After three decades at DU, Don Bacon never stopped reaching for the next level
When Don Bacon first arrived on the University of Denver campus in the fall of 1989, he hoped that he had found his calling.
His career began as a mechanical engineer before an MBA degree took him to Silicon Valley to work as a financial analyst for Intel. He followed that up by pursuing at doctorate in marketing at the University of Michigan, landing the same degree that his father had years before.
That winding road led him to Denver, where his optimism shined through quickly.
“I thought, ‘well, I hope this career is going to work.’ Now, 33 years later I’m thinking this is a great choice,” he said with a wry smile during a recent interview.
Bacon had a feeling early on in his tenure at the University that he was in the right spot. His intuition told him that he found his mission as a professor of marketing and that if he could achieve tenure, he’d never leave.
“I think after about a year or two I thought, ‘I hope I can stay here until I can retire,’” he said. “It clicked.”
And it wasn’t just Bacon that it clicked for. He rapidly earned a glowing reputation for his teaching on campus. In 1991, he won the University’s William T. Driscoll Master Teacher Award, given annually to a faculty member for excellence in teaching.
Carol Johnson, assistant dean of MBA programs, worked with Bacon for more than 20 years and lauded his caring and measured nature.
“What makes Don special as a person and a professor is his deep caring for others, whether students, colleagues, or friends as well as his fairness and ability to consider all sides of an issue in an unbiased way,” she said.
Johnson added that Bacon was perfectly suited for the leadership roles he held, namely as director of the Master of Science in Marketing program and chair of the Appointment, Promotion and Tenure Committee.
“In my view he was the perfect head of the APT committee given his ability to fairly analyze a situation and give feedback in a caring but accurate way,” she said.
After taking home the master teacher award early in his career, Bacon said he was faced with a dilemma of how he’d top that honor. He said he knew there were better professors on campus, and used that as motivation to grow personally and professionally.
“It got me thinking, what really is excellence in teaching? How do I go to the next level?” he said.
Those questions would spur much of his research for the next 30 years.
Despite struggling to get his early research published, Bacon settled in with a renewed focus in marketing education and the factors for success in teaching. Bacon completed research on topics related to student assessment, performance markers and learning styles.
Bacon’s expertise in this area and research proficiency ultimately led him to be named editor- in-chief of the Journal of Marketing Education in 2012, a role he held for nearly eight years. In reflecting on his research, Bacon wishes he could have more time to analyze his findings, especially with how teaching has changed during the pandemic.
“I feel a little bad near the end of my career, I still don’t have answers to a lot of the questions I started with, but it’s been a fun journey anyway,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t always get to a place, you just enjoy the journey and make some progress.”
Bacon’s fondest memory will be his ever-changing relationship with his students as he grew as a professor. At his start, Bacon said he felt almost as an older brother to the students in his class. And, as he grew older and the students became the same age as his daughters, he began to feel like they were his own children.
Bacon said part of the fun was seeing them through their parents’ eyes and celebrating their successes, knowing their parents would be just as proud.
“That has been a fun thing to reach that point in my career and have that perspective on the students,” he said. “I’m glad I’ve been able to teach long enough to reach that point.”
Long after he first stepped foot on campus, Bacon is ready for a new adventure as he approaches retirement.
“I think it’s been a very good run and while I still have some health, I have some other things I want to do,” he said. Bacon plans to hit the road with his wife and their camping trailer to explore America’s beauty and national parks.
He leaves knowing the University is a great place with a bright future.
“I think the University is in a great position and has been on the rise almost continuously for 30 years, and I see it continuing that trendline,” he said.