A&M marketing department head Conant dies

By: Meagan O'Toole-Pitts

Posted: 7/1/09

Jeffrey Conant, department head, professor of marketing and presidential and Eppright professor for teaching excellence at Mays Business School, died Tuesday morning at St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan, Texas, after being admitted with pneumonia.

A memorial service honoring the life of Dr. Conant will be held at 12:00 noon, Friday, July 3, 2009 at First United Methodist Church of Bryan, followed by a private family burial.

He had been undergoing chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with leukemia.

"It was absolutely unexpected. It was a great shock," said Leonard Berry, distinguished marketing professor. "We received a an e-mail from Jeff one week ago telling us he was diagnosed with a particular type of leukemia, and that it was a highly treatable disease and he expected to be back in the office in December."

Conant began his 23-year career at Texas A&M University in 1986 as an associate marketing professor before earning his doctorate degree in marketing from Arizona State University the same year. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from New York University in 1977 and his master's degree in marketing and finance from the University of Arizona in 1979.

"Ever since he joined in 1986, his colleagues and I were in awe and admiration of the time and effort he devoted to prepare for each class session, the mastery of the subject he demonstrated when he was teaching," said Rajan Varadarajan, distinguished marketing professor and preceding department head. "He will go into A&M history as one of the teaching legends. He was such an outstanding teacher, at the undergraduate and graduate level. He had this burning passion to excel in teaching."

He became a marketing professor in 2000 and the head of the marketing department in 2006.

"In the last three years as the department head, the faculty, staff and students have come to know him as a very caring, considerate and compassionate department head. The thing that stood out was the great lengths he went to publicize and recognize the accomplishments of the faculty and doctoral students," Varadarajan said. "Anytime a faculty member or staff member or a student received an award for outstanding teaching, or outstanding service, or outstanding research, the world was made aware of it; he made sure this news was very widely publicized."

Leading up to his appointment as department head, he was named Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence in 2004, and he was named Eppright University Professor in Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in 2005."He'll be remembered by his students as one of the greatest teachers they had. Jeff was a student's professor; he loved working for the students. No one cared more about the students than Jeff Conant," Berry said. "It's just a great loss for the students at A&M, for the faculty, his colleagues and friends."

Conant focused his research on marketing strategy and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He received the Journal of Marketing Education's Outstanding Article of the Year Award in 1989, 1999 and 2003 and earned the Best Article Award from the Marketing Education Review in 2003.

"He has always been an excellent professor; he won more teaching awards than perhaps anyone at A&M. He fully deserved all of those awards," said William Pride, marketing professor. "I've known him as a friend a very long time. He has the highest integrity possible. He was highly respected by his colleagues here at A&M as well as other institutions. He was a very good leader for our department, not just very good, I would say he was an excellent leader."

Having been published in numerous scholarly publications including Strategic Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Education, Industrial Marketing Management, and Journal of Retailing, and authored two book chapters, Conant received multiple awards in his tenure.

"As a department head he played a major role in the Mays Business

School in getting class sizes down to very manageable levels. Generally speaking students in smaller classes will have a better opportunity to participate and interact during class - he took action to help make that happen," Pride said. "He was a very genuine, nice individual that was very willing to help students and faculty members."

As a leader, a teacher and a dear friend, Conant will be missed.
"I've known Jeff ever since he arrived here as an assistant professor. On a personal level he's very much a family oriented person. He was always very positive, upbeat type of individual - very enjoyable to work with. Clearly we will miss him a great deal as a friend and as a department head," Pride said. "[His death is] beyond a surprise, I would say shocking because we believed that he had a medical problem that, although serious, was in fact a problem that could be managed and treated. All of us here in the department were just terribly shocked and so saddened."

E-mails have already started to pour in from students expressing their condolences and gratitude for Conant's commitment to them, Varadarajan said.
"He was a role model, really worthy of emulation from all of us," he said.

He was a member of First United Methodist Church of Bryan, where he was on the Strategic Planning Committee.

He is survived by his wife, Carol Conant; his father, Howard Somers Conant of Tucson, Ariz.; his daughter and son-in-law, Danielle Christine and Reilly Garrett of El Paso; his sons, Scott Howard Conant and Trevor Robert Conant, both of College Station; his sister and brother-in-law, Judith and Gary Steinbach of Richmond, Ky.; two nieces and four nephews along with multitudes of colleagues, students and friends.

Family members have requested that memorials be made in Conant's name to First United Methodist Church in Bryan, 506 East 28th St., Bryan, Texas, 77803.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Strickland Funeral Home in Somerville.

Jason Staggs contributed to this article.