Dr. Robert Allen King is the associate dean of undergraduate business programs and associate professor of marketing, as well as a Wilder professor of business at the Paul and Virginia Engler College of Business at West Texas A&M University.
King, being an alumni, knows what it means to be a buff. And he lends that understanding to the College of Business.
“I was a student here [at WT], I have a BBA in marketing for my undergrad, then I have a MBA in marketing, and a MSFE, which is our finance and economics master’s degree,” King said. “I got three degrees from WT. Then I went to ‘Ole Miss’ the University of Mississippi, to get my PhD. And my PhD is in marketing as well.”
Though King has spent a considerable amount of time in the business marketing world, he did not always know he wanted to pursue teaching.
“I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” King said. “Whenever I started out here as an undergraduate, I was an assistant professional. Then I moved over into marketing, and from there, Dr. Neil Terry, the department’s former dean, current provost, approached me and was like, ‘Do you think you would ever want to teach?’ And I had never thought about it. But he [Terry] brought on myself and another former student and we taught a course together. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
King’s classes vary but fall into the primary area of marketing strategy.
“I teach marketing strategy; it’s kind of firm-level stuff,” King said. “Where finance and accounting and marketing and management all kind of just interplay with each other. And so that’s where my dissertation and training lie. I also have some courses in advertising and the regular principles courses.”
The choice to come back to WT in a teaching position, seemed like the obvious path for King.
“To be honest, I really didn’t want to go anywhere else.” King said. “There’s potential other jobs that I could have gone to, but coming back to WT was an easy choice. I kind of see myself in the students here. Like going to Ole Miss, it was a great school, but I’m not that school. I’m a WT person. So I’m very glad I got the opportunity to come back.”
King offered some wisdom to students going to WT.
“The big reason I wanted to come back here [to WT], is that I was always able to speak to the faculty,” King said. “I was getting toward the end of my undergraduate time, so I spoke to my advisor, Dr. Syed Anwar (professor of marketing), and he asked, ‘Have you ever thought about grad school?’ He explained it to me, and the title of my book, if I ever wrote one, would be, ‘And they all clap.’ Because I was thinking of getting a second undergrad, and Dr. Anwar said to me, ‘Why not get a graduate degree? If you stay at an undergrad level, you’ll get your degree, and they will all clap, but then what?’ So, that’s why WT is important to me. And why it’s important to go speak with your faculty, have conversations with them, get to know them.”
