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Mary Hamilton |
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Talia McCray |
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Pamela Stuerke |
College of Business hires three women faculty members
Three University of Rhode Island business professors have just completed their first year in campus classrooms. Hired at the start of the 2003-2004 academic year, they are among nine women professors out of the 52 teaching in the college.
The hirings are important because of the 1,567 students in the College of Business Administration, 585 or 37 percent are women.
Last year, URI welcomed Mary Hamilton, management, Talia McCray, transportation, and Pamela Stuerke, accounting, to its campus.
Business Dean Edward M. Mazze said the college has always been responsive to the rapidly changing nature of business education and those who enter the field.
“We want to be known as a college that serves students with all of their varied interests and talents,” Mazze said. “The records of these new additions to our faculty are clear evidence of a college that is responsive to the business climate. All three have brought a wealth of experience, including outstanding teaching records and firsthand knowledge of the business world. They’ve been welcome additions to our faculty.”
“I am a recent Ph.D., but I don’t feel like one,” Hamilton said. “It’s hard to when I have 15 years of corporate experience and operated my own consulting firm.” It was her corporate and consulting experience that led her to pursue an academic career.
“I have many interests, but I realized that in my heart, I am a researcher and teacher,” Hamilton said. “I wanted to study the problems I encountered in my business career. I also wanted to bring my experiences to the classroom so that students would learn how to address the difficult issues facing multinational corporations today.”
McCray attributes the successes and richness of her life to her family and to her church service work in Africa and India. Her parents stressed education to her and her four siblings.
She joined the URI faculty after Chris Hunter, URI assistant professor of civil engineering, suggested she look into the URI Transportation Center since she had experience with the center at the University of Michigan and was a Ford fellow at the University of Laval in Quebec at the time.
Like her colleagues, Stuerke loves teaching. “There’s something about seeing that ’Aha!’ moment,” Stuerke explained. “I’ve met some students who are very engaged in learning. The [URI Feinstein College of Continuing Education M.B.A.] class is a very rewarding group to teach. Those people know what it’s like to really work for something.”
Stuerke fell into teaching accounting through “a great deal of serendipity.” She was working for Yellow Freight when her boss suggested that she take a few accounting courses, which might lead to a promotion. She took her advice and found that accounting came naturally to her.
By Dave Lavallee
