Houghton Wins Prestigious Chewning Award for Christian Business Faculty

October 12, 2021

Dr. David Houghton, chair of the Paul Dickinson School of Business at OBU, recently received the Richard C. Chewning Award from the Christian Business Faculty Association (CBFA). The award was presented to Houghton Oct. 2 during the CBFA’s annual meeting held in Nashville, Tennessee, at Lipscomb University.

The CBFA exists to empower Christian business faculty to transform the world for the glory of God. The organization annually recognizes outstanding members who exhibit desired character, faith and leadership traits, through the presentation of several awards, including the Chewning Award, the most prestigious award given by the CBFA.

The Richard C. Chewning Award was named in honor of its first recipient and was established to perpetuate the passion and commitment toward integration of personal faith and business as modeled by Chewning. The CBFA states, “Since the early days of the Christian Business Faculty Association, Dr. Richard Chewning was at the front of our profession as an inspirational role model of servanthood, an intellectual colleague in our scholarship and an encouragement in our leadership.” Potential recipients of the Chewning Award should love the Word of God and manifest Christ-likeness in their scholarship and in the practice of teaching or serving in business. Winners of the Chewning Award receive a plaque, a monetary award and a public tribute.

Houghton was surprised and humbled to receive the Chewning Award, the CBFA’s highest award akin to a lifetime achievement award.

“I am humbled and honored to receive such recognition from my peers,” Houghton said. “It is a great affirmation of the work that I’ve done at OBU and elsewhere in service to Christian business faculty on both secular and Christian campuses throughout the world.”

Houghton went on to outline his view on the importance of being a Christian in business higher education and how the CBFA contributes to Christianity in the realm of business.

“Most business faculty go through doctoral programs that train us to be excellent scholars and practitioners in our business disciplines,” he said. “In the early days, none of us had anyone to help us consider how we might integrate our Christian faith with our business discipline. The CBFA was a pioneer in bridging that gap. Its conferences and journals help us to integrate the Bible and our Christian worldview with our business areas. This empowers us to pass that knowledge on to our students and other professionals so we don’t put our faith into a Sunday silo. Instead, we can marry our faith to our business and live a more fully integrated life.”

Houghton is also grateful for the award presenter, Dr. John Duncan, dean for the College of Business and Entrepreneurship at North Greenville University and current chair of the CBFA board. It was Duncan who encouraged Houghton to pursue the leadership of the School of Business at OBU.

“John Duncan and I first met at a CBFA conference. Eventually, that led me to work with him at Charleston Southern University. When the opportunity to lead the business school at Oklahoma Baptist University arose, he encouraged me to pursue that and mentored me from afar. Thanks to his friendship, I’ve served at OBU for over a decade. In some ways, it was my friendship with John Duncan that led me to Shawnee, Oklahoma. It was a blessing to have him be the presenter of the award.”

Houghton came to OBU in 2010. In addition to his role as chair of the Paul Dickinson School of Business, Houghton is also the Lloyd G. and Betty E. Minter Chair of Business, professor of business and director of OBU’s MBA program. He previously served as a marketing professor and the department chair at Charleston Southern University. He also served at Northwest Nazarene University prior to his service at CSU. He earned a Bachelor of Science at the University of Kansas and both an MBA and Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati.

In addition to his work at OBU, Houghton serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Biblical Integration in Business and the Society for Consumer Psychology. His research focuses on a wide range of topics in consumer psychology, managerial decision making and business ethics. His research has appeared in a number of journals, including Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Psychology and Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Consumer Psychology and Advances in Consumer Research. He is passionate about helping business students view their careers as a calling and view business as a mission field.