Dr. Richard Todd Braley
Professor
Dr. Richard Todd Braley was recently hired as an Assistant Professor of Occupational Safety and Health in the OSH Department, School of Arts and Sciences (Fall 2010). He feels honored to be allowed to serve at Southeastern University (his alma mater, class of ’78), helping students prepare for the workforce in the life-saving role of Safety Professional. Prior to being hired fulltime, he taught online adjunct graduate courses for the School of Education where he helped students learn new, innovative Teaching Strategies, and assisted Dean Will Mawer, along with the faculty, in performing those functions necessary to acquire NCATE accreditation; and concurrently was adjunct faculty in the Safety Department where he taught Hazardous Materials and Waste Management. Hired as fulltime in August 2010, as part of his service and research component for Southeastern, Dr. Braley pulled together his many grant presentations, personal library and extensive experiences, and, with the support of Dean Scoufos, Dean Mawer, Chair Wayne Jones, and help from colleagues Chris Bradshaw, Nick Nichols, Hal Poovey, Paul Buntz and Kate Plunkett, he created an online, self-paced grantsmanship course for Southeastern Faculty and Staff entitled “SE Grantsmanship” which is free to any SE employee.
Previously, he served as doctoral faculty for Walden University (2009-2010) where he taught statistics and research methods (quantitative, qualitative and mixed), served as committee chair for multiple dissertations, methodologist for both doctoral-dissertation-level and graduate-master-level research and as a University Research Reviewer (URR) assuring high quality research was performed by facilitating committees and student-researchers in a quality assurance advisory role. From 2008 to 2009 he served as the Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost at Murray State College where he supervised 7 department chairs and their full-time and adjunct faculty, administered programs and ensured all duties of the academic affairs office were properly performed. He created the offices of institutional research, continuing and community education, and supervised the director of online-education. In the absence of the President, he served as President. Upon arriving at MSC, Dr. Braley authored a request to North Central’s Higher Learning Commission for MSC to be permitted to attend the fall 2008 Student Learning Assessment Academy and the request was granted. While at MSC he was able to create a single location containing faculty credentials, provided leadership in ensuring online courses were properly taught, identified and initiated a change in overload-adjunct pay such that equity was achieved between online and face-to-face instruction, and worked with Southeastern University to help create the Tishomingo Cohort which allowed several residents in Johnston County to fulfill their dreams of earning a Master of Education degree from Southeastern. Through the process of a secret ballot, majority vote, he received a treasured document containing recognition from the Faculty Assembly for his service at MSC.
From 2005-2008 he served the College of Education at Texas A&M University-Kingsville first as Assistant and later as Associate Dean. TAMU-Kingsville is a research university and the College of Education offers two doctorates, multiple master-level and undergraduate-level degrees. Dr. Braley had the privilege of concurrently serving as the Interim Department Chair—and chaired research dissertation committees—for the doctoral-granting departments of Educational Leadership and Bilingual Education. When the doctoral faculty of one doctoral department retired, Dr. Braley worked with Graduate Education Dean Beto Olivares to create and complete a training program for graduate-level faculty to become doctoral-level faculty such that the Graduate Council approved volunteering faculty to chair or serve as a member or methodologist of doctoral dissertation committees on a temporary basis. He was the education college’s liaison to the College of Graduate Studies, the Offices of International Studies, Distance Education, Sponsored Research, and Facilities Management. He was charged with evaluating the graduate research courses of the college and determining how the college would evaluate the theses and dissertations of student researchers for quality academics. He was elected to serve as the University Research Council Chair, served on the campus Information Security Committee, taught Grantsmanship and Policy Development/Decision-making courses at the doctoral level and enjoyed teaching and leading applied research initiatives. As a TAMUK researcher, he created The SABER Projects (Sustainable Agreements in Border Educational/Economic Relationships) and conducted SABER applied research projects in Matamoros and Saltillo, Mexico, discovering how the United Mexican States (UMS) prepared and provided teachers and administrators for public and for-profit schools ranging from Kindergarten through doctoral-level university degree-granting institutions. Because of that research, he was assigned to the team that was sent to Washington, D.C. to present SABER concepts for possible funding from the US Department of Education and USAID, and he was nominated for the Texas STAR Award. His university service included investigations of faculty grievances, EEOC and ADA complaints. He served as member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Graduate Education Advisory Council (GEAC). In 2007, he was the keynote speaker at the International Conference for Security and Safety Management at WuFeng University in Chiayi, Taiwan (2007), where he also provided safety-oriented presentations at three other Taiwan universities. His international involvement in Saltillo, Mexico, and in Taiwan, succeeded in recruiting students for TAMUK doctoral programs. Relationships created in both countries matured and one university President from Taiwan visited TAMU-Kingsville to present an international agreement concept to TAMUK senior administrators. At the same time, as Associate Dean he worked with the UMS State of Coahuila’s Department of Education to initiate a graduate program agreement. One of his final duties at TAMUK occurred when he was assigned to the team that performed a compelling feasibility analysis for a new higher education extension center in South Texas.
While serving as Professor and Chair of the Department of Technology at Cameron University (1999-2005), he wrote the grant proposal that acquired an NCR 5100 Massive Parallel Processor ($7 million) from Wal-Mart and NCR Corporations, and co-authored a successful Oklahoma State Regents Quality Initiative Grant ($2.5 million) with another Southeastern Alum Dr. B. Don Sullivan; he obtained other federal funds; Ft. Sill research contracts and cooperative training grants for his faculty. Elected to the Executive Board of the South Central Oklahoma Workforce Investment Board (SCOWIB) he helped allocate Department of Labor funds to provide worker populations with employment enhancement opportunities. When he was sent to Fort Campbell, Kentucky in September 2001 in an attempt to secure a $9.1 million grant, he was with the 101st Airborne when the twin towers were attacked. Upon his return to Oklahoma he was assigned research duties for CASI (Center for Aircraft Systems/Support Infrastructure) at Tinker Air Force Base. Those research assignments stemmed from his knowledge of industrial safety and security, and a unique employment history dealing with Information-, Communications-, Computing- and Personnel-Security, and law enforcement. In May 2002, Dr. Braley was assigned lead on a team sent to Washington, D.C. to present a proposal he created—to utilize the NCR 5100 for classified missions—to the staff members from Senator Inhofe and Senator Nichols offices, Congressman Watts’ Office and representatives from the Department of Defense. At Cameron University, Professor Braley taught Industrial Safety and Computer Security courses in undergraduate programs, and a graduate-level grantsmanship course for CU faculty.
From 1994 to 1999 Dr. Braley served as Assistant Professor of Industrial Safety at the University of Central Oklahoma. Dr. Braley, along with many other research faculty, responded to the Alfred P. Murrah bombing incident by receiving OSRHE research funds to investigate violence-related curriculum offered by four federal, cabinet-level departments (Labor, Health, Education and Justice) and their related state entities. Because of that research, Braley created presentations that were requested across the State of Oklahoma: Workplace-, Public School-, and Domestic-Violence (he labeled The Housewife Wars) and he was the second speaker at the University of Pennsylvania’s Workplace Violence Conference in 1997. He provided grant proposal development leadership for several federal grant opportunities, served on two Oklahoma City grant consortia, mentored faculty in federal grant seeking, served in the graduate school, and recruited and advised students in his assigned academic areas. He served on admissions, scholarship and student grade appeal committees and he authored the guidebook for faculty to use when—as Chair of the Student Grade Appeal Committee—he called upon faculty to serve as chairs of student grade appeal boards. He was named Program Coordinator for the BS Degree in Training and Development, served as senior faculty in Industrial Safety (teaching General Safety; Product and Process Safety; Engineering and Technology Safety Methods; Administration and Management of Safety Programs; and Security Management (the last three utilized National Safety Council textbooks), and he served as junior faculty in Business Education where he taught Computer Applications and Computer Lab Management (undergraduate and graduate level).
From 1985 to 1994, he served as a Technology Instructor at Eastern Oklahoma State College (where he also served as a consultant for the Oklahoma Miner Training Institute and received a grant to provide Job Safety Analysis training throughout the State of Oklahoma). From 1984 to 1985, he served as the High School Principal for Mason Public Schools in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, where he supervised six faculty, advised and disciplines students, obtained equipment and approval for serving leftovers to students and managed a Pew Grant and the Johnson O’Malley Program. From 1982 to 1984, he was Chair and Instructor of the Electronics Department at Carl Albert College where he created a parallel program wherein students could specialize in Communications, Computing or Control electronics. From 1980 to 1982 he was an Advanced Technologies Instructor at Texas State Technical College in Waco, Texas where he received his first academic grant from the Texas Education Agency to create a Robotics Technician Program Braley created through a research project involving industrial perceptions of what a Robotics Technician curriculum should contain.
His pre-academic work included field service engineer for Kearney & Trecker Corporation, industrial maintenance shift foreman for FMC Corporation, service as a covert investigator with the Arkansas State Police, and service with the Norfolk Virginia Police Department where he received one citation for bravery. He is a combat veteran with two tours of duty as an Operations Specialist at the Naval Support Facility Detachment in Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam (April 1969 to November 1970) where he received two letters of commendation from Commanding Officer “Wally” Hunter for duties performed while under enemy attack.
Dr. Braley earned his bachelors at Southeastern Oklahoma University in 1978, masters at the University of Oklahoma in 1988 and doctorate at Texas A&M University-Commerce in 1994. He is a certified Oklahoma public school teacher with endorsements in Technology, Mathematics and Science. He has acquired a working knowledge of using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator© and recently embarked on a study of Emotional Intelligence and Toxic Manager Traits. His hobbies consist of writing poetry, making leather statues, reading, hunting and serving as Pastor of Southern Baptist Churches when called (with 20 years of bi-vocation pastoral experience while maintaining his academic career 1985 to 2005). Although well published, his daughters, wife and the Provost of Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Dr. Kay Clayton, gave him the courage to put together “Poems from the Potato Hills” (ISBN 978-1-4357-5007-4) which is available from Lulu Press, Inc. His poem “The Queen of AMK” is his recognition of his friendship with Dr. Clayton.
His three wonderful daughters—Emily in Altus, Arkansas; Rebecca in Dallas, and Abigail in Oklahoma City—enjoy bringing their families—7 grandchildren—to visit and his wife Patricia—also a graduate from Southeastern University with a BS in Accounting (1991) and Masters in Administrative Studies (1993)—has been his immediate boss for 37 years. He enjoyed being part of Rotary International, Lions and Kiwanis Clubs and tries to live those concepts of service above self.
To be a faculty member at the university where he was changed by dedicated faculty—leaving behind the lessons a war fighter carries so deeply embedded in his soul—and becoming the person he yearned to be, a technologist, teacher and eventually an administrator, is the crowning achievement of a long career of service (since graduating in 1978, Dr. Braley has never been unemployed because of what he learned at Southeastern Oklahoma State University). His present goals are to prepare students for industry and government positions in Occupational Safety and Health by teaching any course the Chair assigns to the best of his ability, to continue providing services to the finest university in the world as assigned by his Chair or Dean or a role his colleagues either request or vote him into, and perform research in his eclectic areas of interest. After serving in an array of academic positions, he is home, in the only role he truly enjoys, at the only school he wanted to serve, and living in the center of his universe: Where all three of his daughters have the same distance to drive to visit him and his wife Patty, another Southeastern alum: Both of her degrees—Accounting and Master of Administrative Sciences—were earned here (1991 and 1993).