On Friday, April 8, Samford University’s Brock School of Business announced its faculty award recipients during its 58th Annual Scholarship and Awards Ceremony. Each year, the school recognizes faculty members for excellence in the areas of teaching, research and scholarship, and service to the school. The awardees are selected by their faculty colleagues.

 

“The best measure of a great business school is the quality of the faculty, and we are blessed in Brock School of Business to have faculty members who possess the highest possible professional education together with a passion for the mission of Samford University,” said Dean Chad Carson.

Undergraduate teaching is at the heart of everything we do. Each year, the Brock School of Business faculty select one member they feel has excelled in achieving these goals. This year’s recipient of the Jennings B. Marshall Undergraduate Teaching Award is Cam Pearce, instructor of accounting. Pearce teaches the Tax I, Tax II, Principals of Accounting, and DATA 200 courses. Her innovative assignments and communication with her classes garner regular praise from her students as an outstanding and highly effective instructor. Pearce’s tax courses are rated at the top of the student evaluation scores and more students are choosing tax as a career path due to her influence.

The Robert W. (Bill) Service Graduate Teaching Award recognizes a Brock School of Business faculty member for excellence in teaching at the graduate level. Professor Alan Blankley, chair of the Department of Accounting, is the 2022 recipient of the award. As a professor in the Brock School of Business’s Master of Accountancy and Master of Business Administration programs, Blankley’s leadership is an important contributor to students maintaining one of the highest CPA pass rates in Alabama. He is consistently commended for innovative teaching materials, particularly in the online courses he teaches, and his ability to teach complex materials through different scenarios and problems developed specifically for the learning objective. Blankley regularly earns strong student evaluations, well above the school-wide average, with consistent feedback about his ability to make accounting courses meaningful and understandable.

Associate Dean Jeremy Thornton, professor of economics and the Dwight Moody Beeson chair of business, was awarded the A. Gerow Hodges Research Award for his noteworthy scholarship that brings prestige to Brock School of Business and the university. From March 2019 through March 2022, Thornton had five articles published in top peer reviewed journals. A few include the Academy of Management Review, which is ranked 2nd on the Financial Times list of most impactful academic journals, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. He’s also had five conference presentations over the last year and has been a regular resource for local and national media seeking experts on the status of the current economy.

Service is an expectation of all fulltime faculty members, but some go beyond normal requirements to make a tremendous difference for the school. Each year, Brock School of Business recognizes one faculty member whose service to the school, university and community greatly exceeds expectations. The 2022 recipient of the Larron C. (Larry) Harper Service Award is Senior Assistant Dean Barbara Cartledge. In her leadership role, Cartledge has provided outstanding student support, particularly through the pandemic years, which has played a key role in producing record enrollment for Brock School of Business. Cartledge is very active in business school and university committees and organizations including those such as faculty search committees, the Brock School of Business Dean’s Student Advisory Council, the Lion’s Den judges' panel, the university’s undergraduate honor council and graduate council, among many others. In the local community, she is a committed member of Briarwood Presbyterian Church and Momentum, a leadership organization for women in Alabama. She also serves of the Board of Directors for Restoration Academy, Briarwood Fellows and Hope Health Medical Clinic.

 

“I am proud to call these faculty members my colleagues and friends,” Carson said. “Their research, teaching and service is beyond outstanding. Our students, our business school and our university are better because of the work of these scholars and dedicated community members.”