Dr. Allen Finchum was born shortly after 8pm on Sunday 4 May 1958 in Johnson City, Tennessee. His father, George, was a faculty member in both the Department of History and the College of Education, as well as an Administrator during a 30 year career at East Tennessee State University, and after his retirement from ETSU he served as a faculty member at Milligan College for nine years before his death in 2002. His mother, Bernice, was a teacher at David Crockett High School in Jonesborough, Tennessee until her retirement in the late 1990s. Allen attended University High School, a Laboratory and College Preparatory School at ETSU, graduating in June 1976 - his class received Bicentennial congratulatory letters from President Gerald Ford.
Dr. Finchum attended The University of Tennessee and East Tennessee State University as an undergraduate, and graduated Cum Laude from ETSU in December 1979. As an undergraduate, Allen completed a major in Geography, an extended minor in Computer Science, and a minor in U.S. History. He was also active in Student Government, he was the recipient of an Army ROTC Scholarship, and was named to Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges for 1979-80. Upon graduation, Allen attended the University of Cincinnati where he received the M.A. degree with a major in Geography and a collateral minor in Urban/Community Planning.
After completing his graduate studies at UC, Dr. Finchum began a twelve year career as a professional programmer and statistician. Allen spent three years working for Great American Insurance Companies of Cincinnati, Ohio and Appalachian National Life Insurance Company of Knoxville, Tennessee. In October 1984 he took a position as a Senior Programmer at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He would hold a series of programming positions in the Office of Administrative Computing as well as statistical and data analyst positions in the Office of Institutional Research at UT. After nine years in these various positions, Allen began the first of two post-doctoral assignments which would help lead to his current position as a faculty member at Oklahoma State.
While employed at The University of Tennessee, Allen began his doctoral education as part of a staff enrichment program at UT by undertaking the coursework and comprehensive exams toward the PhD in Education, with a major collateral in Higher Education Administration. In August 1989, Allen became re-connected with academic Geography when he accepted an Adjunct Instructor position with the Department of Geography at Tennessee. His duties were centered on teaching Geography 415, Quantitative Methods for Geographers, which he would do for the Department through the 1994-95 academic year. While teaching this course, Allen realized that Geography was his “first” love, and he began the process of completing the coursework and exams for the PhD in Geography, in addition to those that he had completed in Education. By completing the course and exam work for both majors as well as a dissertation project appropriate for both programs (with members from both faculties serving on the committee, and two major advisors representing each discipline), his PhD program could be viewed as somewhat unique, in that it consisted of a “double major” in Education and Geography at the doctoral level. In addition, during his term as a graduate student in the Department of Geography at UT, Dr. Finchum earned the Robert G. Long Outstanding Graduate Student award presented by the faculty of the Department of Geography. During this period, Dr Finchum also completed the course work for a graduate major in Urban Planning when combined with the course work he completed at the University of Cincinnati several years earlier.
After completing his academic course work and a post-doctoral assignment in the Department of Geography at UT, Dr. Finchum accepted a second post-doctoral position with the Center for Transportation Research at UT. While in this position, Allen worked on transportation networks (NTAD) and analysis for the US Department of Transportation, including data assembly and quality assurance. His primary assignments included programming user interfaces and QA processes for other department staff and users at the US DOT and Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
In August 1996, Dr. Finchum accepted his current position as a member of the faculty in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. To date he has supervised over 24 graduate students who have completed their degree programs, and he has also served as the Graduate Coordinator and the Coordinator for the GIS Certificate Program in Geography at OSU. Dr. Finchum’s teaching responsibilities include undergraduate and graduate courses in Urban Geography, Intermediate and Advanced Socioeconomic Applications of GIS, and a specialized course entitled Sport, Place, and Society. In relation to his teaching assignments, Dr. Finchum has been selected as the Outstanding Teacher by the students of the Department six times since arriving at OSU, and in 2004 he was selected to receive OSU's highest teaching honor, the Regents Distinguished Teaching Award for the College of Arts and Sciences. Allen has also served as either the Principal Investigator or Co-PI on numerous grants and contracts totaling aproximately $1.25 million of support to OSU and the Department of Geography. These grants and contracts have come from agencies as diverse as the Conoco Pipeline Company, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office, and the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative.
On a personal note, Dr. Finchum and his wife, Tanya (a Librarian and Oral Historian at OSU), have been married since Saturday 23 August 1980. Tanya completed her PhD in Family Studies at OSU in August 2003. Their son, Curtis, graduated from Oilton High School, where he was a co-captain of the basketball team as a senior and was also a member of the baseball team. Curtis is now a student at OSU. Before transferring to OSU, Curtis attended Oklahoma Christian University where he was a member of the Eagle basketball team.
Dr. Finchum enjoys movies, particularly action/adventure, suspense, and comedy pictures; traveling in the US; classic 1970s rock and modern jazz music; occasionally playing golf; and attending sporting events.
Last Updated: 27 November 2009 |