Our Faculty
Dr. Jeremy Thornton is the Unus Foundation Fellow and Social Entrepreneurship Program Coordinator. He is also an Assistant Professor of Economics and the 2007-2008 Brock Advisory Board Research Fellow. In the Brock School of Business, Dr. Thornton teaches microeconomic theory, development economics, social enterprise, and game theory. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Thornton was the Director of Economic Development at Go International. In that role, he facilitated the design microenterprise and anti-poverty programs for civil society organizations in developing countries, primarily Latin America. His projects ranged from micro-lending programs for refugees to medium-sized agricultural and manufacturing operations.Dr. Thornton’s current research emphasizes the influence of market competition and governance on nonprofit organizations. He has published his findings in nationally recognized journals such as: Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Applied Economics. Dr. Thornton has also examined the motives and incentives guiding philanthropic giving. His findings on this topic have been published in Faith & Economics and Journal of Personal Finance.
Dr. Thornton earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Kentucky, Masters of Science in International Economic Development from Eastern University, and Bachelor of Arts from Asbury College.
Dr. Betsy Bugg Holloway serves as the Hackney Family Research Fellow and Associate Professor of Marketing in the Brock School of Business. Dr. Holloway is actively engaged in the nonprofit sector through service on a number of nonprofit boards, including: the YWCA of Central Alabama, the American Red Cross-Birmingham Chapter, His Kids Too, and the Omicron Delta Kappa Society. She also serves on the boards of two charitable foundations, the I.P.C. Foundation (Birmingham, AL) and the Estelle Campbell Foundation (Pittsburgh, PA), which provide grant-based funding to nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. Previous board service includes the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust, where she served as a Young Alumni Trustee from 1992-1996, the Alabama Ballet, and the Alabama World Trade Association.
Dr. Holloway’s research interests include services marketing, service failure and recovery, retailing, and online service delivery. She regularly presents her research at academic conferences in the U.S. and abroad, and her work has been published in some of the top marketing journals, including Journal of Service Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and Journal of Services Marketing. She presently serves on the editorial review boards of Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and Journal of Services Marketing Quarterly.
Dr. Holloway earned her B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University, an M.B.A. degree from Samford University, and her Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Alabama.
Dr. Franz T. Lohrke is the Entrepreneurship Programs Coordinator, Chair of the Management & Marketing Department, and the 2008-2009 Brock Advisory Board Research Fellow. Dr. Lohrke has helped aspiring entrepreneurs for over 12 years by teaching Small Business and Entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate, M.B.A., and Ph. D. levels. He also recently served as a judge for both the Alabama Launchpad Business Plan Competition and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Awards. Before joining the faculty at Samford University in 2006, he served as a faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), and, most recently, the University of Alabama (UA). There, he developed an Entrepreneurship concentration at USM, and helped redesign UA’s into a nationally recognized Entrepreneurship program.Dr. Lohrke has presented papers at leading national and international Entrepreneurship conferences including the Babson College Entrepreneurship Conference, the U.S. Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, and the Academy of Management Conference. He has also published articles investigating topics ranging from new venture challenges to small business strategic alliances in several top academic journals including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, International Small Business Journal, and Journal of Business Research.
Dr. Lohrke serves on the review board of Journal of Small Business Management, and has reviewed papers investigating small business and entrepreneurship issues for several leading business journals including the Academy of Management Perspectives, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, International Small Business Journal, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Management.
Dr. Lohrke earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Louisiana State University, Masters in Business Administration from the University of Iowa, and Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Flagler College.
Dr. Tom Woolley is a professor of statistics and teaches quantitative methods in the Brock School. In 1992, Dr. Woolley received the UAB President’s Excellence in Teaching Award and in 2001 he received Samford University’s Buchanan Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching. In 2000, he was named the Carnegie Foundation/CASE Alabama Professor of the Year. In January of 2003 Dr. Woolley was named a Templeton Scholar and was among 30 international scholars who he participated in the Templeton Oxford Seminars in Science and Christianity at the University of Oxford from 2003 through 2005. His current research interests include the theology of chance, contingency in the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, indeterminacy in business, experimental design, applied Bayesian analysis and outlier methodology.
Dr. Woolley received his Ph.D. (1981) in Statistics and Research Design, M.S. (1977) in Science Education and B.S. (1976) in the Biological Sciences, all from the Florida State University. Currently, he is Professor of Statistics in the Brock School of Business at Samford University. Prior to Samford Dr. Woolley was Vice Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Biomathematics and Head of Public Health Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center.
