PROVO, Utah — February 21, 2019 — Dr. Mark Keith has received the prestigious 2018 Owen Cherrington Service award.
“The IS department was very kind in giving me this award”
“I’ve done my best to follow the examples of my colleagues and those who had already made the BYU IS department a great place before I ever got here,” Dr. Keith explains.
This faculty honor is named for Professor J. Owen Cherrington who taught at Brigham Young University for many years in the Information Systems Department. Professor Cherrington served BYU and the Marriott School faithfully from August 1978 until his death in April 2005.
Dr. Keith tributes the department for choosing him, explaining, “That they were willing to give me this award says as much or more about how great the faculty and staff are in the IS department than it does about my actual service.”
Keith himself is a graduate of BYU Marriott, earning his BS in information systems in 2003 and his MISM the following year. To pursue a Ph.D. in information systems, Keith attended Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
Dr. Keith Lauds the Other IS Faculty
“When I came to this department in 2012, one of the first things I noticed was that the faculty truly cared about putting the students and each other first,” Mark Keith acknowledges.
“There was less self-interest and discord than I’d ever seen in an academic department.”
Keith also credits campus resources, the school’s culture of excellence, and the students themselves for helping him improve as a professor. According to Keith, students at BYU Marriott trust in their instructors, which motivates faculty members to perform at a higher level.
Dr. Keith observes that “this creates an environment where students and faculty both can thrive.”
The Owen Cherrington Service Award is named in honor of Professor J. Owen Cherrington who was the first director of the E-Business Center, now the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and a great example of hard work and selfless service. He died of cancer in 2005 after fighting a brain tumor for more than two years, but his example of kindness lives on with this faculty award and an IS student scholarship given in his name.