December 13, 2011 by Janet Perez, NMSU News Center
New Mexico State University business professor B. Daily is the recipient of the Dr. John P. Loveland Professorship in Quality Management.
This is the first time the professorship, which was established in 2007, has not gone to its namesake, retired NMSU management professor John Loveland.
Daily currently is the director of the management department’s Ph.D. program and was the department head from 2006-2010. She received her Ph.D. in engineering management in 1991 from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, the same year she began her career at NMSU. Daily teaches operations and quality classes in the College of Business.
“It is an honor and privilege to be awarded the Loveland Professorship. John Loveland has been a special mentor to me throughout my career. He has distinguished himself as an academic leader at NMSU for over 40 years as a faculty member and now as an emeritus faculty,” Daily said. “John actually hired me 20 years ago when he was the department head in management.”
From 1965 to his retirement in 2002, Loveland served NMSU as a professor of management, head of the management department from 1983 to 1994 and director of key college programs. He also was director of the Center for Quality Management and Manufacturing.
The professorship was founded with a gift from a former Loveland student, Jeffrey Snyder, and his wife, Theresa. Their gift was matched by the state.
Snyder, who now lives in Michigan, was inspired to make his gift by Loveland’s dedication to teaching and his students. Snyder said he was especially struck when Loveland returned to work just two weeks after having a stroke and heart surgery with his “stitches still intact.”
“This was back in the 1980s when bypass surgery was far more invasive and not as refined as today’s procedures,” he said.
Snyder added that he learned the basics of business at the College of Business — basics he still uses today to run his own company.
With the Loveland Professorship in Quality Management, Daily plans to continue her research into quality management issues, particularly examining the impact human resources and organizational behavior have on implementing quality management programs. She will be working on this research with NMSU associate professor of management Jim Bishop.
Daily also will continue to study issues in arts and cultural organizations by looking at the cost of quality. She will be collaborating with Judith Weisinger, an associate professor of management, and accounting professor Sherry Mills.
“Finally, I have an interest in pursuing further research regarding the interaction of quality and environmental management programs,” Daily said.