Business & Leadership
The Business and leadership department at Jewell is an orchestrated balance between the depth and rigor of a professional discipline and the breadth and richness of a liberal arts education. The program is designed to develop the timeless attributes of a liberally educated person as a necessary complement to the timely cultivation of contemporary business and entrepreneurial leadership expertise. A student can choose one of seven majors in the area of business, as noted below:
Degree programs offered:
Moreover, students of all disciplines can choose to minor in the following business-related areas:
- Economics
- Entrepreneurial Leadership
- Information Systems
Distinctives:
Business majors at William Jewell College learn to combine critical thinking, oral and written communication skills with the entrepreneurial leadership, teambuilding, planning and problem solving skills essential for success in a dynamic, competitive marketplace.
Beyond the classroom, the Jewell Business Department provides experiential learning opportunities in which students apply what they have learned in “the real world.” These opportunities to develop and grow include:
- Mentorships – where students are paired with a professional in his or her field of interest and gain valuable career information;
- Internships – in which students can integrate business theory with practice and get course credit while working forprofit or nonprofit companies;
- Partnerships – where students work as a member of a faculty-led team providing consulting services and expertise to area businesses and nonprofit organizations;
- SIFE – Mobilizes Jewell students of all disciplines to create economic opportunity for others while discovering their own potential.
Are you ready to put your business smarts to the test? Drop us an email, schedule a visit, or call us toll free (1-888-2-JEWELL).
Business & Leadership Faculty:
Linda Bell
Professor of Accounting
MBA, University of Missouri-Columbia; CPA (Missouri)
Professor Bell came to William Jewell from Grant Thornton LLP. She has leveraged this experience in the primary teaching areas of financial accounting and auditing. Professor Bell also serves as the Departmental Advising Director and is active in professional accounting organizations. She is also a Sam Walton Fellow, and is primarily responsible for the financial literacy projects for the William Jewell Students in Free Enterprise team.
Michael Cook
John W. Boatwright Professor of Economics
M.A., University of Chicago; Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
Dr. Cook has been a valued member of the department since 1978. He is the three-time winner of the William Jewell College Teacher of the Year award and recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has held leadership positions in the Missouri Valley Economics Association and was a Research Fellow for the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. In addition to his regular economics courses, Dr. Cook coordinates the Oxbridge Institutions and Policies Major, the International Business major, and consistently teaches interdisciplinary courses in the core curriculum of the college.
Jean Hawkins
Professor of Accounting
M.A., University of Central Missouri; CPA (Missouri), CMA
Professor Hawkins was formerly with KPMG, LLP. She is the faculty advisor of Alpha Lambda Chapter of Delta Mu Delta, a national honor society in business and related areas. Professor Hawkins is also Sam Walton Fellow in the Students in Free Enterprise organization and is active in professional accounting organizations. Her primary areas of teaching include management accounting and research.
Douglas Hawley
Associate Professor of Computer Science
M.S., University of Missouri-Kansas City, Ed.D., University of Missouri - Columbia
Dr. Hawley regularly brings experience and experiential learning from both the private sector and non-profit organizations into the classroom. In order to stay on top of the most up-to-date technologies, he co-owns and operates Omnicron, LLC, a consulting company that specializes in networking and telecommunications, database application integration and change management.
Elizabeth R. Hoyt
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
M.B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Professor Hoyt has taught at William Jewell since 1981 and has been the founder of both for-profit and non-profit organizations. She specializes in the areas of business strategy and policy, entrepreneurship, and human resources issues. She has taught college courses in entrepreneurship, guided hundreds of students through simulated new business start-ups, and assisted individuals starting businesses. She has also had numerous campus leadership positions including the chair of both the Faculty Development Committee and the Director of the Writing Fellows Program. Professor Hoyt has also served as the Director on several volunteer organizations and wrote the book, How to Start a Business in Kansas City. Prior to her faculty position at William Jewell, she held positions in private industry as a business consultant with Arthur Andersen and Co. and in the human resource field.
Angie Klein
Assistant Professor of Information Systems
M.B.A., Rockhurst University.
Angela has been teaching in higher education for 7 years. Prior to teaching, she has over 10 years experience working as an Information Technology professional in the financial and healthcare industries. She specializes in Systems Development and Audit/Governance of Technology. She has served in various leadership capacities for Information Audit and Security Association (ISACA) and has led a student chapter of Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). She regularly presents for the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC), is secretary of the ACM Information Systems Education Special Interest Group (SIGISE) and works with Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) to promote computer science education in K-12. Along with her affiliations with ISACA, ACM, CSTA, she also is a Non-Practicing Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and is working towards a certification in Human Computer Interface at Iowa State University.
Kevin Prine
A. Major and Dorothy Hull Chair of Business Leadership and Communication
Department Chairman
M.B.A., Baylor University; Ph.D., University of Kansas
Dr. Prine assumed the duties of Department Chair at William Jewell in July, 2006. His previous experience includes the Directorship of the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship where he increased revenues by an annual average rate of 54% over the seven years he was in the position. He also built a four-person student club into an 82-member Students in Free Enterprise team that won the national championship in 2006 and placed second in the world competition in Paris, France. For the last sixteen years, his full-time teaching load has earned student evaluations that place in the top 1% of the country. He won the Excellence in Teaching award in 1997. He has published and presented on a wide range of topics, primarily in the area of leadership and effective organizational systems. These presentations and projects have taken place in several U.S. states, in addition to China, French Polynesia, Ukraine, Belize, and Costa Rica. In addition to his chair responsibilities, he has taken an active role on the William Jewell Students in Free Enterprise team and teaches in the area of organizational behavior.
Debbie Scarfino
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
M.A in Business Administration with emphasis in Management/Supervision, Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant, MI
Formerly Product Manager – Greeting Cards at Hallmark, Inc with expertise in creative design and new product development. Owner of Bottom-line Computers, Inc – Apple retail business with six locations. Corporate training specialist and certified small business consultant. Certified Trainer/ Facilitator for Development Dimensions International, Global Achieve and HBDI. She served as Director of the Small Business Institute at Missouri Western State University from 1999 – 2001. Debbie is a tenured faculty member who was honored as Professor of the Year in 1992 & 1999. She serves as a Sam Walton Fellow for the award winning WJC Students in Free Enterprise team, where she works with students in projects involving market economics, ethics, financial literacy, success skills and more. She has escorted students on business trips and supported their conference presentations nationally and globally – traveling to such places as Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and New Zealand. She holds professional membership in the American Marketing Association and was faculty advisor to the 2002 Collegiate Chapter of the Year. Debbie works with students regularly in community consulting projects and marketing research studies, where her students have earned national competitive honors. She directs the business internship program at Jewell and teaches Human Resource Management and Marketing courses. Some of her class project ideas have been published by Southwestern in volumes of “Great Ideas for Teaching Marketing” and she has been quoted in national magazines such as Advertising Age or Sales & Marketing Management.
Kelli Schutte
Assistant Professor of Business
M.B.A. Western Michigan University; PhD., Michigan State University
Dr. Schutte is a professor of Management, Human Resources and Organizational Behavior. Her dissertation topic was focused on organizational culture from a human resource perspective with a focus on work/life initiative effectiveness. She has been a contributor to numerous publications including the Sloan Work/Family encyclopedia and the Human Resource Planning Society Journal. Kelli has also been a regular presenter at work/life and applied learning conferences. She is also an active consultant in the area of organizational culture, policy development and employment law. Her research interests lie in the area of work/life culture, policy development, employment law and experiential education. She is actively involved with the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) group on campus as a faculty mentor. Kelli has particularly enjoyed working with students on projects involving micro-enterprise, global economics, and sponsoring student presentations within the community and at national conferences.
Kevin W. Shaffstall
Assistant Professor and Director of the Pryor Leadership Studies Program
M.A., Webster University.
Kevin Shaffstall is responsible for the students involved with the Nonprofit Leadership program as well as American Humanics. He is a member of the Leadership Studies and Programs Advancement Council at Kansas State University. Kevin is also the founder of Team Arts Inc., a company that provides international training in the areas of team building and leadership development. As the former director of the Leadership Development Center at Adventure Woods in Kansas City, Mo., he designed and delivered more than 2,200 of his widely acclaimed team skills training programs to managers and leaders from a wide variety of organizations. In addition, his creative teambuilding initiatives have been published in the book Quicksilver. In 2005, Kevin received the prestigious President of the United States National Volunteer Service Award at the National Points of Light Conference.
J. Gregg Whittaker
Associate Professor of Economics and Business
M.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Professor Whittaker has primary teaching duties in the areas of finance and economics. He is the founder of The Whittaker Group LLC, a business advisory organization specializing in capital raising, management, business development, branding and value creation for start up companies. Founded in 1999, The Whittaker Group assisted in the development and equity funding of a $1 billion financial services company in New York as well as an innovative, new insurance company in the Cayman Islands. The group is currently involved in developing strategic relationships for a proprietary trading software company, launching an online, fine jewelry leasing company, and syndicating the patent rights to a soil and water management technology. Prior to joining the Jewell faculty in 1999, Prof. Whittaker worked on Wall Street for ten years, the last five of which as a Managing Director and the Global Head of Credit Derivatives for Chase Securities, Inc. (now JPMorganChase). Professor Whittaker is also co-founder and the former Vice Chairman of Primus Guaranty, Ltd. He and his partners worked for over two years developing the innovative pricing and straight-through trade processing technologies and, in March of 2002, raised $155 million in private equity funding to launch the effort. Primus is now a publicly-traded, AAA-rated credit protection seller with offices in New York and Bermuda.
