It is that time of year we honor another extraordinary group of faculty members for their accomplishments in leadership, service, research and teaching.

Congratulations to this year’s faculty award winners!

2024 Distinguished Teaching Award

John McGrath

John McGrath and Paul Schwager

John McGrath, Ph.D. is an instructor of marketing and management at the School of Business. He joined the College of Charleston in 2021, bringing a mix of real-world industry experience combined with a rich academic teaching background. He has taught undergraduate marketing courses such as Marketing Concepts and Marketing Management, as well as a core MBA class, Managing and Leading an Organization. McGrath is widely praised by his students for his student-centered, experiential teaching. As further evidence of his care for students, he took on the role of advisor to the student American Marketing Association chapter working to get them national accreditation and serves as an internship coordinator where he’s grown the total number of internships for entrepreneurship, management and marketing.

2024 Distinguished Service Award

Esta Shah

Esta Shah

Esta Shah, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing, joined the College of Charleston in 2018. She serves as director of the Schottland Scholars program, a one-year leadership training program designed for top performing School of Business seniors. Shah’s teaching interests relate to consumer behavior, advertising and marketing strategy, and international marketing. Her passion is with students and mentoring young research scholars. She personally advises students on individual research projects and encourages collaboration. She served on the Faculty Advisory Committee as a co-chair and designed and executed a brand development program to engage faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders in the rebranding process including workshops, open forums, and online surveys.

2024 Distinguished Research Award

Kelley Cours Anderson

Kelley Anderson and Paul Schwager

Kelley Cours Anderson, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of marketing in the Department of Management and Marketing at College of Charleston. Her scholarship focuses on how emerging digital media technology impacts the way we consume and build markets and is informed and motivated by 15 years of industry experience. Her research interests include consumer experiences and emerging technology, such as AI-enabled platforms, virtual reality, and social media. Her working papers have been honored with several awards including the Jim McAlexander Award (2022, Consumer Culture Theory Conference), the Future Trends in Consumer Behavior Track Best Paper (2022, AMA-Winter Conference) and the Jane K. Fenyo Best Student Paper Award (2020, Association of Marketing Science Conference). Additionally, Anderson has started a student research subject pool to produce better research opportunities for faculty and Honors students alike.

2024 Distinguished Research Award

Purushottam Meena

Purushottam Meena and Paul Schwager

Purushottam Meena, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of supply chain management. His research has won several awards and his research articles have appeared in journals such as Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Meena’s primary areas of expertise include supply chain risk management, supplier/vendor selection, sourcing strategies and buyer-supplier relationships. In the past three years, Meena has published eight high quality journal articles. Out of those eight, four of them were published in “A” journals ranked by ABDC, and seven of them were SJR Q1 journals.

2024 Distinguished Adjunct Teaching Award

Franklin Czwazka

Franklin Cwazka and Paul Schwager

Franklin Czwazka, M.A., M.P.A, is an adjunct professor in the Department of Supply Chain and Information Mangement.  He is a business analyst/consultant at the College of Charleston in the Information Technology Portfolio Mangement office. In 2023, he taught four sections of Management Information Systems. His dedication to working closely with students, coupled with his experience in the field, provides a great learning experience for the students. His teaching evaluations consistently reflect his outstanding ability to engage and inspire students.

2024 Howard F. Rudd, Jr. Distinguished Faculty Award for Service Leadership

Chen-Huei Chou

Chen-Huei Chou and Paul Schwager

Established in 2013 in honor of founding Dean Howard Rudd to recognize outstanding, high-performing B-School professors who lead by example and advance the mission and global vision of the School of Business.

Chen-Huei Chou, Ph.D. serves as chair of the Department of Supply Chain and Information Management. He founded the Certiport Certification Program in 2018 which provides official Microsoft Excel certification to both our undergraduate and graduate students. Thousands of students benefit from this program. Since 2014, he has served as the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Knowledge Engineering. He also served as a board member of the Chinese Association in greater Charleston since 2011.