WWU's College of Business and Economics Selects Chris Sandvig as its 2011 Distinguished Teaching Fellow

Contact: Craig Tyran, Western Washington University College of Business and Economics, (360) 650-2207 or craig.tyran@wwu.edu.

BELLINGHAM  – Western Washington University’s College of Business and Economics has selected Chris Sandvig of the Department of Decision Sciences as its 2011 Distinguished Teaching Fellow. 

The Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award recognizes a tenured faculty member in the College of Business and Economics who has demonstrated sustained excellence through his or her contributions to the CBE teaching mission and to student learning in the fields of business and/or economics while at the College of Business and Economics.

Sandvig, who is an associate professor in the area of Management Information Systems (MIS), has taught at Western since 1997. He earned his bachelor’s degree from University of Oregon, his master’s from UCLA, and his doctorate from the University of Washington. 

Sandvig teaches in Western’s Internet Studies program.  The courses that he teaches range from an introductory website development course to an advanced senior-level course on E-commerce systems management. To support student learning, he incorporates an experiential learning approach into all of his courses. 

Sandvig has been recognized in the past for his contributions to education; he is a recipient of the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award for Western’s College of Business and Economics and has also received recognition from the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance for the course design of his web development course. 

As noted by Steve Ross, chair of the Department of Decision Sciences, “Chris Sandvig is an exemplary teacher and scholar. He brings great knowledge and passion to his teaching duties. His students and colleagues benefit from his careful and thoughtful attention to detail in both the current practice as well as emerging trends in the field.  He teaches a practical subject in a way that stimulates student thinking beyond the instant problem, developing both their skills at web development as well as their abilities to solve the sort of problems that will face them throughout their careers in technology.”

Sandvig has published journal articles related to web system development education including articles in the Journal of Information Systems Education and Campus-wide Information Systems.  In addition he has published education-related articles regarding the determinants of MIS student starting salary and MIS program admission criteria.  Sandvig is a long-time member of Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) and has also been involved with the International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS). 

For more information contact Craig Tyran at (360) 650-2207 or craig.tyran@wwu.edu .