Hoffman Melrose Toro Endowed Professorship in Marketing Innovation

The Hoffman Melrose Toro Endowed Professorship in Marketing Innovation elevates a professor so she can shape what comes next for students.

Great teaching begins with expertise. It also requires the freedom to keep learning, experimenting and responding as the world changes.

A new chapter in that work begins Sept. 17, when St. Thomas publicly launches Be Brilliant. Be Bold. The Campaign for St. Thomas. One of the campaign’s defining priorities is ensuring exceptional faculty have the support to keep pushing their disciplines, and their students, forward.

That is the promise of an endowed professorship. It honors a faculty member whose teaching and scholarship have already made a difference, while providing sustained resources to deepen that work. It’s not a benefit that rests with one professor: New ideas move into classrooms and students gain opportunities to engage in an emerging field or one that is changing. Endowed faculty positions also help St. Thomas to attract and retain outstanding professors.

The Hoffman Melrose Toro Endowed Professorship in Marketing Innovation is that promise in practice. Created through the support of Mike and Tami Hoffman, it recognizes Dr. Lisa Abendroth as its inaugural holder.

Abendroth is a tenured associate professor of marketing with nearly three decades of experience teaching undergraduate, graduate and executive learners. Her work reflects where marketing is headed - toward an increasingly complex mix of creativity, analytics, artificial intelligence and human insight.

Abendroth personalizes her courses so students take ownership of their growth, and integrates cutting-edge technologies, interdisciplinary perspectives and industry partnerships. Her approach is more than just keeping pace with change. She helps students think critically, creatively and ethically, then apply what they’re learning to their professions and communities.

“At St. Thomas, great faculty are at the center of everything we do,” said Laura Dunham, Opus Distinguished Chair and dean of the Opus College of Business, during the ceremony recognizing Abendroth. Exceptional faculty, Dunham said, challenge students to think differently and prepare them for the responsibilities they will carry as leaders.

That is also the kind of excellence the campaign seeks to advance. Its Faculty & Academic Excellence priority is about investing in people – the faculty equivalent of an endowed scholarship – an investment in mission and values through the work of a professor whose work aligns with the purpose of the endowment.

As an endowment, these positions are designed to endure. Endowed faculty have more capacity for their own learning and exploration outside of the classroom as they pursue scholarship, build partnerships and ultimately put what they’ve learned back into their classrooms. As disciplines evolve, that continuity helps students encounter ideas and tools that are current, relevant and grounded in the university's commitment to the common good.

It also signals what St. Thomas values. An endowed title is among a university's most meaningful forms of faculty recognition, celebrating accomplishment and the promise of what an exceptional professor can do next.

At the ceremony, Janine Sanders Jones, associate dean who holds the Daniel and Ruth Haggerty Endowed Chair in Business Administration, described an endowed position as a celebration of “the faculty who teach, mentor and inspire our students every day.”

Abendroth's appointment demonstrates what becomes possible when an outstanding faculty member has room to keep pushing her discipline and her teaching forward. Be Brilliant. Be Bold. will build on that example by helping more faculty enhance their scholarship – all for the benefit of St. Thomas students.