The Dean of the College of Business Administration, Deborah Spake recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association. Spake accepted the award alongside another candidate from Babson College Dr.Victoria Crittenden, as the AMA did not select any winners during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spake got her start in the 1990’s at Western Michigan University, she has worked at 4 other universities with Kent State University being her fifth when she was hired on as Dean in 2013.

Spake believes that her years of experience and professional growth has been a strong contributor to her receiving this prestigious award. “I think it’s a combination of the work that I’ve done on the organization side, serving in leadership roles in more than one higher education organization. Being a long standing Dean, it’s, I’m now in my ninth year at Kent State in the world of business stains that’s on the longer side. And then I think, importantly, the academic research that I did.”

Some of Spake’s research includes service learning which is a practice of students doing service work, either a part of a class or a student organization. Spake hopes to continue expanding her endeavors as the Dean of the College of Business Administration, and to continue doing her research at Kent State.

“I’m certainly honored to be recognized and pleased that, you know, Kent State also is receiving this recognition since I’m here. So I’m very happy that the great work that we do is being recognized.”

Dean Spake’s colleagues also chimed in on her recent awarded achievement, Emmanuel Dechenaux, The Associate Dean of Administration in the College of Business Administration, and Melody Tankersley Senior Vice President and Provost at Kent State University.

Dechenaux had this to say about Spake’s recent accomplishments, “She’s fair,she works really hard. She definitely finds ways to value other’s contributions,she really views it as a sort of a group effort”.

Provost Tankersley also had great things to say about Spake, “Dean Spake is among the best, she understands all of the academic areas in her college well, has great relationships with her department chairs, so that they can help their faculty and students and meet the needs that they have.”

Tankersley continued to say that she was not one bit surprised by Spake’s recent Lifetime Achievement Award because Spake is a tireless worker.“ I’m thrilled for her, because I’d say,that’s a huge honor, and it really recognizes how great she is. This was specifically for marketing,so that’s huge. She has impacted that field of marketing, and as a dean continues to take the whole discipline of marketing and elevate it throughout the globe.”

Raygene English is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].