In recent months, Wheaton’s Business and Management Department has added two new members: Professor Kenneth Bray and Professor Donna Marchand. Both plan to provide knowledge from their real-world experiences in the field of business and hope to educate the expanding population of business majors at Wheaton.
Aside from being an instructor at Wheaton, Professor Bray is currently working towards his Doctorate of Business Administration degree at Grand Canyon University. He also teaches part-time at Johnson & Wales University. For 28 years, Bray worked at Hasbro, most recently serving as Vice President of Global Data Governance.
Professor Bray makes it a point to include hands-on assignments in his syllabus. “I want to teach [the students] skills they are going to need in the business world for real-life experiences,” said Professor Bray. For example, students are asked to put together a marketing plan for a client in the local area. Students use what they have learned in class to make recommendations to help the client improve their business. The community response is overwhelmingly positive including a local restaurant Home Plate, which wrote letters to Wheaton praising students’ recommendations for their creativity and ingenuity.
Professor Marchand just started working at Wheaton this semester, teaching one section of accounting in addition to two other business classes. For the past two years, Marchand has taught at Bridgewater State. She has also worked as a public accountant, as well as in K-12 education.
So far, Professor Marchand has had an excellent time adjusting to life here at Wheaton, feeling like everyone has been helpful to her transition. To her, being a professor presents a welcome change from working in the corporate environment of public accounting. Though she “loved working on audits and reviews…[she] definitely would not go back.” Professor Marchand said, “I definitely feel working in education is where I was meant to be and I’m very happy to be here.” She hopes to continue to hone her teaching skills by joining open educational resources.