It is with great sadness that we announce that former Faculty Senate President (2010-2012) and longtime University of Denver professor, Don McCubbrey, passed away on September 21 at the age of 86. He served as aClinical Professor Emeritus in the Department of Business Information and Analytics in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver (DU). Across his career Don was a trailblazer in Management Information Services (MIS), serving as founding chair of the Department of MIS (1984-2001) and helping establish the MBA e-commerce concentration in 2000.
In 1984, McCubbrey joined Daniels as a senior lecturer and was later promoted to clinical professor. “Daniels was adding experienced industry people to the faculty as it ramped up its information systems curriculum, which was intriguing,” he recalled.
Along the way, he received an MS from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia and a PhD in information systems from the University of Maribor in Slovenia.
McCubbrey’s teaching and research focused on e-commerce and strategic uses of information technology. McCubbrey was an avid researcher and respected leader. He served as director of the Center for the Study of Electronic Commerce, a research hub for DU and collaborating companies. He authored many articles and case studies in journals such as “Information Technology” and “People and Management Information Systems Quarterly.” He is the coauthor of two textbooks, “Management Information Systems for the Information Age” and “Foundations of Business Systems.” Don was also a co-founder and director emeritus of the Colorado Technology Association (CTA).
From 1995 through 2006, Don also served as Director of the Center for the Study of Electronic Commerce at Daniels. Cross-disciplinary by design, the Center undertook projects that had research value to the University and practical value to a collaborating company. He was co-project leader of the Global Text Project. Global Text is an inter-university project engaging the worldwide academic and practitioner communities in the development of free open-content, editorially-controlled textbooks in all undergraduate university disciplines targeted at students in developing economies. As of December 2014, over 100 books are in the library. In recent years the focus of the Global text Project has been translating open content textbooks into other languages, in particular Arabic, Chinese and Spanish. A video on student involvement in the Spanish translation is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxKoavqW5-U .
Don’s concern for students was always evident. He was a proponent of Open Educational Resources before most of us had heard that term. He volunteered his time and expertise in developing and advocating for OERs, which was ultimately about Don advocating for greater educational access for all students.
From 2010 – 2012 Don served as Faculty Senate President. As senate president Don quickly worked to establish and then deliver on four “stretch goals”: a) developing a faculty led continuous improvement process in teaching and learning; b) creating a more cosmopolitan campus; c) increased adoption of open access and open educational resources; and d) increased support for interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship. Don’s leadership guided the faculty towards lasting innovation in each of these areas. Those on the senate who worked closely with Don remember him with fondness for his warmth, humor, amazing ability to lead, and his “Scottish Highlander” ringtone!
Over the years, McCubbrey has earned many accolades. In 1999, he received the Daniels Award for Excellence, Professor of the Year. In 2002, he received the Bob Newman Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Technology Community, and his effort to co-found the Colorado Technology Association earned a gubernatorial proclamation naming May 23, 2002, Professor Don McCubbrey Day.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, October 16th at 1 pm at Horan & McConaty Funeral Services, 1091 So Colorado Blvd.
We honor Dr. Don McCubbrey for his service to Colorado and the University and offer our deepest sympathies to his wife, Jan, family, friends, colleagues, and students.