Core values at work: Professor Dave Spencer receives community award for volunteerism

Dave Spencer, assistant professor of business, was honored on Sept. 25 with the Pam Kettering Spirit of Volunteerism Award from United Way of Greater Yankton. "I was a little surprised, because they take nominations through United Way throughout the year, and there are some really good people that have been nominated," Spencer said. "And of course, there are many well-deserving people who weren't nominated, too, in this community. And I know the Ketterings; they're very involved in the community. So that name means a lot."

Spencer is known for incorporating the Yankton community into his classes. Numerous times throughout the year, Spencer invites local business owners or employees to lecture in his class. Last year, Spencer helped make a concept dreamt up by his entrepreneurship students into reality and invited four of Yankton's volunteer organizations to campus to share ideas and resources. This meeting happens four times a school year. Spencer also informs students of volunteer opportunities around town, sometimes even extending a personal invitation to those he knows would be a good fit. 

Spencer volunteers in the Yankton community through the Yankton Morning Optimist Club and the Trinity Lutheran Church. He was also instrumental in fundraising for the Yankton Area Ice Association/Kiwanis 4-H Ice Rink, which Mount Marty students use numerous times throughout the winter season for entertainment. "I think it is just a great honor to be recognized with a lot of other really good people in this community," Spencer said. "Volunteering is just part of our family, and I hope it can spur other people to be volunteers too."   

The road to Mount Marty 

Spencer has 38 years of sales and management experience that he shares with his business students. He received his bachelor's in business administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his Master of Business Administration in agribusiness from Kansas State University. His business journey took him across the Midwest and to the East Coast.

Spencer's first job was in the agricultural business, but later, his employer was bought out. There were no jobs available in the Midwest at the time, so Spencer decided to stay with the parent company, work in the oil division, and move to the East Coast. In 1986, Spencer and his wife, Brenda, moved just an hour away from New York City. He said that forty years ago, times were different from what they are now. "This was before the internet and cell phones. I mean, you wrote letters to home, and you called after nine o'clock at night because the long-distance rates were less expensive than during business hours," Spencer said. He and his wife lived there for almost five years before he received a promotion and moved to Connecticut.

Eventually, Spencer wanted to get back to his roots and back to the Midwest. Spencer found a job as a wholesale representative and moved his family to Huron, South Dakota. He traveled across the Midwest for work. Over time, his sales territory kept changing, with Yankton becoming the epicenter of his travels. Spencer and his family moved to Yankton 31 years ago and haven't left, even when he accepted a job in Nebraska as the sales and marketing director for Farmers Pride Cooperative. Spencer commuted for work for 11 ½ years, but he always liked the idea of teaching. 

While keeping up with his other job, Spencer began to teach some business courses as an adjunct professor at Mount Marty. In his spare time, Spencer got involved with the local volunteer organizations, including the Morning Optimist Club. A few years ago, Joe Rutten, director of the Benedictine Leadership Institute, gave a presentation on the new Benedictine Leadership Institute curriculum at Mount Marty to the club's members, and Spencer was inspired. He said, "That really sparked my interest. It really made something click in me, saying, 'That's a great program. That is a great thing to teach in business or anywhere, but it could really apply to business.'" The Benedictine Leadership Institute teaches students to know who they are and who they are in community. Spencer taught as an adjunct for one academic year before two full-time faculty members requested to scale back, and he stepped in as a full-time faculty member.

This fall marks the start of Spencer's third year as a full-time professor. Spencer teaches classes in introductory business, macroeconomics, microeconomics and entrepreneurship. He previously taught business communications, marketing, sales and advertising. 

Benefiting the community

Spencer was introduced to the Morning Optimist Club through a coworker when he first moved to Yankton. "They were very nice people, very warm invite," Spencer said. "They meet on Mondays at seven o'clock in the morning. So, when you go to that meeting, it's usually pretty full of energy." The club's goal is to assist and serve the community's youth. Spencer has been part of the club for more than 30 years and has served as president twice. He recently completed his second term as president. 

Spencer said his favorite project he has done through the Morning Optimist Club was lighting up Riverside Park and creating a spot for Santa to visit with the children during the Christmas season. The club decorates the Dakota Territorial Capitol Replica Building in Riverside Park, using the main level for visits with Santa and the top floor for fun crafts and snacks for children. The club lights the park with Christmas lights, and kids can even take a train ride through the park while they wait for Santa. Spencer said, "Just to see the kids' reaction and the parents' reactions — and you get little newborns getting their picture with Santa too. That is the best."

Spencer also played a vital role in the fundraising and creation of the Yankton Area Ice Association/Kiwanis 4-H Ice Rink almost 20 years ago, which Mount Marty rents out for students numerous times a year for winter entertainment. "We have three kids. I was always worried about what they were going to do in the wintertime," Spencer said. "Yankton was the only town this size in the state without an indoor hockey rink at the time." The rink was constructed with private dollars and in conjunction with the 4-H Clubs, and Spencer would go out and market the rink to help raise the funds. "You had to go out and sell a vision and paint the picture of what it could be and what it was going to do. And you had to convince people to give up their money to put up a sign in there, and it eventually came together. So, credit to the Yankton community. They came through, and it's truly a community project." The rink hosts girls' and boys' hockey games, figure skating competitions and open skate for the community. 

Spencer also volunteers at Trinity Lutheran Church, referees youth football games and Yankton Bucks football games, and announces Mount Marty soccer games. He will even invite Mount Marty students to help referee youth sporting events.

Spencer also works to benefit the Lancer community. 

He is the faculty supervisor of the campus business club, which he resurrected after the COVID-19 pandemic. The business club discusses general business topics, past and future, learns about different industries, and tours the inner workings of various businesses. Spencer said, "I think it is important to get students involved in leadership positions and to make decisions. I'm an adviser there, so I'm just trying to guide them, but they need to do the work and make the decisions." He also assists Charles Gross, assistant professor of business, with the investment club. The investment club students work to grow their funds by investing them in stocks, bonds and commodities. "I enjoy that part of the business as well," Spencer said. 

This past school year, Spencer took an idea created by some of his entrepreneurship students and made it a reality. One day in class, Spencer mentioned that smaller volunteer groups are dissipating because they lack volunteers and resources. Spencer's students asked what they could do to help those committees, and an idea emerged: all the still-existing volunteer organizations could meet to discuss upcoming events, challenges and resources. These meetings occur four times during the school year in the South Dining Room at Mount Marty, between the Morning Optimist Club, Sertoma Club, Rotary Club and Lions Club. Spencer said that holding the meetings on campus has sparked curiosity among Mount Marty students who see them. "Students see the South Dining Room filled and ask, 'What are all those people doing in that room?' I say, 'Well, those are the service clubs.' And, then they ask me, 'What's a service club?'"

Spencer has also invited some of his bilingual business students to translate at the Yankton Food for Thought food banks throughout the year. "During the school year, we've had one to four people down at the food bank helping translate for paperwork and questions and stuff. It was just a natural fit," Spencer said. "It's a good opportunity for students, and they're really good about it. They like doing it. Our students are just all very friendly, and I love the willingness to help."

Spencer is also a member of the Mount Marty Concert Band, led by Todd Carr, director of instrumental activities. He plays the trumpet alongside other faculty, students and members of the Yankton community. 

When Spencer is able, he enjoys connecting his business students with the Yankton community and vice versa, whether through volunteering, internships, tours during Yankton's Manufacturing Week, or guest lectures from business owners and employees in the community. 

Classroom takeaways

Spencer began thinking about the education of the next generation of business students while working with new graduates. He would ask them about their college experience and what they learned. "'How was college? What did you learn? What did you like or didn't like?' And it was quite surprising," Spencer said. "They would say, 'I don't feel like I learned a lot.'” Spencer would then ask whether their professors ever invited business professionals into the classroom to share their experiences and enhance their learning, and the answer was no. Spencer realized, through these conversations, that “something’s missing” in the world of business education.

Now, in his classroom, Spencer's goal is to have his students walk away with applicable knowledge. He brings in guest speakers from the community to discuss business topics. "We got a lot of good stories of people in town, a lot of great people in Yankton, and a lot of good businesses in town," Spencer said. He even organizes a class field trip during Manufacturing Week in Yankton for his students. "We've obviously got international students that are from across the globe, and every one of these plants here in town makes something that goes overseas," Spencer explained. "You can learn anything from manufacturing, to human resources, to management, to advertising, to sales, whatever. So, it's just a learning laboratory, if you will, for young people."

Spencer said that he and the other business faculty take turns introducing prospective students to campus, and that he points out the Mount Marty core values on each tour. "This boils down to being just a good person. We want you to learn that. In business, sometimes it gets a bad name for ethics and bad things people do, taking advantage of situations or whatever. And you always have to keep that in mind that if you have those core values, you'll never get in trouble with that stuff." He said he hopes his students carry those values with them into their careers and beyond.

Spencer said it has meant the world to him when past students reach out to say they are ahead of the game in business because of him. He wants his students to be able to say at the end of their college experience that "I went to a really good place for college. There was a community, and the college altogether was a wonderful experience." Spencer said. "I think that would be perfect for all of us."

###

About Mount Marty University

Founded in 1936 by the Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery, Mount Marty University is South Dakota's only Catholic, Benedictine institution of higher education. Located along the bluffs of the Missouri River in Yankton, with additional locations in Watertown and Sioux Falls, Mount Marty offers undergraduate and graduate degrees focusing on student and alumni success in high-demand fields such as health sciences, education, criminal justice, business, accounting, recreation management, and more. A community of learners in the Benedictine tradition, Mount Marty emphasizes academic excellence and develops well-rounded students with intellectual competence, professional and personal skills and moral, spiritual and social values. To learn more, visit mountmarty.edu.