Montgomery Van Wart, Ph.D.

Montgomery (Monty) Van Wart, Ph.D., professor of public administration at Cal State San Bernardino, is recognized for improving program quality and student outcomes in CSUSB's College of Business and Public Administration.

Dr. Van Wart's leadership in online teaching is exemplified by his course, Human Resource (HR) Management in the Public, which became the first online course on campus to earn a Quality Matters certification. His success and tireless advocacy for online learning inspired numerous faculty members to rethink their teaching in the online environment and to engage in meaningful professional development to become better online instructors.

Van Wart's innovative practices also extend to face-to-face teaching: He promoted the use of personal response systems (e-clickers) in CSUSB classrooms by collaborating with campus IT to invest in e-clickers for students to use. Faculty members on campus incorporated the use of clickers in their classrooms, with approximately 2,600 students saving $104,000 by using the campus-bought clickers rather than purchasing. As a result of increased clicker use, students' attendance increased by 20 percent and all instructor evaluations increased by 0.2 points based on a 6-point scale.

Van Wart has written eight textbooks and received the Sage Cornerstone Author Award and Best Public Sector HR Book award from the American Society for Public Administration.

“Monty finds important ways to improve student engagement and outcomes, student accessibility and provide customized resources while increasing the university's reputation. His examples of innovation provides models that are used by his colleagues to increase the benefits for even more students,“ says Anna Ya Ni, Ph.D., interim associate dean at CSUSB's College of Business and Public Administration.​