Marketing Communication
Faculty
Business Faculty
Dan Dowdy
ddowdy@mbc.edu
Dan Dowdy, associate professor of business administration, advises and teaches in the Adult Degree Program at the Roanoke Center. His course offerings include Business Senior Seminar, Strategy and Sustainability in Business Decisions, Global Business, Personal Finance, Clean & Green: Business for a Sustainable Future, Business Practicum, and Business/Civic Engagement Internship. He also has taught Managing Human Resources, Organizational Behavior and Communication, Financial Management, and Marketing Principles. He coordinates study abroad programs for adult students. As director of corporate education, he is responsible for the Professional in Human Resource Management and Essentials of Human Resource Management non-credit certificate programs. He served as co-chair of the business administration department from 2002-2005 and will be co-chair in 2009-2010.
Prior to coming to MBC in 1993, Professor Dowdy owned an executive recruiting business in Roanoke. He also held corporate, division, and plant management positions with Owens-Illinois, a Fortune 100 packaging company.
Professor Dowdy is a member of the Roanoke chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management and the New Century Technology Council. He has been a long-time participant in the Association for Continuing Higher Education, an international organization in which he served as a regional chair. He is co-founder and treasurer of the Interfaith Hospitality Network of the Roanoke Valley, an organization that provides assistance and shelter for homeless families. He is a board member of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and he is a consultant in adult higher education and for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses in the Roanoke area.
Professor Dowdy holds a BA from Lynchburg College in business administration and German, and an MBA from the University of Hawaii.
Janet Ewing
jewing@mbc.edu
Claire Kent
ckent@mbc.edu
Claire Kent is an associate professor of business administration for Mary Baldwin College. She teaches management courses, particularly focusing on women in management, business strategy, organizational behavior, and human resource management. Professor Kent began teaching and advising in the Adult Degree Program’s Charlottesville Regional Center in 1991, where she also managed the MBC satellite operation for several years. She took a sabbatical leave in 2000 to complete a study on the perception of life balance and related factors. Upon her return in 2001, she assumed a faculty position in the residential program on the main campus. She serves as a leader in her department and has completed multi-year service as a Bertie Wilson Murphy Distinguished Chair in Business Administration. In addition to her work with MBC, she conducts workshops in the private sector on life balance, employee coaching, gender communication, sexual harassment education and prevention, and generational differences in the work place. She is currently conducting research on “Women and Sustainability.”
Prior to her affiliation with Mary Baldwin, Professor Kent served on the faculty of Piedmont Virginia Community College where she taught business courses and coordinated an internship and cooperative education program for the Business Technologies Division. Prior to her teaching career, she held a variety of positions in the business environment including jobs in telecommunications, advertising, and the medical supply industry. She received a BBA degree from James Madison University in 1979, summa cum laude, with a double major in management and marketing, and earned the MBA degree from James Madison in 1984. She is active in a number of professional associations, such as Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and The Academy of Management. Professor Kent is a past president of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and a past president of the Virginia Association of Cooperative Education. She currently serves as Lay Leader of her church, Crozet United Methodist Church. She is married and has two college-age daughters.
Bob Klonoski
rklonosk@mbc.edu
Bob Klonoski, assistant professor of business administration, advises and teaches in the Adult Degree Program at the Charlottesville Regional Center located at Piedmont Virginia Community College. His course offerings include the Business Senior Seminar, Business Strategies, and Business Law.
Prior to coming to MBC in 2006, Professor Klonoski served as the Vice President of Communications for the United States Senate Federal Credit Union. He has also served as the Director of Strategic Marketing for a foreign exchange company in Washington, DC, a vice president of Marketing and New Product Development for Citicorp in New York, and a vice president of Strategic Planning for Chemical Bank (now J. P. Morgan Chase) in New York. He also founded and ran several small businesses, including a food service business and a television production company. He currently serves on the Board of the University of Virginia Art Museum and the Clute Institute for Academic Research.
Professor Klonoski holds a BS in finance from Fairfield University, an MBA from the University of Connecticut, and a JD from Brooklyn Law School.
Sally Ludwig
sludwig@mbc.edu
Assistant professor Sarah H. Ludwig (Sally) practiced law with the firms of Smeltzer & Hart in Roanoke, Virginia, and Ludwig & Ludwig in Staunton, Virginia, before joining the Mary Baldwin faculty in 1992. Dr. Ludwig teaches Business Law I and II, Constitutional Law I and II, Mass Media Law and Ethics, and Judicial Process. She also serves as the Pre-legal advisor for Mary Baldwin students interested in law school or law related careers.
Dr. Ludwig received a BA from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, VA, and a MA in English from the University of Virginia. After teaching 11th and 12th grade English at Fairfax Hall School in Waynesboro for four years, she returned to school and received a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.
In addition to teaching part-time in the Residential College for Women, Dr. Ludwig also offers her courses as independent tutorials for Mary Baldwin Adult Degree Students. Her areas of special interest are First Amendment and Equal Protection law.
Catherine Ferris McPherson
cfmcpher@mbc.edu
Cathy Ferris McPherson is an associate professor of business administration and marketing communication for Mary Baldwin College, where she teaches and advises students in the Adult Degree Program at the Richmond Regional Center. She teaches courses in marketing principles and strategy, advertising, integrated marketing communication, business strategy, and the senior thesis. She joined the faculty in 1993.
Professor McPherson has 25 years experience in all aspects of marketing and is a professionally trained focus group moderator, specializing in the areas of retail and service marketing. As a business consultant, she has worked closely with companies such as Luck Stone, Dupont Fibers Federal Credit Union, World Access, and Goodwill Industries of Central Virginia in the area of brand strategy and development, as well as provided customer service and marketing training for individual retailers and shopping center developers, including Forest City Enterprises and Donohoe O’Brien. She conducts workshops and speaks frequently on the topic of building brands from within the organization, and branding as a business philosophy.
Ms. McPherson is a co-founder of Dress for Success Richmond, a non-profit organization that helps low-income women successfully prepare to enter the job market through self-esteem enhancement and professional skill development.
She holds a MBA from Marshall University (formerly WV Graduate College) and a BA in business/economics from Mary Baldwin College, and has the Certified Marketing Director designation through the International Council of Shopping Centers. Ms. McPherson is active in the Richmond chapter of the American Marketing Association, and is a past president of the organization.
Jane Pietrowski
jpietrow@mbc.edu
Jane T. Pietrowskiearned her BA and PhD in economics from the University of South Carolina. Her research interests are in the field of industrial organization and labor economics. She co-authored (with RP Wilder and HW Chappell) “R&D, Firm Size and Concentration: Evidence from the FTC Line of Business Survey.” For eleven years (1995-2006), she served as the Vice President of Business and Finance for Mary Baldwin College and brings with her the real-world experience of managing the business affairs of a non-profit organization.
Lallon Pond
lpond@mbc.edu
I graduated from the University of Georgia with a BS in animal science, then earned my MBA from Florida State University. 
I also completed doctoral work at Florida State in finance, leaving ABD (all but dissertation). Unfortunately, it remains ABD to this day (and that was a long time ago…).
I have been happily employed at Mary Baldwin College since the fall of 1992, initially serving in both the Residential College for Women (RCW) and the Adult Degree Program (ADP). In 2003, I became a full-time ADP faculty member, although I continue to teach on-campus classes in statistics and finance. As a Mary Baldwin faculty member, I have served in numerous administrative positions, currently serving as the co-chair of the Business Department and the Staunton regional director for ADP.
I particularly enjoy my collaborations with adult and young women students in furthering their understanding of numbers. Being conversant in the language of numbers gives us the ability to be critical readers of statistical information and to more fully analyze the financial health of business entities. I am very excited by the new sustainability focus of the business discipline. We will be helping the future leaders of our country evaluate the health and well-being of the economy in a more holistic way and with a longer-term perspective than is currently the case. In this capacity, I hope that our department, as well as our college, helps the students we work with to see the world as a place in which they make a difference every day.
Communication Faculty
Bruce Dorries
bdorries@mbc.edu
Assistant Professor of Communication Bruce Dorries serves as chair of the department. In addition to teaching Public Speaking, Mass Communication, Media Writing, Principles of Public Relations, Principles of Advertising, Communication Theory, and Senior Seminar in Communication, he writes a bi-weekly column about environmental issues for Staunton’s The News Leader, and contributes to other regional publications as a feature writer and photojournalist. His research interests include media coverage of people with disabilities and community service learning/civic engagement.
Dr. Dorries earned his BA in Journalism and History at Baylor University, his MA from The University of Corpus Christi State University (now Texas A&M at Corpus Christi), and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. Prior to graduate work from 1990-95 to earn a doctorate in communication, Dorries worked for six years in the public relations and journalism industries.
His interests and hobbies include: child rearing, tree raising, aerobics, yoga, cycling, paddle sports, camping, gardening, and study of Eastern philosophies and world religions.
Allan Moyé
amoye@mbc.edu
Assistant Professor and Director of Studios Allan Moyé has taught communication courses at Mary Baldwin College for nine years, including video production classes, film studies, screenwriting, and broadcasting. He received his undergraduate degree from East Carolina University. He studied screenwriting at Georgetown University and UCLA, filmmaking at the New York Film Academy, and has had extensive training in audio production. He earned his MFA in Drama/Communications from the University of New Orleans, in which program he studied under filmmaker Miroslav Mandic in Prague, Czech Republic.
Moyé also teaches screenwriting for the University of New Orleans’ Low Residency MFA program and has been an instructor at UNO’s Summer Seminars in Madrid, Spain.
He is a two-time recipient of the Governor’s Award for Screenwriting at the Virginia Festival of American Film and has won awards from America’s Best Screenplay competition and the Wisconsin Screenwriter’s Forum. Two of his narrative screenplays, "The Blue Man" and "The Good Neighbor" have been optioned in Hollywood. Moyé has produced and directed various short films and been a contributor to many narrative and documentary projects. He is front man and songwriter for the rock ‘n roll band, The Findells.
