WSU names Fuller to Kays Distinguished Professorship

WSU professor Mark A. Fuller has been named the new holder of the Philip L. Kays Distinguished Professorship in Management Information Systems.

Fuller has been on the WSU faculty since 2000 and has led the Department of Information Systems since 2002. In 2006, he was promoted to full professor.

“The Kays Professor is someone who will study and bring the latest in technology to the MIS classrooms through leading-edge content and training experiences, and we believe that Mark Fuller excels in fulfilling those requirements,” says CB Dean Eric Spangenberg.

The Kays Professorship in MIS was established in 2000 by WSU business alumni Pete and Mary Guay and named in honor of her father, a native of Yakima, Wash. He was a partner in Tubbs Electric in Spokane and had also been in the food industry as a grocery store owner and manager for many years in Spokane and Seattle. In 1965 he moved his family to Spokane, where he served as general manager of the Roundup Co., which was acquired by Fred Meyer, Inc. It was there, say the Guays, that Kays saw “how computers would make an impact on business then and in the future.” He died in 1981.

“It’s a very real privilege to be honored by the college in this way,” says Fuller.  “The Kays Professorship in MIS is particularly significant to me, since I know both donors and am aware of how deeply they care about WSU.  This professorship has a great legacy as well, having been held by Len Jessup in the past.  This award will help me continue to work on behalf of WSU to support excellence in both teaching and research in the area of information technology.”

Jessup is a former dean of the College of Business and currently heads the WSU Foundation.

Fuller earned his Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Arizona in 1993. Before joining WSU, he was on the faculty of Baylor University in the Hankamer School of Business. He has also been a visiting professor for the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland.

His research—which has focused on the topics of virtual teamwork, technology supported learning, and e-commerce—has appeared in leading MIS journals such as Management Information Systems Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Decision Support Systems, and the Journal of Management Information Systems.  His recent work has focused on trust-building technologies embedded in computer interfaces such as the Web and on the factors that influence successful virtual teamwork.

He has received awards for teaching, where his interests include MBA and executive education, IS management and strategy, electronic commerce, and project management. He recently played a lead role in redesigning the undergraduate MIS curriculum at WSU; it now includes a greater integration of programming skills using Microsoft’s .NET while retaining critical components related to building business and interpersonal skills. He also co-designed the MIS Ph.D. program course sequence to leverage the faculty’s specialization in behavioral research.

Fuller’s vita is available at www.cbe.wsu.edu/directory. The Nebraska native was raised in Arizona. He lives in Moscow, Idaho, with his wife, Tanya, and two daughters, Emma and Grace.