By Jeff Murphy,
April 13, 2020
WARRENSBURG, MO 鈥 Described by colleagues as a caring teacher, mentor and coach who
strives to provide his students with real-world experience, Dan Jensen, Ed.D., is
the 欧美视频鈥檚 2020 recipient of the Missouri Governor鈥檚 Award
for Excellence in Education.
The Governor鈥檚 Award is an annual recognition initiative established by the Missouri
Coordinating Board for Higher Education. In recognizing honorees, the awards program
considers criteria such as effective teaching, effective advising, innovative course
design and delivery, service to the university community, commitment to high standards
of excellence and success in nurturing student achievement.
Jensen is an associate professor of management in UCM鈥檚 Harmon College of Business
and Professional Studies, where he coordinates the Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise
(ESE) Program and was recently named MBA Director. He joins award recipients selected
from each of Missouri鈥檚 public higher education institutions. The award selection
at UCM was based on nominations submitted to a committee appointed by Philip Bridgmon,
provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Jensen arrived at UCM in 2014 after working for Rockhurst University in Kansas City
as an adjunct and full-time faculty member from 2002-2014. His professional career
also includes working as a researcher on rapid-growth entrepreneurship at the Ewing
Marion Kauffman Foundation, as well as consulting for ESI International, a global
training firm, where he facilitated learning experiences for the Fuji-Xerox Leadership
Institute in Japan. His engagement with ESI also took him across the United States
to work for Cisco Systems, MetLife, NATO, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, and other major corporations, nonprofits and governmental
agencies.
During the past five years at UCM, Jensen has integrated a number of practices into
his teaching that have impacted the way students respond to him, and the way he feels
about being in the classroom. This includes team-based learning, experiential learning,
flipped classroom, and the integration of extracurricular activities into the classroom.
Jensen joined the Harmon College of Business and Professional Studies in the role
as administrative coordinator and instructor for the Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise
major. Recognizing the need for entrepreneurship students to have outside-the-classroom
experiences to enhance learning, he garnered support from the college dean and the
management department chair to establish UCM鈥檚 Big idea Program in fall 2016. The
initial program consisted of a day-long conference, which brought high-caliber regional
entrepreneurs and business professionals to campus to mentor students. This event
has since expanded into the monthly Big Idea Speaker Series, sponsored by the Blaine
Whitworth Foundation; the Big Idea Pitch Competition each fall, and the Big Idea Business
Plan Competition in the spring.
Mary McCord, professor in the Harmon College, was among those who submitted letters
supporting Jensen鈥檚 nomination for the award. She praised his commitment to being
an outstanding teacher.
鈥滵r. Jensen holds himself, his colleagues and his students to high standards. He is
creative, efficacious, and spends many hours implementing innovative and effective
teaching practices. His courses have high standards and students know he genuinely
cares for their future and appreciate the steps he takes to help them achieve those
standards.鈥
Jensen has also been active in service at UCM on many different fronts. Among such
efforts, he served on the School of Business Administration鈥檚 (SoBA) Strategic Planning
Committee, he has worked as an advisor for the UCM Collegiate DECA Team, and with
the loss of the Small Business and Technology Development Center in 2017, he has increasingly
become a resource for aspiring entrepreneurs. Additionally, he has led the UCM Strategic
Enrollment Management Task Force with the goal of engaging and aligning all members
of the campus community in operationalizing their enrollment management plans and
sharing best practices. In his letter to the nominating committee, Jensen spoke about
his dedication to UCM and its students -- aspirations which align with his selection.
鈥榃hen I arrived on campus in fall 2014, I knew that I had found my home.鈥 Jensen said.
鈥淚 have worked in higher education for more than 20 years, but the opportunities afforded
to me at UCM have been unparalleled. My obligation is to make UCM as good an institution
as it can possibly be. I choose to focus my tangible support in changing the lives
of students, improving the working environment of colleagues, and creating opportunities
for UCM to continue to thrive for many years.鈥