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College of Business
AUM College of Business is committed to supporting our students’ pursuits of excellence in the various areas of business by providing programs in Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Finance, General Business, Human Resource Management, Information Systems, Management, and Marketing.
It is our mission to prepare students for successful careers by providing quality educational opportunities utilizing dedicated faculty, stakeholder collaboration, and small class sizes.
Accolades & Awards
Meet Our Faculty
Ross Dickens
Dean, Professor | College of Business
Dr. Ross Dickens is currently Dean and Professor of Finance at the College of Business at the University of Auburn at Montgomery. He has held faculty positions at the University of Tennessee at Martin (where he was also the Dean of the College of Business & Global Affairs), the University of South Alabama (where he was also the Chair of the Department of Economics & Finance) and Louisiana Tech University. He earned his PhD in Finance at the University of Tennessee ? Knoxville, his MBA from the University of North Carolina ? Chapel Hill, and his B.S. in Business Administration from Presbyterian College. Before attending graduate school, he worked in the banking industry in South Carolina (first with the First National Bank of South Carolina and, then, with South Carolina National Bank after its purchased of FNBSC) and has taught at the Graduate School of Banking at Louisiana State University and the Alabama Graduate School of Banking. He has published over thirty articles in peer reviewed journals as well as having published Contestable Markets Theory, Competition, and the United States Banking Industry (1996) with Garland Publishing Inc., New York along with authoring a chapter on Dividend Policy in Regulated Industries in Blackwell Companion to Dividends and Dividend Policy (2009). His research includes over forty presentations and proceeding publications at academic meetings. He has served on multiple editorial review boards for academic journals and as of October 2018 rotated off the Financial Management Association?s Board of Directors after six years of service as the Student Chapter Committee Chair. When living in Mobile, he was regularly sought for comments on economic and financial matters for local television and newspaper outlets. He is a member of numerous honor societies including Beta Gamma Sigma (business scholastic honor society) and Phi Kappa Phi.
James M. Locke
Department Chair/Assistant Professor
James M. Locke
Department Chair/Assistant Professor | College of Business
Donald Amoroso
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Donald Amoroso
Distinguished Teaching Professor | College of Business
Dr. Amoroso is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Innovation and Strategy at Auburn University Montgomery, Alabama, Founder and CEO of Axcell LLC Consulting Group. Dr. Amoroso received his MBA and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1984 and 1986, respectively. Dr. Amoroso has authored 54 refereed journal articles, 12 refereed book chapters and 88 conference proceedings, and 5 books. He has been Research Fellow at Asian Institute of Management in Manila, Philippines and Visiting Professor of Nagoya University of Commerce & Business, Japan. He has been Visiting Professor at Tokyo Tech University, Japan, Tsukuba University, Japan, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra Australia, and INFOTEC, Mexico City. His working experience included working in GE Capital as a director of Enterprise Solutions and with Solista/GartnerGroup as a consulting partner. Dr. Amoroso is currently working in Japan and the Philippines to consult with telecom organizations on consumer adoption and the mobile strategy ecosystem. He worked with the Center for the Commercialization of Advanced Technologies (CCAT) in Washington D.C. and San Diego where he commercialized over 24 products and assisted in the start up of 14 new companies.
Dr. Amoroso has published in journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Data Base, Information & Management, Asian Pacific Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology Management, International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Management, Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, International Journal of E-Business Research, International Journal of Technology Diffusion, and International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management. Dr. Amoroso is on the editorial board of key journals and Associate Editor for the Journal of E-Adoption and Information Systems Management Journal. He was inducted into the Who’s Who Worldwide in 1995 for contributions to international organizations changing the distribution of technology information within the Pacific Rim.
Dr. Amoroso conducts seminars and/or teaches in the areas of strategy, innovation and creativity, big data with data analytics, data analysis, leadership, change management, HR management, business process modeling, competitive intelligence, and project management. Dr. Amoroso has consulted with over 67 international organizational executives (such as GE Japan, BMW Japan, Globe and Smart telecommunication firms in the Philippines, and banks and financial institutions) working with CEOs and CIOs to develop strategic plans, leadership development and marketing strategies, enterprise resource management systems, change management programs, and projects for information technology. Dr. Amoroso is currently working in Japan and the Philippines to consult with telecom organizations on consumer adoption and the mobile strategy ecosystem.
Jay Claiborne
Visiting Assistant Professor
Jay Claiborne
Visiting Assistant Professor | College of Business
Tewhan Hahn
Professor; Distinguished Chair | College of Business
Dr. Hahn is the distinguished teaching professor in finance at Auburn University at Montgomery. He joined AUM in 2006 after serving at University of Idaho from 2001 to 2006 and at University of Alabama in 2021. At AUM, he has taught primarily intermediate financial management (FINA3620) and entrepreneurial finance (FINA 3500) for undergraduate and financial valuation (FINA6630) for graduate. As the faculty advisor to investment club, he coached student teams to participate in competitions such as CFA Institute Research Challenge and Private Business Valuation Challenge and took students to investment forums like Global Asset Management Education (G.A.M.E.). Dr. Hahn obtained his M.B.A. degree from University of Missouri at Columbia in 1995 and his Ph. D. in finance from University of Alabama in 2000. He has published more than 30 academic research articles in the referred academic journals such as Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, and Journal of Financial Research, and Review of Financial Economics. He has been awarded numerous research grants and recognitions. He is currently the editor of Southern Business and Economic Journal published by the college of business at AUM.
Christine Harrington
Interim Associate Dean, Associate Professor
Christine Harrington
Interim Associate Dean, Associate Professor | College of Business
Xiaoyun He
Associate Professor | College of Business
Zsch Jourdan
Associate Professor | College of Business
Mary Kiker
Professor | College of Business
Dr. Mary Kiker is a Professor of Management who started teaching at AUM in 1999. She has a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Florida, and a BSBA and MBA from Creighton University. She teaches a variety of classes in Management at the undergraduate and graduate level, including Organizational Behavior, Managing People, Human Resource Management, Strategic Human Resource Management, and Training and Development. Her research interests revolve around servant leadership, organizational citizenship behaviors, interview validity, and job choice. She has published many articles in high quality journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, and Journal of Marketing and Management Research.
Dong-Yop Oh
Associate Professor | College of Business
Dr. Dong-Yop Oh is teaching Business Quantitative Methods at the College of Business, Auburn University at Montgomery as an associate professor. He received his Master’s and Ph.D. in Applied Statistics from the University of Alabama. Dr. Oh has conducted research in the area of Time Series and in particular, the development of unit root and cointegration tests. Another research interest lies in Ensemble methods for classification problems which attempt to build predictive models that can be used to optimally assign observations to classes or categories. He is involved in service by refereeing journals as an editorial review board member and a reviewer. Dr. Oh has published research articles in journals including Applied Economics, Communications in Statistics-Simulation and Computation, Computational Statistics, Empirical Economics, et al.
Vickie Riley
Administrative Associate
Vickie Riley
Administrative Associate | College of Business
Roger Ritvo
Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus & Adjunct Professor | College of Business
Roger A. Ritvo, Ph.D. is the Distinguished Research Professor of Management Emeritus at Auburn University Montgomery (AL) and was presented with the Teaching Excellence Award in the College of Business for the 2013-2014 academic year. He also serves as a Lecturer in the MBA and Health Administration programs at the University of Colorado Denver’s Business School.
Professor Ritvo has held faculty and administrative roles at Case Western Reserve University (Assistant Dean), Cleveland State University (program director), the University of New Hampshire (Dean) and Auburn University Montgomery (Vice Chancellor). Selected professional recognitions include being named the University of New Hampshire’s “Administrator of the Year” and receiving the Certificate of Merit by its Women’s Commission. He has served as Senior Policy Advisor to two Secretaries of the US Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, DC.
His primary research focus is on nonprofit organizational governance and leadership. Recent scholarship has focused on NGOs in post-Soviet societies. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Ukrainian Catholic University (2017) and was previously selected twice as a Fulbright Scholar: Azerbaijan (2005) and then to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia (2012). Additional research and teaching have been in Latvia (Fall 2014). A prolific author, Professor Ritvo has published nine books and numerous articles, including many co-authored with colleagues and several with students. In addition, Professor Ritvo has taught and conducted training programs in Sierra Leone, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Republic of Georgia, Trinidad, Canada, Ukraine, South Africa, India and England. He served two terms on the Board of Directors of NTL Institute where his colleagues named him as an “Emeritus” Member in 2013.
Roger is proud to volunteer with his daughter at the United States Figure Skating Association national championships where he opens and closes the door so the skaters can go on the ice when called.
Michael White
Senior Lecturer | College of Business
Bio Information and Philosophy-
I have been a practicing lawyer in the Montgomery area for over forty years. My experience working in various legal offices extends beyond those forty years. I began my legal career working in Washington, D.C. for United States Senator Howell Heflin on the Senate Judiciary Committee and then as a staff attorney for the Hon. H. Randall Thomas, Circuit Judge for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. I opened my private law office in May 1982 and formed partnerships with other lawyers beginning in 1983. I handled all types of litigation and appeals in state and federal court. For more than six years I served as the General Counsel for the Alabama Department of Education as Deputy Attorney General. I left the Department of Education to become Chief Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for Education for the State of Alabama within the Attorney General’s office. I have been trained as a Mediator and Arbitrator as well as a certified Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) for Alabama courts.
I graduated from Cumberland School of Law and the Brock School of Business, Samford University with simultaneously earned degrees, Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.). Since 1983, I have taught various courses at AUM within the College of Business. Yes, I was teaching business law long before many of you were born. I joined the faculty full time in 2015 as Senior Lecturer of Business Law. For five summers (2015-2019), I was honored to be invited to travel to and teach in the People’s Republic of China at the Hubei University of Economics. It is in the city of Wuhan (population over 10 million) with which everyone is now familiar. I presented a course very similar to the one all business students take, but with some comparisons of the Chinese and U.S. legal systems. During recent summer terms (2020 – 2022) I taught the course entirely online to students in Wuhan. Some of these students are now here in the United States taking courses at AUM and other universities completing undergraduate and graduate degrees. This experience has been most rewarding and enlightening for a country boy from Alabama.
I teach because I enjoy sharing the challenges of the law and want my students to gain greater confidence and practical knowledge to navigate many legal areas without catastrophe. My philosophy is that if we can remove some of the mystery surrounding legal issues and the corresponding stress of ignorance, then solutions will often present themselves. One thing I have learned over my long career as a practicing attorney is that court rulings and laws will definitely change over time. Some court decisions will be difficult to understand. Having knowledge of the processes and methods of our legal system is often the greatest strength for a person when life’s circumstances and the legal system collide. I further believe this knowledge of the system is an essential characteristic of many successful business leaders.
Clearly, many things have dramatically changed in the legal world during my career, including the way we provide classroom instruction and offer resources in these endeavors. I never considered that a cyber environment, called the “internet”, would allow for the virtual presentation of the materials in the courses I was asked to teach, but here we are. This is a continuing adventure and I am excited about the many possibilities to innovate and learn. When I consider how the internet and technology have changed the way I practice law, conduct research and deliver even the most simple of documents to our courts, it is only natural that we fully embrace the opportunities to expand the classroom experience and capture the incredible power of this technology. The internet clearly offers students and instructors opportunities to find and utilize more resources with greater flexibility in learning.
I will end my career at AUM and cherish every group of students I have been privileged to challenge. If something we have discussed in class helps them avoid a situation that could have been a major distraction in their lives, then one of my primary goals is achieved.
Lucy Zhang
Assistant Professor
Lucy Zhang
Assistant Professor | College of Business
