Weber State Business Professor Receives Fulbright Award to Poland
The U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced that Randy Boyle, Weber State University professor of management information systems (MIS) and Willard Eccles Fellow, has received a Fulbright U.S. Teaching Scholar Award to Poland.
Fluent in Polish, Boyle will teach at the University of Warsaw. Because the pandemic stalled last year’s Fulbright awards, 2021 was an exceptionally competitive year with more than 100 Fulbright Scholar applicants to the Poland program alone.
“Fulbright awards are highly competitive and prestigious awards approved by a presidentially appointed board,” Boyle said. “The Fulbright Program is the premiere international educational exchange program in the world. Fulbright Scholars are typically leaders in their fields of research. It's a tremendous honor to receive this award."
Boyle holds a Ph.D. in management of information systems from Florida State University. His research interests include deception detection, data breaches, and information security. He has published in several academic journals such as Decision Support Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, and Journal of Computer Information Systems.
At Weber State, Boyle has collaborated with industry leaders to develop an innovative formula of curriculum and instruction to meet growing demand for cybersecurity and prepare students for advanced degrees.
Under his leadership, the program, which is housed in the John B. Goddard School of Business & Economics, has incorporated advanced applied skills to every class. Students not only learn applications and systems, but they also practice them hundreds of times in real-life scenarios. The practice prepares them to make educated decisions under pressure and communicate complex processes with non-technical business counterparts effectively.
His technique is so successful that his students have had an extraordinary track record of admittance to Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) graduate program for information security and information management. CMU’s program is ranked No. 1 in the nation with an average acceptance rate of less than 17 percent.
This year, 100 percent of the 13 WSU student applicants were accepted to graduate school and five were accepted into the summer internship program, which prepares for the master’s. This is the sixth year Weber State students have been accepted to CMU’s graduate programs. All Weber State students going to CMU receive an automatic 30 percent minimum scholarship because of an academic partnership established two years ago.
Boyle will take his curriculum to Poland, where he will help students prepare to qualify for the CMU program.
“The demand for cybersecurity professionals is extremely high,” Boyle said. “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that jobs in cybersecurity will grow 31 percent annually over the next decade, while average job growth will be just 4 percent. The 2020 median pay for cybersecurity professionals is $103,590. Students choosing to enter the cybersecurity field will enjoy a stable, highly-paid and exciting career.”
In addition to teaching, Boyle loves archeology and running. He also practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and plans to teach youth classes in Poland. His family will join him for the year-long sabbatical.
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announced 2021 as the 75th Anniversary of the Fulbright Program. Fulbright, established in 1946, is the most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world. The program awards approximately 8,000 grants annually between scholars and students from the United States and other participating countries. Boyle is the 13th Fulbright Teaching Scholar from Weber State in the past 22 years.
Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
Allison Barlow Hess, Public Relations director
801-626-7948 • ahess@weber.edu- Contact:
Randy Boyle, Management Information Systems associate professor
801-626-7831 • randyboyle@weber.edu