Owens-Ott Family Scholarship
The Owens Ott Family Scholarship was established by CMU Associate Professor of Statistics Rick Ott and Professor of Accounting Suzanne Owens-Ott.
Rick Ott, PhD, mainly teaches statistics courses, including Introductory Probability and Statistics, Sampling Techniques, Mathematical Statistics, Design of Experiments, Statistical methods, Engineering Statistics and Regression Analysis. Student attendance and classroom interaction is a necessity in his courses.
Ott has a variety of experience in the STEM fields. He worked as a aerospace engineer at the Johnson Space Center on the NASA Space Shuttle Landing Team. This experience has allowed Ott to introduce real life experiences and applications to his statistics classes.
When in his office, Ott’s door is always open. He will meet a student asking for help any time of the day or evening. He has met students as early as 7am or as late at 10pm. As long as a student is working hard, attending class consistently and participating in class, Ott will make time for that student. Many students will say he teaches more like a coach. He introduces the concepts, shows numerous examples and asks the class whether not the students have understood. If need be, he will aggravate students who skip class. He has no problem asking students why they missed class and telling them to not make that a habit of it.
Ott is lively, entertaining and describes himself as a loving, tough professor. He holds two-hour study sessions before tests in his introductory courses and involves students in a variety of research projects. Topics have included municipality surveys, medical treatment analysis, engineering quality control, public health issues and games of chance.
G. Suzanne Owens-Ott, OBA, teaches Principles of Financial Accounting, Principles of Managerial Accounting, Ethics for Accounting Professionals, Professional Preparation, Data Analytics for Accounting and Audit I and II. She also teaches the core MBA accounting course. Her focus at Colorado Mesa University is to provide excellent instruction in the classroom based on her continuous learning and scholarship. Owens-Ott was a first-generation college student and was the first in her family to go on to graduate school.
As a professor in a professional program, she draws upon a decade of experience as an auditor in public accounting at Deloitte and private industry accounting at Sprint Corporation as well as her formal education and continuing professional education to bring the best instruction to her students. She is a licensed certified public accountant, which is the goal of most of the students in the public accounting program. Her experience and licensure help her to realistically prepare students to enter the profession.
Owens-Ott serves as a member and current chair of the Colorado Board of Accountancy, appointed by Governor Polis. She has formerly served as CMU Faculty Trustee, COCPA Educational Foundation Board member and Grand Junction Airport Audit and Finance Committee member to name a few.
Owens-Ott has been published in The International Journal of Learning, the Journal of Cannabis Research, International Research in Education, and Proceedings of Mountain Plains Management Conference.