Ethan Waples
Ethan Waples, Ph.D., serves as the Associate Dean and Director of the Master of Business Administration program of the Department of Business at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Ethan Waples, Ph.D., serves as the Associate Dean and Director of the Master of Business Administration program of the Department of Business at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Kip Wotkyns, MBA, is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Production at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He teaches intro to journalism and mass media; and ethical and legal issues in journalism.
Wotkyns has 24 years of experience as a journalist. He worked for Time Inc. for 14 years, was a reporter for FORTUNE magazine and a copy editor for TIME magazine. Wotkyns was also the president of Leman Publications Inc., a magazine publishing company formerly owned by Rodale Press Inc. He joined MSU Denver in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. He is a member of Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication and Society of Professional Journalists, as well as faculty advisor for Colorado Press Association.
His research interests include journalism, convergent journalism, social media and drone journalism. Some of Wotkyns’s more recent published works are “Drone Journalism: A Flight Plan for Curriculum Development” in the 7th Annual International Conference on Journalism & Mass Communications in 2018 and “New, Bold and Tenuous: Ethiopian Journalism Education” in Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. He has given several presentations on journalism around the country and in Singapore.
Wotkyns received his Master of Business Administration in media management and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 1979 and a bachelor’s in English magna cum laude from Stanford University in 1976. He is a licensed remote pilot airman.
Randyl (Randi) Smith, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include professional ethics, service-learning, and human sexuality.
Smith is a licensed psychologist and a licensed clinical social worker. She has been working in the mental health field since 1987, providing services in a variety of settings ranging from inpatient psychiatric hospitalization to school-based counseling to home-based family therapy. Smith has her own private practice where she focuses on adult and adolescent treatment, and on marital/couples therapy. She is the chair of the Psychologist Examiner Board for the State of Colorado. Smith has worked with various community partners since she started teaching, including Colorado High School Charter, New Foundations Nonviolence Center, the Denver Rescue Mission, Urban Peak Denver, the Karis Community and CHARG.
Smith received her doctoral in counseling psychology from the University of Denver in 1999 after completing her doctoral internship at Denver General Hospital (now Denver Health Medical Center). She also received a master’s in social work from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s in human ecology from Cornell University.
Alexandre Padilla, Ph.D., is the chair and professor of the Department of Economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
William B. Mesa is an assistant professor in the Department of Accounting at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His research interests revolve around accounting, data analytics, the ethics of technology on the accounting profession, and integrating strategic management leveraged with relevant accounting practices.
Before coming to teach at MSU Denver, Mesa taught strategic management as a visiting professor at Chongqing University, Dalian University of Technology, and Xihua University in China. He is also the principal and founder of Triangulation Group, LLC where he serves as a consultant for SMEs in the capacity of vision, strategy, and core values planning in conjunction with leveraging analytics. He has consulted with many organizations, including Colorado Cider Company, National Jewish Health, Blue Ocean Enterprises, Jefferson County Human Services, Littleton Symphony Orchestra and Pet Scoop Services.
Mesa received a doctor of management in Strategy and Organizational Behavior from the Colorado Technical University and a masters in Accountancy from New Mexico State University.
Elizabeth McVicker, Ph.D., J.D., is a professor in the Department of Management at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
She serves as an advisor for student internships, independent studies, individualized degree program majors; and provides academic advice to management majors, MBA students and students interested in pursuing a study of law. McVicker was instrumental in the creation of MSU Denver’s One World One Water Center (OWOW) and the Water Studies curriculum. She also has her own practice.
Her service to the community includes serving on the boards of a water conservancy district, a water enterprise authority, a nation-wide water consortium serving coalitions and collaborations focused on water quality and restoration after major fires and floods and a state-wide basin roundtable. In 2011, McVicker received the Outstanding Women Award from the Institute of Women’s Studies and Services at MSU Denver, as well as the College of Business Dean’s Award for Overall Faculty Excellence.
Her research interests include legal issues surrounding constitutional law, employment and labor law; and water law within the context of regional, national and international perspectives.
McVicker received her juris doctorate from University of Denver, doctorate in Spanish language and literature from New York University, master’s from Johns Hopkins University and bachelor’s from University of Texas. She is a licensed attorney in the state of Colorado in good standing and is current with all required continuing legal education classes.
Vijay Mascarenhas, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include philosophy of mind and consciousness, ethics, and Just War theory. He currently teaches Introduction to Philosophy and Philosophy of Mind.
His published work includes “God and the Good in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics” in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy and “Intentionality, causality, and self-consciousness: Implications for the naturalization of consciousness” in Metaphyscia, among others.
He earned his doctorate degree from Yale University in 1999.
Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of English and director of the Writing Center at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
She began her teaching career at Red Rocks Community College in 2001 where she worked as a writing center coordinator while also addressing writing curriculum, tutoring and composition.
Kleinfeld conducts research on academic rhetoric, composition pedagogy and theory, digital rhetoric, intellectual property, and multigenre and multimodal composition. She has co-authored two textbooks: “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric” and “The Bedford Book of Genres: A Rhetoric and Reader.” Kleinfeld has also written numerous essays, peer-reviewed journal articles and edited handbooks. She has done many presentations at conferences and held work’shops. Kleinfeld is a member of: International Society for Humor Studies, Alliance for Computers and Writing, International Writing Centers Association, Colorado and Wyoming Writing Center Association and eLearning Consortium of Colorado.
Kleinfeld received her doctorate in English studies and master’s in English from Illinois State University and a bachelor’s in history from Bradley University.
Brendan Kendall, Ph.D., is a professor and associate chair in the Department of Communication Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise are in organizational communication, focusing on workplace and professional communication.
Kendall began teaching at MSU Denver in 2015 where he is also serving as co-chairperson and team lead for the President’s Transition Sustainability Team and the President’s Advisory council of Academic Effectiveness and Student Success. In addition to MSU Denver, he consults for Assemble Consulting, LLC and Museo de las Americas of Denver. Kendall also provides leadership and presentation coaching as a freelance consultant.
His research is currently focused on exploring ethics in organization communication, communicating ‘employability’ and strategic image management in the craft brewing industry. Kendall has co-authored the book “Just a Job? Communication, Ethics, and Professional Life” and has been published in academic journals including Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture and The Critical Journal of Organization, Theory, and Society. He has also participated on panels for organizations including the National Communication Association, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.
Kendall received his doctorate and master’s in communication from University of Utah in 2011 and 2005, respectively, and a bachelor’s in communication studies from University of Montana in 2003.
Samuel Jay, Ph.D., is a professor of Communication Studies and interim executive director of Online Learning at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Jay also serves as executive director of Emergent Technology and Academic Transformation, a role that involves exploring the integration of generative AI.
He joined MSU Denver in 2011 as an adjunct professor and went full-time in 2014. Jay opened his own consulting company in 2015 called Jay Communication Solutions helping individuals and small businesses market themselves. He has developed and implemented content marketing campaigns, handled social media accounts of NCAA Division I sports teams and coached and managed projects for varied clients.
His research focus areas include how digital communication technologies and their users generate and circulate emotional energy and how that energy adds rhetoric effectiveness to disparate discourses, including politics, sports, and economics.
Jay received his doctorate in communication studies with a focus on rhetoric and a minor in emergent digital practices from University of Denver in 2014, a master’s in radio-television-film from University of North Texas in 2009 and a bachelor’s in cinema and comparative literature from University of Iowa in 2006.