world like Joseph Nye, Graham Allison, Ambassador Burns, David Gergan, Meghan L. O'Sullivan, and many others. In addition to the wonderful faculty, the weekly guest lectures included Heads of State, best-selling authors, Fortune 50 CEOs, and senior U.S. government officials. The rich academic discourse and discussion among the experienced student body was a quintessential learning milieu. In my mentoring at NCU, I try to pass on the knowledge I gained at Harvard to my students.

Shanan Farmer
sfarmer@my.ncu.edu

I have been a faculty mentor at Northcentral University since 2008 and I have enjoyed every minute of this challenging opportunity to help students achieve their academic goals. In my “other life,” I work full-time for a multinational company. The U.S. division for which I work employs approximately 125,000 people. My professional experience has been split between IT work (database engineering) and quantitative analysis. I currently am working for the Human Resources department where I am responsible for statistical modeling related to health care benefits strategies for our diverse workforce. I am also beginning a project related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This is an exciting project because it requires me to become knowledgeable of the new and complex health care rules. The quantitative work will allow me to work very closely with actuaries on sophisticated modeling routines. This is certainly a time of learning for all involved on my project team!

Dr. Mary Doran
mdoran@my.ncu.edu

My professional activities have included publishing 17 articles in leading academic journals in business administration and I have taught at the university level for more than 20 years.

My continuing professional activities include teaching online, course development, participating at professional conferences, writing academic papers, and business consulting. Each of these activities has enhanced my ability to relate with students at Northcentral in my role as a faculty mentor. These efforts both help to sharpen my knowledge areas in business with respect to the new innovations and trends and also better appreciate the challenges of the student moving through university level courses. I especially believe that my participation in academic business conferences and my development and writing of academic papers guides me and challenges me to stay current with the leading-edge concepts in the field that in turn I can take back to the students at NCU to enhance their knowledge and skill sets. And my efforts in business consulting have me engaged in the practical events of the business environment, as well as refining my business skills that in turn can be valuable in discussing concepts and explaining methods as a business educator.

Tom Steiner
tsteiner@my.ncu.edu