Scholarship | jeff-mcelroy

Summary Self-Assessment of Scholarship

I was very busy the last few years completing my Ed.D., Doctor of Education in Leadership, while teaching full time, developing new classes and new majors, attending conferences, and improving current classes.

I started my Ed.D. in the fall of 2013 at Drake University and completed my course work (see additional materials below for list of courses) summer of 2015. I completed my dissertation (which explores what a quality education is at the university level) and graduated in fall 2018.

I work to stay up on the latest industry programs and processes and am a believer in helping students attain real-world experience with these programs and processes through experiential-learning studies and projects in the classroom as well as actually working with corporations and companies. Process improvement and specifically Kaizen has been popular in the business world for over 25 years and continues to be employed as a major methodology for improvement yet today. Each year, the students in Operations Management take two weeks to learn Kaizen by improving a real process at Graceland using this methodology.

Another key factor that keeps the students and me up to speed on the latest business trends is the incorporation of industry leaders as guest speakers in class. These speakers are from all sizes of companies, are leaders in their field, and some are Graceland graduates. An example is Brenda Webber, a Graceland graduate class of 2010 that started her own Social Media Marketing business and has been extremely successful. Recently her company opened its first international location. Having Brenda work with my Social Media Marketing class is a real treat. Another example of a different type of leader is Larry Noble, Commissioner for the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Commissioner Noble leads over 1,000 employees and teaches my Organizational Behavior class all about what it takes to lead an organization with that many employees. See the experiential learning button for more examples.

I participate in conferences to exchange ideas and stay up on the latest in specific areas. For example, to enhance my ability to chair the Scholar’s Showcase Committee, I attended a conference for faculty and administrators at Augustana College in Rock Island Illinois on Promoting Undergraduate Research at Liberal Arts Colleges. This was an excellent learning experience and I found out that Graceland was probably ahead of most of the schools there as far as the development of our Scholars’ Showcase.

While assisting with the leadership of Graceland’s award winning Enactus (formerly SIFE) team, I had the opportunity to participate in a national training conference for leaders. Enactus also provided the opportunity on an annual basis for me to exchange ideas with colleagues from all around the United States at the National Exposition. I participated in and provided leadership for the annual Roundtable Enactus event which provides keynote and break out speakers on numerous current and relevant business topics. Roundtable celebrated its 30th anniversary in the spring of 2021.

I’ve attended Revolving Loan Fund Conferences with the latest being in Coralville, Iowa to learn how to develop and promote the Graceland University Sandage Center for the Study of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (GUSCSFEE) Revolving Loan Fund. After the conference, I worked with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development department to update our current grant (which was approved) and to develop a new loan brochure, fact sheet and borrowers application.

Scholars’ Showcase is an annual Graceland event that promotes developing a culture of high quality research, scholarship, and creative activities. The event is an opportunity for students and professors to professionally demonstrate their scholarly works for the entire campus to see and enables the various schools on campus to see and learn from each other’s works all in one event. I’ve been involved in Scholars’ Showcase since its inception in 2009 when we had 5 presenters and some poster displays. Because I truly believe in this event and its purpose, I’ve was the committee chair from 2010 to 2017. The event has grown to include Graceland alumni as keynote speakers along with well over 100 presentations including demonstrations, oral presentations, instrumentals, labs, plays, and posters. Through my continual promotion of the important purpose Scholars’ Showcase serves, for the first time in 2016, Scholars’ Showcase became an all-day event with no classes so that students and faculty could focus all of their attention on the event. With over 500 students in attendance, this has become one of the largest one-day events on campus.

Moving forward, I plan to continue to partner with companies to ensure that I am teaching the latest industry programs and processes and helping students attain real-world experience with these programs and processes through experiential-learning studies and projects in the classroom as well as actually working with corporations and companies.