Barbara Cartledge joined Samford University in 2003. As assistant professor of business, Cartledge teaches the first business course, World of Business, which each undergraduate student takes during the spring of their freshman year. It is a unique offering with executive speakers and opportunity for students to explore their intended major and learn the concepts of business. She teaches Principles of Management that engages junior business majors as they progress toward their intended career in business. Cartledge developed a new course, Business and Local Poverty, which allows the students to engage and discover the initiatives within metro Birmingham that seek to alleviate and mitigate the oppression of poverty. The course grew out of the Brock School of Business social entrepreneurship concentration. She also teaches Family Business which supports the entrepreneurial ethos of the school. She has taught Study Abroad courses in International Marketing and International Management in London, England, and Sydney, Australia.
From 2004-2024, Cartledge served as director and subsequently senior assistant dean of the Office of Academic Programs, overseeing advisement of all undergraduate business majors and minors, the two graduate programs along with services of the Office of Professional Success. In coordination with the Brock School of Business dean’s office and faculty, the Academic Programs Office unit realized the growth of the Brock School of Business from two to seven majors, seven concentrations and seven minors along with added graduate degree concentrations.
Prior to her academic career, Cartledge worked in the telecommunications industry with BellSouth Telecommunications Inc., in marketing research, new product development and management in the small business sector. She also managed human resource data for CWA contract negotiations and strategic forecasting in BellSouth’s Human Resources organization.
In the community, she serves on Restoration Academy School's (inner-city Christian school) board of directors, Briarwood Fellows board of directors, the MOMENTUM non-profit committee, and is a Junior League of Birmingham sustainer. Previously she served on Vanderbilt University’s Birmingham alumni chapter board, the Sav-A-Life board of directors as treasurer, and Vestavia Hills Mayor’s Education Committee. She is an alumna of Birmingham MOMENTUM women’s leadership program as well as an alumna of Leadership Vestavia Hills.
She and her husband, Tom, have two children, Hall and Joan. They live in Birmingham, Alabama and are members of Briarwood Presbyterian Church.
Degrees and Certifications
- EdD, Samford University
- MBA, Samford University
- BS, mathematics, history minor, cum laude, Vanderbilt University
Cartledge was inducted in Phi Kappa Phi and Beta Gamma Sigma honor societies in post graduate studies.
