Additional Roles Faculty Lead for Faculty Development and Experiential Learning
Faculty Member Champlain College Online 
Pronouns He/Him/His
Education University of Vermont, Doctor of Education; Providence College, Bachelor of Arts; University of Vermont, Master of Arts Teaching; University of Vermont, Master of Business Administration
Areas of Expertise
  • Strategy and Innovation
  • Leadership and Organization Development
  • Experiential Learning and Field-Based Capstone Projects
Connect Online LinkedIn
Personal Website
Home State South Burlington, VT
Fun Fact About Me Completed upwards of 150 triathlons
Contact Remote

Biography

Don is a Professor of Strategy, Innovation and Business Capstone Experiences at Champlain College Online (CCO). In addition to his teaching duties, where he is CCO’s Senior Faculty Lead for both faculty development and experiential learning. He holds three graduate degrees from the University of Vermont; a Master of Arts in Teaching (Secondary Education), an MBA (Quantitative Decision-Making), and an Ed.D. (Reflective Learning in Action Learning Teams). His interest is in reflective learning’s role in decision making, innovation and professional development and its integration with strength-based approaches to innovation, such as Appreciative Inquiry. In 2021 Don published “Doing by Learning: The business capstone experience of a real-world work-based project” which is used currently as the textbook for business and leadership capstone courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels both on-campus and at CCO.

Don brings decades of leadership in both education and business. Previous to joining Champlain College in 2000, he had owned, co-owned or assumed a leadership role with multiple small businesses including residential design/building, hospital systems software, organizational development, strategic marketing research, electric and gas industries and renewable energy. In a corporate setting he led in the design and deployment of many of Vermont’s first successful large scale, nationally recognized residential energy efficiency programs and led in the development of multiple “intrapreneurship” businesses including standby power generation, fiber optic communication systems and propane gas retailing.

In education, Don’s journey began in public education by working with middle/high school students while coaching cross-country ski racing and distance running. He joined Champlain after ten years of serving as an adjunct instructor and visiting lecturer at Trinity College and the University of Vermont in the areas of Finance, Managerial Economics, Marketing Research, Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Development and Computer Applications. At Champlain, Don has designed, built and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate programs including Business, Management, e-Business, Masters in Managing Innovation and Information Technology and the Masters in Business Administration. As Champlain’s first Associate Provost of Graduate Studies, he oversaw the design, launching and successful management of the college’s portfolio of ten graduate programs built around his self-designed and proprietary pedagogy called Integrated Reflective Practice. He currently teaches Business Strategy, Innovation in Organizations, Organizational Behavior, Leadership along with all capstone projects for both undergraduate Business Administration majors and Champlain’s MBA Program that he founded.

Don’s previous role in the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry represented an exciting intersection of his interests in education, organizational development and reflective, work-based learning. As the center’s first Director of Business Development he had the opportunity to work with multiple stakeholders and clients to design programs that accelerate organizational success through the use of Appreciative Inquiry. His Organizational Development certifications include Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator, Lominger Leadership Competencies, the Emotional Social Competencies Inventory (ESCI), Prosci Change Management, Stategyzer’s Business Model Canvas/Customer Value Proposition and, of course, Appreciative Inquiry.

Don’s outside interests include reading, nature photography, canoeing with his wife, kayaking and spending time with his children and five grandchildren. While “retired” from serious competition, he was formerly a dedicated triathlete and cross-country ski racer who still engages in citizens’ flat water canoe and cross country ski racing with an emphasis on fun participation. In the spring of 2018 Don was on sabbatical during which he wrote a book that is a student guide to researching and writing Project-Based/Experiential Business Capstones. The book was published in 2021 and is used currently by both undergraduate and MBA, Leadership and Organizational Development capstone students at Champlain. While writing this book, the sabbatical time was spent in Florida where he and his wife added approximately thirty rivers and wildlife refuges to their portfolio of paddling sites that they have explored in the state.

Publications & Abstracts

Doing by Learning: The Business Capstone Experience of a Real World, Work-based Project

What are your hobbies?

Woodworking, reading, nature photography, hiking, paddling, x-c skiing

Curriculum Vitae

READ MY CV

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