April 26, 2010

Pat Tinsley McGill, associate professor of business administration at CSU Monterey Bay, will be honored April 28 at the annual teaching awards ceremony sponsored by the Community Foundation for Monterey County.

Dr. Tinsley McGill will receive the Allen Griffin Award for excellence in teaching at the post-secondary level. Faculty members from Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Defense Language Institute and Naval Postgraduate School also will be honored, along with Monterey Peninsula high school teachers. Middle school and elementary school teachers will receive the Mildred Willemsen Awards. In all, 21 local educators will receive awards.

Established in 1982, the Griffin Award was created by a bequest from the late Col. Allen Griffin, former publisher of the Monterey Herald and founder and former board president of the Community Foundation. The award honors teachers who have a record of sustained excellence in the classroom and who have made a significant impact in the community.

Dr. Tinsley McGill teaches classes in entrepreneurship and strategic planning, as well as the business capstone class.

Among her entrepreneurial ventures, she founded the first private satellite network in the U.S. to serve public schools; founded and served as executive director of the first print and online guide to distance learning resources; and established some of the earliest rural community technology centers in the nation. Through these initiatives, she formed collaborations among local school districts, state departments of education, colleges, universities and corporations to increase access to education resources for children and adults across the country.

Over the past fifteen years she has worked as a consultant to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public and private corporations, the World Bank, and numerous other nonprofit organizations. Her work with the World Bank focused on establishing a satellite- and Internet-based university to serve villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through her work with nonprofits, she managed the development of award-winning online services and print publications for children and families. She also assisted PBS and local public television stations in shaping new education services for families, students, and teachers nationwide.

She serves on the board of the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and is a frequent speaker on business topics in the local community.

She earned a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas; a Master's of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Management at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas; and a Bachelor of Arts from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.