The School of Business has welcomed six new, full-time faculty members this year. 

The professors will teach a variety of topics related to business like organizational behavior, analytics, management information systems, finance and economics.

“Each brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise that will enrich our students’ learning experiences and contribute to our reputation as a top-tier business school,” Dean of the School of Business Annette Ranft said.

Shannon McKeen, one of the professors that has reached full-time status, has been teaching as an adjunct professor at Wake Forest since 2017. Before becoming an educator, he worked for 25 years as a consultant for a variety of sales and marketing functions.

Having previously taught at Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and Dartmouth, McKeen will teach business analytics graduate candidates in a practicum.

“For the practicum, we have student teams that are matched with an external organization trying to solve an external challenge with data,” McKeen said. “I find the clients or my content around the product management team and consulting skills and frameworks.”

The organizations vary from healthcare startups to retail to sports teams. McKeen refers to the practicum as being “as close to the real world as you can get.” During his tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill, McKeen conducted research surrounding experiential learning and the practicum, and he hopes to continue this at Wake Forest.

Stacie Petter is also a new professor at the School of Business. Previously at Baylor University, Petter taught management information systems and will continue in that discipline teaching a data management and data analytics and society course to Wake Forest graduate students.

“Information systems as a discipline or as a field is looking at how individuals and organizations interact with technology,” Petter said. “So how they use it, the positive benefits of it, the negative impacts that happen and how we manage and use that technology effectively and efficiently in our lives and organizations.”

Amy Wallis is another professor who has been welcomed full-time. Wallis previously taught full-time at the Business School but stepped back to teach as an adjunct professor at the end of the 2021 spring semester. 

Prior to joining the School of Business in 2012, Wallis worked in organizational development with topics such as human resources and leadership development. At Wake Forest, Wallis teaches similar courses.

“I teach business ethics, team development, leading change and leadership,” Wallis said. “Topics that are on the human side of business and critical thinking and decision making around business issues.”

One of the main lessons Wallis hopes students learn from her classes are critical thinking skills.

“It’s the kind of analysis that you can’t do a Google search about,” Wallis said. “Where you really have to identify what the problem is, what potential solutions are, what are the implications of those potential solutions and how do we implement solutions.”

Similar to Wallis, McKeen also hopes students learn the ability to work through uncertainty and manage ambiguity to ensure positive outcomes.