Baylor Marketing Professor Honored as 2023 Piper Professor for State of Texas

Contact: Lori Fogleman, Baylor University Media and Public Relations, 254-709-5959
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by Lexi Nitishin, student news writer, Baylor University Media and Public Relations

WACO, Texas (May 2, 2023) – Andrea L. Dixon, Ph.D., The Frank M. And Floy Smith Holloway Professor in Marketing and executive director of the Center for Professional Selling at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, has been honored as a Piper Professor of 2023 for the state of Texas by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation.

The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation honors 10 professors per academic year across Texas for their dedication to the teaching profession and their outstanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement. Each Piper Professor receives a certificate of merit, a gold pin and a $5,000 honorarium. 

Dixon was presented with the Piper Professor designation May 1 by Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D., marking the third consecutive year a Baylor faculty member has been honored as a Piper Professor. Journalism Professor Robert Darden and Alden Smith, Ph.D., professor of classics, Master Teacher and associate dean of the Honors College, were honored in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

“It is such an honor to be recognized in the company of State of Texas faculty,” Dixon said. “In fact, it’s incredibly humbling to know that each university/college identified their leading educators for the Piper Professor designation. Serving as a teacher-scholar at Baylor is incredibly rewarding, and I’m blessed to work with very talented students and a supportive network of faculty colleagues.”

Holding an endowed professorship, Dixon provides academic leadership for Baylor’s Center for Professional Selling. Since 2009, she has built Baylor’s sales center into one of the top programs in the country, commemorated its 25th Anniversary as the oldest sales center in the U.S., and edited the 30th Anniversary issue of the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. She is currently serving as co-editor for a special issue on sales curriculum for the Journal of Marketing Education.

“Being named a Piper Professor at the time when I’m co-editing this special issue on advances in sales curriculum is fantastic. I’ll be able to draw attention to the Piper Foundation and the Piper Professor award in my editorial byline,” Dixon said.

Honored by the academy

Dixon has received numerous teaching awards at Indiana University, the University of Cincinnati and Baylor, as well as by the academy. In 2020, she was named the Cornelia Marschall Smith Award recipient, which is presented annually to a Baylor faculty member who makes a superlative contribution to the learning environment at Baylor, including teaching, research and service. Her colleagues in the academy chose Dixon for the International Academy of Marketing Science's Marketing Teacher Award in 2008 and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Marketing Association Sales Special Interest Group (SIG) in2014.

Dixon’s research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Organizational Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Leadership Quarterly, European Journal of Marketing,  Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management and Journal of Marketing Education. Dixon's research in the Journal of Marketing was selected as the award-winning research in the sales area. She co-authored Strategic Sales Leadership and Sales Management (Third Edition), and her work on customer selection appears in The Oxford Handbook of Sales Management and Sales Strategy. 

In addition to these publications, Dixon has served as the regional editor for the European Journal of Marketing and currently serves on the editorial review boards for the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management,  Journal of Business Research,  Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice,  Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and Journal of Marketing Education.

Dixon has served on the boards of the AMA Academic Council, National Conference on Sales Management and the Global Sales Science Institute. She served as president of the University Sales Center Alliance and the AMA Sales SIG. She has served on several non-profit boards at the global, national and regional levels. At Baylor, she served as the chair of the President’s Task Force on Alternative Revenue, vice chair of Baylor’s Presidential Search Committee and as a Faculty Regent on the Baylor University Board of Regents.

Past Baylor faculty who have been recognized as Piper Professors include Charles G. Smith, 1960; Cornelia M. Smith, 1966; Daniel Sternberg, 1968; Glenn R. Capp, 1972; William J. Boswell, 1975; Robert L. Reid, 1978; Calvin A. Kent, 1988; Robert M. Baird, 1994; Raymond J. Cannon, 1997; Rachel H. Moore, 2003; Larry Kent Gilbreath, 2007; Robert F. Darden, 2021; and Alden Smith, 2022.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 90 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.

ABOUT THE HANKAMER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business strives to further God’s kingdom through the realm of business, using God-given gifts and academic talents to do so. Faculty and students conduct purposeful research and participate in experiential learning opportunities, all while operating in a Christ-centered mission. Undergraduate students can choose from 13 major areas of study. Graduate students can earn their MBA on their terms, either through the full-time, online or a Dallas-based executive program. The Business School also offers three Ph.D. programs in Information Systems, Entrepreneurship or Health Services Research. The School’s top-ranked programs make up approximately 25% of the University’s total enrollment. Visit the Hankamer School of Business website for more information.