PULLMAN, Wash. — Eric Spangenberg, a long-time Washington State University faculty member in marketing, has become the first person to hold the Gardner O. Hart Faculty Excellence Distinguished Professorship in the WSU College of Business and Economics.
“Eric is a tremendous asset to us in the business college, and the Hart Distinguished Professorship is a fitting testament to his outstanding career,” says Len Jessup, CBE dean. Distinguished professorships and endowed chairs are held by business professors who lead teachers and researchers. The Hart professorship is the 12th such position in the college.
For Spangenberg, it is the latest of several honors granted to him in the past year. In summer 2002, he was named by Jessup to fill the new administration post of associate dean for faculty affairs and research. In end-of-year awards presented earlier this month, he was one of two professors named Outstanding Faculty in Research in the college. He also received one of 14 new Dean’s Excellence Fellow awards. This fall, he will also be promoted to the rank of full professor.
As associate dean, Spangenberg monitors faculty research productivity and quality. “He leads by example,” Jessup said. “This year alone he has six articles forthcoming in marketing journals, three of those in tier one marketing journals. He has worked tirelessly on several key projects that will lead to our re-accreditation and has made important and often tough decisions for the good of the college. We all respect him for his many accomplishments and the service he gives to the college and WSU.”
Jessup created the new Hart Distinguished Professorship to reward and enable faculty excellence throughout the WSU College of Business and Economics. It is funded from an endowment created by a gift from the late alumnus, Gardner Otis Hart, and supported by his widow Barbara Beall Hart. Hart, a Spokane native, graduated in economics in 1929 and built a career at Lockheed in southern California that spanned three decades.
Spangenberg is an alumnus of the college, having earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration there in 1982. With an MBA from Portland State University and a doctorate in marketing/social psychology from the University of Washington, he returned to WSU as an assistant professor in marketing in 1990. He is also a graduate of Kelso High School and Lower Columbia College.
His streams of research are in environmental psychology, the practical relevance and theoretical explanation for self-prophecy, an influence technique for encouraging socially desirable behaviors, consumer skepticism toward advertising, and measurement of marketing-related variables.
Spangenberg has published more than 25 refereed journal articles in marketing and psychology, book chapters and has refereed numerous conference proceedings. In 2001, he was taped by the British Broadcasting Corp. for a documentary series on retail environments and consumer responses. The series aired on the BBC-2 in Great Britain and Europe and on The Learning Channel. Spangenberg’s research has also been featured on CBS-TV, in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and several other major news outlets worldwide. He has brought his research to life in the classroom teaching WSU graduate and undergraduate students on the main campus and at the Vancouver and Tri-Cities campuses. He also taught at a cooperative CBE program in Switzerland.
Prior to becoming associate dean, he served briefly as vice chair of the WSU Faculty Senate and as chair of the WSU Faculty Affairs Committee. He has served on numerous university and college committees. Currently, he serves as faculty adviser to doctoral students and student organizations, and actively recruits basketball, baseball, and football student athletes and other undergraduates to the college.
Spangenberg and his wife, Judy, are active in the Pullman community with their children, Katie (14), Kerri (12), Kevin (10), and Kyle (8). He is the son of Judi and Rick Spangenberg of Longview.
