As a graduate student in psychology at ACU I was mentored by several gracious faculty members, notably Bob McKelvain and Richard Beck, but also Steve Allison, Billy Van Jones, Angie McDonald, and others still. To them I owe an eternal debt of gratitude. Those experiences taught me the value of heavily investing in individual students. There are three primary ways that I mentor students.
Figure 2.2. Student workers and research assistants at our house for dead day breakfast, a bi-annual tradition (students from my and my wife Elisa’s hometowns, Belton and New Braunfels, respectively, are also invited. The representative attendant from that group, Drew Ritchie, had to leave before this picture was taken). From left are Lily Assaad, Allison Phillips, Amy (Morris) Bryant, Asher Jessup, Sarah Miller, Levi Ritchie, Annabelle Jessup, and me.
First, many students express an interest in going to graduate school. These I advise on courses to take, how to apply, and other similar things. As this has become an increasingly common occurrence for data analytics, I created a decision tree that I share with these students and other business faculty and advisers who are likely to encounter such students.
Second, I like to provide personal in addition to career-oriented mentoring. This component usually attends to the students who either do research or serve as my student workers, though it is available to any student who visits my office and would like to talk. Additionally, the soccer group I helped begin in early 2011, ACUFIFA (discussed in more detail in the collegiality section), consists of a substantial amount of mentoring of undergraduates. I find it particularly gratifying that we get to play with undergrads, allowing us to extend student-teacher relationships far beyond what we experienced in class (e.g., former ACU kicker Morgan Lineberry and Nikolai Rabinovitsj were both students of mine prior to playing with us) or to meet and get to know students we would otherwise not encounter (e.g., Rafie Rosales, Daniel Sancho, Kip Kiplagat, Vicente Rojas, and Nigel Gwini, from El Salvador, Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, and Zimbabwe, respectively, are all wonderful undergrads or recent grads that I only got to know because of this group). Relatedly, the role ACUFIFA plays in reaching out to international students should not be understated. The email from Daniel Sancho (Figure 2.2) and the letter of support from Amy (Morris) Bryant largely address personal mentoring.
Figure 2.3. Email from ACU alumnus Daniel Sancho to ACUFIFA, upon leaving his summer internship at ACU.
Third, for the students who desire to get a PhD or master’s degree in analytics, I not only advise them as above but further immerse a select few in a research experience which has proven to be formative and beneficial for graduate school. For example, in her research with me, Allison Phillips worked on some very high level research. Hence, it is no surprise that a faculty member in psychology at Kansas State University wanted her to pursue a PhD with him on the basis of her conference presentation, as recounted in the blog that she kept while working on our Pursuit-funded research project. The letters from Lily Assaad, Levi Ritchie, Allison Phillips, and Luke Stevens each address this research experience.
Figure 2.4. Two of my protegees unexpectedly, independently “popping in” to chat, give news, or ask questions. I was so happy to see both Erika Teilmann (left) and Luke Stevens at the same time that I had to take a picture.
Below is a sample of the students that I have spent a substantial amount of time mentoring.
- Lily Assaad: completed a masters in social psychology at University of Maryland (2016) and is currently enrolled in a PhD program in clinical psychology at Purdue University
- I taught her in three different courses
- I served as chair of her ACU Honors thesis
- We are authors together on two presentations at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and two at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- We have a paper published in Judgment and Decision Making, a peer reviewed journal
- She was accepted into every psychology program to which she applied*, including PhD programs at some of the best in her field, such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Kaleigh Borge: completed a masters of data analytics at Southern Methodist University (2019) and is currently a consultant at Oliver Wyman
- I taught her in one course
- We are authors together on one presentation at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and one at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- Amy (Morris) Bryant: completed the masters of accountancy at ACU (2015) and is currently assistant controller at DISCO
- I taught her in one course
- She served as my student worker for approximately three years and through that time we discussed a variety of life and personal issues
- Anna Casey: currently a foundation specialist at Baylor Scott & White Dallas Foundation
- I taught her in three courses
- I advised her on what courses to take to prepare for her future
- Barrett Corey: completed a masters of data analytics at North Carolina State (2018) and is currently a decision scientist at Fifth Third Bank
- I taught him in three different courses plus an honors colloquium
- I served as chair of his ACU Honors thesis
- We are authors together on one presentation at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and two at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- I advised him on what courses to take to get into the graduate program of his choice
- Ben Fridge: current ACU junior
- I taught him in one class and he is enrolled in two others of mine
- He will be my research assistant this academic year
- Allison Phillips: completed a masters of data analytics at North Carolina State (2016) and is currently a montessori early childhood teacher at Giving Tree Montessori
- I taught her in three different courses
- I served as a member on her ACU Honors thesis
- We are authors together on one presentation at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and one at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- We have a manuscript in preparation to be submitted to a journal
- Levi Ritchie: completed a masters of information systems program at Texas A&M University (2018) and is currently a data scientist at Docket Navigator
- I taught him in three different courses plus an honors colloquium
- We are authors together on one presentation at SJDM, a national conference on judgment and decision making, two presentations at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and two at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- We have a paper published in Decision, a peer reviewed journal
- He was accepted into multiple PhD programs in psychology
- Luke Stevens: currently enrolled in a masters of business analytics at University of Texas Austin
- I taught him in three different courses
- We are authors together on one presentations at SWPA, a regional psychology conference, and one at the ACU undergraduate research festival
- I taught him how to run reinforcement learning and use it to model human choice behavior while also advising him on what courses to take to get into the graduate program of his choice, which he is in now
- He was accepted to every graduate school to which he applied
- Erika Teilmann: currently a business analyst at Deloitte
- I taught her in three different courses
- I advised her on courses to take and life in general
*Lily also applied to non-psychology programs.