Mark Merickel, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Education
Oregon State University, Extended Campus
mark.merickel@oregonstate.edu
http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu
Dr. Merickel is the Associate Dean of the Oregon State University Extended Campus and an Associate Professor of Education in the College of Education. Over the past fifteen years Dr. Merickel has served as a faculty member and program lead in the College of Education at Oregon State University (tenured in 1998).
Dr. Merickel’s background as an educator covers thirty-five years, and several levels, of education. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology (minor in Ethnic Studies) and a master’s degree in Technology Education from California State University Fresno, and a Ph.D. in Education from Oregon State University.He also holds California lifetime community college teaching credentials in the disciplines of Science, Engineering, and Architecture, which he applied teaching extended community college courses for San Joaquin Delta Community College and Columbia Community College, both in California. Dr. Merickel also holds a California secondary lifetime teaching credential and taught secondary level drafting, computer aided design, and architecture for 17 years.
During his academic tenure at OSU, Dr. Merickel has taught, served as a faculty advisor, and led academic programs that prepared and licensed Oregon teachers and offered Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT), Ed.M., M.A., M.S., Ed.D. and Ph.D. degrees. Throughout his career Dr. Merickel has focused his teaching and leadership on four essential goals: understanding how students learn in order to improve the practice of teaching; exploring the use of new and emerging instructional systems for life-long learning; disseminating the knowledge gained through his work and the work of others; and providing leadership of productive, diverse and successful organizations. Dr. Merickel received one of six Outstanding Online Course Awards from the Paul Allen Virtual Education Foundation for the best online courses worldwide. Dr. Merickel also received the 2002 Oregon State University Extended Education Faculty Achievement Award, and the 1996 Oregon Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award for Higher Education.
During his tenure at OSU, Dr. Merickel has had international experience as an invited speaker, consultant, teacher, and visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong; the Universidad de las Americas, Puebla, Mexico; Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico; and Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Additionally, Dr. Merickel has delivered research papers in Portugal, Turkey, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia, Mexico, and Taiwan.
As Associate Dean of Ecampus, Dr. Merickel manages the operations of the OSU Extended Campus and supervises the organization’s five unit directors and Continuing Education Program manager. He oversees the Extended Campus staff of 38 and more than 1638 instructors. He works collaboratively with the Director of Business Services to manage Extended Campus’ annual $12.4 million dollar budget. During his tenure at OSU, Dr. Merickel has been the Principal or Co-Principal Investigator for research grants, contracts, and special projects totaling over $3.6 million dollars.
Dr. Merickel has been instrumental in the creation and implementation of the Extended Campus’ organizational and operational systems. He was the leader in creating university-wide teams that created the operational models for the integration of Extended Campus into the university mainstream including new financial and business models.
Dr. Merickel has served on the national board of the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) for the last four years. He has facilitated educational policy development as a member, or past member, of OSU Blackboard Review Committee, University Degree Partnership Program Planning Taskforce, University Natural Resources Interdisciplinary Program Committee, OSU Faculty Senate Neighborhood Planning Committee, Provost’s Task Force on OSU–UO Program Collaboration, OSU Task Force “Strengthening OSU’s Washington D.C. Presence”, University Academic Regulations Committee, University Curriculum Council, and the OUS Distance Education Dean’s Council.
A commitment to serving his community has always been an essential part of Dr. Merickel’s personal and professional life. In 1974, his wife Colleen and he established the three-county Sierra Mountain Special Olympics Program in California (Calaveras County, Amador County, and Alpine County) and served as its coordinators and development officers for seven years. In Corvallis, Dr. Merickel volunteers at the local community meal site, Stone Soup, for meal preparations and fundraising events and Linn-Benton Food Share, the local food bank.