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If you’ve made it to my page, it’s likely from a personal invitation or you’re one of my students who “Googled” my name to find old pictures of me to make fun of.
Either way, I’m glad you ended up here and I’d love for you to read more about what drives me to teach. As any professional portfolio should have, there’s a link right below to my curriculum vitae (fancy word for resume — students pay attention). However, what I would really like you to see is on the page which follows.
Use the menu at the top of the page (which follows as you scroll) to skip down to the information you want to see below. I hope you learn a lot and feel free to use the links in the top right to reach out to me on social or email!
For me, teaching has always been a calling. I use the term teaching loosely here, as we typically ascribe teaching to being the instruction that an educator performs in a classroom environment. Anyone who treats teaching as their calling in life knows that this is a closed vision of what it means to truly be a transformational teacher. It’s easy to look back at your resumé and track your years of service to educational institutions, but I believe that teaching in my life extends beyond the walls of academia. As a teenager, my first job in a restaurant resulted in me training other employees. In my experience as a soccer coach, I’ve realized the best coaches are those who can communicate a message clearly. My corporate sales experience taught me to develop relationships and that educating clients on how use a product will pay dividends. While each of those experiences were not typical teaching jobs, they were all experiences in which I learned fundamental lessons on how to be a good teacher. In my teaching philosophy which follows, I focus on four main areas which I believe are crucial to the development and education of the person, not just the student in the classroom.
The learning experience in a classroom is one that is co-constructed. As much as students learn from me, I also learn from my students. Truly effective teachers are those that can gather student learning evidence and behaviors and adjust their approach, style and subconscious biases to accommodate the different learning styles present in the classroom. Not only does this mean that I may need to vary assignments or adjust from my typical teaching methods, but it also means that I may need to be flexible and do so in the moment to engage all learners in the classroom. Further, it means recognizing that not everyone is always having a good day, being perceptive of when to push students to speak up in class and when to lay off. This also points to the importance of reflection on how positive and negative interactions or lessons with students went. Whether that’s asking for elicit feedback from the class on your teaching methods, or reviewing scores on a quiz, I believe there is always something to be learned and something to improve.
I believe that students perform best when learning is personal to them, and as a teacher I understand that me and/or my content is not always going to be their favorite. We all want our students to love our content the same way we do, but that just isn’t always going to be the case. Accordingly, we need to meet students where they are, show interest in what they enjoy, and provide examples of how our curriculum can have practical implications in their lives; regardless of their future careers. Theory and practice are intricately linked, and while much of our content is theory driven, it is important for student learning to make this connection. Further, this means that establishing relationships with students both in and out of the classroom is extremely impactful on their learning retention and interest. While your content may not be preferred, if they enjoy coming to your classroom or office, they will be successful, and learning will ensue. It is my belief that true teaching does not end with the instruction, mentoring and advising that occurs during their time at the institution, but often continues after graduation.
With this in mind, I believe that the best teachers place an emphasis on finding innovative ways to enhance engagement, both inside and outside the classroom. Whether that means using a “flipped-classroom” approach or using the latest social media platform to offer learning opportunities outside of typical classroom hours, opportunities that stand out from the crowd are more likely to be retained. In business education it is important that we not only develop knowledge of the content, but also improve the soft-skills that are very important for their future career success. Allowing opportunities for creativity, contextualization, problem-solving and decision-making in an environment free of concern for failure is crucial to long-term student success. I believe in teaching the whole individual. Further, by providing a foundation of knowledge in advance of the classroom, instruction time may be used to investigate issues that arise through Socratic teaching methods or to dig deeper into outside-the-box issues that may surface.
This idea of teaching the whole person can be extended into the realm of diversity as well. The classroom should be a safe place where students feel comfortable expressing their opinions regardless of background, ethnicity, income, race or other differences in opinion they may have. This can be particularly helpful in the arenas of race and faith. In terms of race, I believe that understanding our subconscious biases and learning how different backgrounds may perceive different issues makes us stronger as human beings. The things that make us different are to be celebrated and that can only happen when we truly understand where our views and perceptions are coming from. From a faith perspective, in order for students to truly be able to explicate and stand strong in their beliefs, they need to be challenged on what that looks like in the secular world. In both contexts, any time students are made to face diverse opinions and perspectives is a great opportunity for learning and growth. Accordingly, I believe that it is my job as a teacher, to find opportunities to link current issues in the world into my discussions both inside and out of the classroom, to truly challenge students to step outside of the world as they see it, providing them a stronger foundation from which to develop their own opinions and perceptions.
Undergraduate Level | The University of Mississippi | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students engage in product design project beginning with concept generation and moving towards completion of a marketing plan.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students engage in a business improvement project beginning with survey development and moving towards completion of a marketing research report to the department or program of their choosing.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students engage in an 8 week simulation in which they manage a company’s marketing efforts from product development to advertising and even financial decisions.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students develop and implement a social media content strategy beginning with content planning and creation and resulting in running a business or school program social media feed for a month.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students engage in an 6 week simulation in which they manage a company’s marketing efforts from product development to advertising and even financial decisions. Decisions are more in-depthin scope as more options are available to them (stock-buy back etc.)
Undergraduate Level | The University of Mississippi | 3 Credit Hours
Students analyze current digital content and create their own. A discussion based class with up-to-the-minute content analysis and critique. Students learn best practices in content generation and a working knowledge of basic design principles.
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students create their own online presence including but not limited to a brand identity, content calendars, and graphics. Analytics are evaluated and examined in order to show evidence of understanding and improvement in content generation. Students learn best practices in content generation and a working knowledge of basic design principles.
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students engage in an 6 week simulation in which they manage a company’s marketing efforts from product development to advertising and even financial decisions. Decisions are more in-depthin scope as more options are available to them (stock-buy back etc.)
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: Students create an 8 week blog calendar and create content promoting the MBA program to different market segments. Throughout this process they learn content planning, SEO and creative writing skills.
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Major Project: None. Students in this course are non-traditional MBA students being introduced to basic business principles and acumen across a multitude of different concentrations.
2024 January Accelerated Oline MBA 640 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score
2023 Spring Undergraduate MKT 440 (Marketing Strategy) AVG Evaluation Score
2023 August Accelerated Online MKT 437/MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score
2023 March Accelerated Online MKT 447/MBA 647 (Content Optimization) AVG Evaluation Score
2023 Fall Undergraduate MKT 424 (Marketing Research) AVG Evaluation Score
2022 April Accelerated Online MBA 628 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score
2022 February Accelerated Online MBA 585 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score
2022 Spring Undergraduate MKT 440 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score
2021 Fall Undergraduate MKT 424 (Marketing Research) AVG Evaluation Score:
2021 April Accelerated Online MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2021 Spring Undergraduate MKT 440 (Strategy Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 Fall Undergraduate MKT 424 (Marketing Research) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 October Accelerated Online MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 August Accelerated Online MBA 628 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 April Accelerated Online MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 Spring Undergraduate MKT 440 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2020 Spring Undergraduate MKT 437 (Digital Marketing) Evaluation Score:
2019 October Accelerated Online MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2018 Spring Undergraduate MKT 440 (Strategy Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2018 Spring Undergraduate MKT 350 (Professional Selling) AVG Evaluation Score:
2018 April Accelerated Online MBA 628 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2018 February Accelerated Online MBA 628 (Strategic Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
2018 January Undergraduate MKT 437 (Digital Marketing) Evaluation Score:
2017 Fall Undergraduate MKT 424 (Marketing Research) AVG Evaluation Score:
2017 October Accelerated Online MBA 636 (Digital Marketing) AVG Evaluation Score:
Scores above are measured on a 6 point scale
*N (sample size) =1
Additionally, I have developed a couple of new courses for the school of business. These courses were developed based on conversations held with my students following my first year teaching at Union University. The student feedback indicated that they felt they were not being given enough training with digital marketing platforms. They also stated a desire for more practical, hands-on learning where they will develop more workplace skills like planning, creative-thinking and project management.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
This course challenges students to think analytically about digital marketing mediums. Students will learn that digital marketing mediums are a powerful way to communicate your message and connect with consumers. Through analysis and examples of current content design and examples, as well as actual creation of content, it is the aim of this course to change your perspective from consumer to organization when thinking about and/or using digital platforms.
Undergraduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
In this seminar style course, students will read through recent literature, both popular press and academic discussing “good content”. The objective of this course is to provide students with a critical eye towards digital content and it’s intended recipients and outcomes.
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
Similar to the undergraduate course, this course challenges mostly working adults to step outside their comfort zone and become the communicator as opposed to the recipient of marketing messages online Students will attempt to figure out how to best get their message out in this crowded space and also the process behind reaching goals and objectives in mediums including but not limited to social media, landing pages and search engines.
Graduate Level | Union University | 3 Credit Hours
This course teaches students to develop methods of driving conversions through both paid and organic techniques. This course delves into decision-making involving digital marketing assets including but not limited to SEO, UX, paid search and display advertising, website optimization and analytics.
As chair of the McAfee School of Business curriculum committee and our representative for the University curriculum committee I have lead and overseen the development of many new concentrations and certificates. The offerings below were created during my time as curriculum chair.
As the current owner of a social media marketing agency, I can say for certain that the skills I gained as a student under Dr. Nicol played a crucial role in helping me achieve what I have thus far. He does an incredible job at teaching students real world application of marketing principles, which was otherwise lacking while I was in school. Learning marketing principles is important, but learning how to apply them in the real world is even more important. At my time as a Union student, Dr. Nicol was one of the only professors who emphasized the importance of the real world application of marketing principles. Students heading towards a career in marketing after graduation would highly benefit from his knowledge.
-Margaret Anne Byrd, Class of 2019
Dr. Nicol was my advisor during my time at Union University. He made my college experience great by always helping me select the classes I needed to graduate on time and to make my schedule the best it could be. Duncan was also my professor for two marketing classes, he was great at what he taught and made it very easy to understand. Dr. Nicol made marketing fun and I believe many of my classmates felt the same way about him. I would recommend him to anyone for a professor or advisor
-Drew Hill, Class of 2022
Dr. Nicol has been my professor and advisor for the last few years of my undergrad in Marketing. His classes are unique when compared to other business classes and the atmosphere in his classroom is more relaxed rather than formal, which has been helpful to me and my learning style as a student. His coursework is challenging but clear; his lectures are precise and easy to follow. When I’ve had him in person, the topics are presented with the occasional joke and/or relatable story, which is a teaching style that I enjoy. Certain discussions prompted conversations that allowed my classmates and I get to know each other better.
With his online lectures, they are detailed and thorough: no stone is left unturned—the short assignments afterward are straightforward and often require outside the box thinking – preventing “copy and paste” type answers. Dr. Nicol’s way of assessing our skills and what we’ve gathered so far in class can be challenging sometimes- which is good because it keeps my classmates and I accountable.
As an advisor, he’s been easy to work and talk with. I’m not well-versed in academia and how it’s all structured; he’s been a great help in showing me what direction I should take with my major and minor. His solutions to certain issues I’ve had with previous scheduling brought me back on course to graduating in an efficient manner. I’m thankful to him and the content that he provides and has provided; I’m excited for his potential students.
-Micah Diaz, Class of 2023
Dr. Nicol is one of those professors that you come to appreciate the more you get to know him because you begin to realize just how valuable, thoughtful, caring, and helpful he is. I have had Dr. Nicol as a professor, an advisor, and throughout that time he has become one of my friends. Each class that I have taken with him has been different and unique in its own way because he takes the time to create and develop the material for each class so the students learn something, but more importantly, take something away from his classroom that will help them later on in life. All of his classes are a “do it yourself” style that helps us students grow exponentially but he is always there helping us, guiding us, and giving us advice that gives us the ability to learn even more. Throughout my time at Union, I have met many great people and I am proud to say Dr. Nicol is one of them because his hard work and dedication to his work do not go unnoticed but more importantly he cares about people and values the relationships he creates.
-Josh Bozoian, Class of 2021
Dr. Nicol taught some of the most unique classes I took both in undergrad and grad school at Union. In his digital marketing class, students were tasked with ideating and executing a live, semester-long social media campaign for a model business. In his marketing strategy class, over the course of the semester, teams of students worked through online simulation software that mimicked the decision-making process of an actual marketing role. In both cases, his lectures complemented the stage students were at with the semester-long projects, therefore helping us learn the most from the projects. His detailed lectures combined with guiding us as we worked through “real” situations drove student comprehension beyond the theoretical and best prepared us to go out and apply the lessons in workplaces.
More recently, I had the opportunity to work as a high school assistant/goalkeeper coach under “Coach Duncan”, who is head coach. Dr. Nicol knew I was a soccer player during my time at Union and that I was interested in coaching in the future. He acted as a great mentor and guide through my first coaching experience, and I learned a lot about everything required of coaches on a day-to-day and long-term level and how to meet players where they are.
Dr. Nicol takes care to provide holistic lessons with both theoretical and practical marketing experiences for his students. More importantly, beyond that, he invests in his students inside and outside the classroom. He takes the time to get to know them and their interests so that he can best help them down the road in their academic/professional careers and connect them with opportunities that would be a good fit for them.
-Anna Venckus, MBA, Class of 2021
During my time in Undergrad studies, I was a student of Dr. Nicol and worked on multiple projects with him. These projects ranged from academic research to projects supporting the local chamber of commerce. Dr. Nicol became a mentor of mine while I was in my undergrad studies. Dr. Nicol would have check-ins with me to see how I was holding up mentally during the semester. Upon graduation from Union, I would talk with him about possible market research positions, how to make myself look more employable to market research companies, as well as possibly furthering my education. During my time in the MBA program at Union, Dr. Nicol has been an incredible source of encouragement and knowledge while also allowing me to become more involved in his own research projects. Dr. Nicol has taken me under his wing while he has known me and has helped me in my personal life as well as in my professional life.
-Lucas Glidewell MBA, Class of 2021
Dr. Nicol was a great teacher in the classroom, but also offered great opportunities to connect outside of class. Always trying to recognize chances to give advice in multiple ways, such as: advice on career path, sports, future education, etc. Setting high standards for others, he offered support and great empathy to help initiate effort on all fronts, regardless of the size or timeline, of the project. I still stay in touch with Dr. Nicol after graduating in 2020 and he still facilitates a great environment anytime we talk, asking important questions and checking in about my own professional progress. Couldn’t recommend working or connecting with him enough!
-Johnathon Crawford, Class of 2020
During my time at Union University I had the privilege of having Dr. Nicol as not only my Marketing Professor but as well as my Mentor and Friend. In class, Dr. Nicol was always capable of keeping the whole class interested in his subjects, by having very interactive and practical classes, being able to showing his extensive knowledge of Marketing at all times. I will never forget the real life “simulation” of owning a car company that we had for several weeks in class, having to make real life decision week after week, each decision with an impact of how the sales of our cars would perform. As mentioned before, Dr. Nicol also helped me by always keeping an open door and by talking several times with me about my future and my masters. Apart from all his advice, he was very helpful with my masters admission at a top school. I can definitely say that Dr. Nicol shaped my college career and helped me to become who I am today, not only personally but also in my professional career at Deloitte.
-Jon Sain, Class of 2017
I had the opportunity to have Dr. Nicol as my marketing professor at Union University as well as a coach on the women’s soccer team my senior year of college. Not only does he have extensive knowledge, talent and experience in the marketing and soccer world, the quality that makes Dr. Nicol stand apart is his character. He truly shows interest in you as an individual and is willing to do anything he can to help you succeed. He always made a point to give me or other players individual feedback or corrections and listen to our player feedback for the coaches. As a professor he was very approachable, always willing to meet outside of class times to talk about an assignment or anything you needed help with and always there to guide my partner and I on our semester-long marketing research project. He is passionate about what he does and has continued to support me in my soccer career even after university. I’m very thankful for the impact he made on me in the classroom and on the soccer field and know he will continue to impact others anywhere he goes.
-Shelby High, Class of 2017
Dr. Nicol is extremely knowledgeable in his field and truly knows how to bring out the best in his students. I was lucky enough to be able to take two of his Marketing classes at Union University. In both classes, he challenged me to push myself further and opened up new ways of learning for me. Dr. Nicol is one of the best and I’ll always be grateful for the impact that he’s had on my life.
-Jon Sain, Class of 2018
Dr. Nicol was not only my professor, but my coach, mentor, and friend. He has always shown passion for what he is teaching, which made me and my fellow classmates eager to learn. His classes were very hands on, interactive, and applicable to real-world business processes and decisions. Aside from academics he was my soccer coach. Although I was only at Union University for 3 years, since I transferred, to this day I can reach out to seek advice. I encourage others to take his classes and learn the skills and concepts that he teaches.
-Victoria Lucido, Class of 2022
Dr. Nicol provided an excellent educational experience in his classes during my time at Union. He continually challenged me to step up in class and was always willing to help answer questions I had while studying for a business minor at the McAfee School of Business. Dr. Nicol facilitated excellent presentation and semester-long group projects and I have successfully implemented many of those real world lessons in various corporate settings. Even though I was not a business major, Dr. Nicol was able to create welcoming, yet challenging classroom environments which helped prepare me before venturing into a corporate career.
-Andrew Coy, Class of 2017
Dr. Nicol was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. He truly cares about his students’ success, spending countless hours with students outside of class to make sure they understand concepts. We also worked together on side projects outside of class, where he exercised incredible leadership to make sure projects were completed. His work with Union’s AMA club was organized and well thought-out. Cameron was by far one of the most impactful teachers I’ve learned from.
-Ted Murphy, Class of 2017
I had the pleasure of having Dr. Nicol as my soccer coach as well as a teacher in several marketing classes. His passion for marketing and care for his students is very evident. He is very approachable and he truly sets students up for post graduation success with the projects and material that he covers. I have grown a lot learning under him both in the classroom and on the soccer field and would highly recommend Dr. Nicol to anyone!!
-Austin Deloach, Class of 2019
This is an example of a lecture that my students are required to watch prior to coming to class. This allows class time to be better served through discussion of course content, digging deeper in analysis, or working on projects or assignments associated with the content. In this course, the follow up class would include a discussion on their research problems and how they can focus their project more narrow/broad and the implications of doing so.
During the Covid-19 pandemic we (like most everyone else) had to spend a semester away from our students. It was a very challenging time. My digital marketing class wanted to come up with a plan for our class to help keep students engaged with other peers and faculty members at Union University so for our class project, we took over the social media account of the McAfee School of Business.
A few of the class members and I had a little fun to raise the stakes at the beginning of the week. The video above is the behind the scenes and the video to the right is what was sent out across the @unionmsb feeds. Click the link to see a student-created post from our class!
These two photos are photos from online lectures that semester: wacky hat day and bring your pet to class day. Needless to say there was a lot of discussion about my class that year!
