College of Business

Dr. Barbara Spencer

Associate Dean for Research and Outreach

Office: 210 McCool Hall
Phone: 662-325-1891
Email: bspencer@cobilan.msstate.edu

Degrees:

B.A. Communication Studies - University of Maine (1977)
M.A. Organizational Communication - University of Maine (1979)
Ph.D. Business Administration (Management) - Virginia Tech (1985)

I am pleased to welcome all of you who are joining our graduate programs and to say hello to everyone who is interested in learning more about our programs on the College of Business’s new web-site. This is an exciting time for our College's research, outreach, and graduate education programs. Mississippi State’s leadership has identified the growth and expansion of our research and graduate education programs as a strategic priority, and we are already seeing some significant results.

Not only are we expanding our research outputs, but we are taking leadership in the business community by offering exciting programs in strategic leadership and executive education. In the Fall of 2008, we are bringing several extremely successful CEO’s to campus for a Leadership Summit which is attracting great attention throughout the state and region. The keynote speaker of that event is Colin Powell and we anticipate bringing together several thousand business people, students, faculty, staff and community members to hear him speak.

Our faculty is engaged in many different streams of research from family business issues, to strategic and consumer decision making, and economic development, and they are highly motivated to involve their graduate students in carrying out this work. In the past three years, our students have earned prestigious honors such as Mississippi State University’s Graduate Teaching award, Research Award, and Service Award—in fact, not long ago, we won all three in a single year! In addition, several of our students have been honored by winning Outstanding Paper awards in their disciplines at both regional and national level conferences.

Our graduate students can benefit greatly by becoming engaged and involved in our research and outreach endeavors. Think about how you apply your academic training to resolve real-world business problems. And use your College and University graduate student networks as opportunities for creativity and collaboration, to generate new ideas and bring them to reality. Reach out to each other, your faculty mentors, and the many resources of this university to achieve new levels of success.