Paul Matthew Percy, Ph.D. joined Cumberland University as Professor of Business in the Labry School of Science, Technology, and Business in Fall 2019 where he serves as director of the MBA program and teaches leadership, management, and strategy courses.

Dr. Percy holds a Bachelor’s in Communication and Business Administration from Houghton College, an MBA from the University at Buffalo, and a PhD in Business from the University of Kentucky. He has over 30 years of professional, teaching, entrepreneurial, and administrative experience. Dr. Percy has taught leadership and management, business ethics, organizational behavior and development, Human Resources, entrepreneurship, finance, research methods, marketing, and strategic management at several colleges and universities including the University of Kentucky, Liberty University, Transylvania University, Central Virginia Community College, King University, and Carson-Newman University.

Dr. Percy served as Interim President and Executive Vice President, Provost, and Ted Russell Distinguished Professor of Management at Carson-Newman University; leading the school in new program development and record enrollments.

Prior to joining Carson-Newman, he was the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Management at King University, where he served for a total of 19 years in various roles and responsibilities. During his tenure with King, Dr. Percy developed new academic programs and strategic partnerships that helped the university grew by over 400 percent.

Prior to his career in education Percy worked for M&T Bank in Retail Product Management and Mortgage Banking.

Dr. Percy is a retired officer (Major) of the Tennessee Air National Guard, graduate of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, and led the Military Equal Opportunity Office.

He has been married for over 40 years to Janet and they have three children, Paul (Jennifer), Rachel (Chase), and Sarah (Tommy), and four beautiful grandchildren. And a Chocolate Lab named Murphy.

Paul Matthew Percy is a team builder and leader who empowers and develops people to their fullest potential. A strategic thinker, problem solver, relationship builder, financial manager, and transparent leader who has God given abilities to effectively steward intellectual, human, financial, and spiritual resources.

Dr. Melnikov earned his doctorate degree in Economics and Applied Mathematics at Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN) in June 2004.

Prior to the service at Cumberland University, he worked as an Instructor and an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Actuarial Sciences at MTSU for five years. He also worked as a Research Associate at the MTSU Business and Economic Research Center in May 2000 – August 2001.

As a teacher, Dr. Melnikov has taught a variety of courses in business, economics, statistics, mathematics, and actuarial sciences. The areas of his research expertise are financial mathematics, computational methods in financial economics, and macroeconomics.

Since the beginning of his academic career in the United States Dr. Melnikov has published more than 20 articles and papers in journals and conference proceedings both nationally and internationally. In 2012 he co-authored a book titled “Green’s Functions” published by De Gruyter. Dr. Melnikov also presented his work at 15 regional, national, and international conferences; he has “hands-on” business experience trading currencies for FOREX Consulting, Inc. in New York City, NY and in Moscow, Russia.

Dr. Melnikov has been a member of the American Economic Association and the Tennessee Academy of Science since 1999, a member of Beta Gamma Sigma honor society since 2000, and a member of Delta Mu Delta honor business society since 2006.

He is fluent in Russian and Ukrainian languages; his hobbies include soccer in sports, science fiction in literature, and movies, and spending time with his family.

 Dr. Landis began working at Cumberland University in the spring of 1999. Dr. Landis earned his doctoral degree in Management from the University of Phoenix.  He earned his BA and MA in Communications at University of Alabama. While at Cumberland, he served as President of the Faculty Senate and was awarded SGA Teacher of the Year in 1998 and 2017. Dr.  Landis is the Program Director of Management in the Labry School of Science, Technology, and Business. He teaches business courses in the MBA program. He also teaches undergraduate courses including Introduction to Business, Organizational Theory and Design, and Principles of Management.  Dr. Landis has owned and operated several businesses, including a talent agency. He has managed businesses as diverse as software education, a technology college, and a restaurant.

Dr. Valerie King, DBA is an Associate Professor of Marketing for both Undergraduate and Graduate Business degree programs. Prior to teaching full time, she was a Marketing Specialist at a major global healthcare organization with specific responsibilities for developing marketing strategies for public health education initiatives. Additional experience includes management and oversight of a Marketing and Media department at a non-profit organization located Nashville, Tennessee. During this time, she managed a team of 40 staff members and over 50 volunteers will full strategic development, implementation, budgeting, and people management responsibilities. Further, she has a strong background in Healthcare Finance particularly in the area of pricing and relationship management. She is a Marketing Consultant specializing in strategic marketing, branding, and social media management for non-profit organizations, ministries, and small business organizations.

Dr. King received her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Belmont University. Dr. King completed her Doctor of Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing at Argosy University, Nashville. She has also earned a Graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management from Tennessee State University.

Dr. King actively volunteers in various community organizations in her local community with a focus on healthcare, education, and poverty initiatives. Dr. King is a graduate of Young Leaders Council and regularly supports various non-profit initiatives. She is an avid sports person with a strong interest in women’s basketball, football and hockey. In fact, she is a former student athlete as a member of the collegiate Women’s Basketball team at Belmont University.

Dr. Roger Jackson is the newest Biology faculty member at Cumberland joining in Fall 2021.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Calvin College (now Calvin University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan in May 2000.  He completed his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from Vanderbilt University in May 2007 (identification and characterization of novel p53 target genes), and he spent the next 4.5 years as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Urologic Surgery in the labs of Neil Bhowmick and Simon Hayward working on mouse models of prostate cancer and TGF-beta associated signaling pathways, in collaboration with the VU-Tumor Microenvironment (VU-TMEN) working group, part of the NCI Tumor Microenvironment Consortium.

Prior to coming to Cumberland, Dr. Jackson was a Lecturer at Belmont University for 8 years (Fall 2012-Spring 2020) were he taught primarily General Biology (non-majors, freshman majors) and Human Anatomy & Physiology I/II (nursing & science majors), followed by working for an academic year as an Instructor at Volunteer State Community College where he taught online classes in Human Anatomy & Physiology I (Fall 2020-May 2021).

Vichuda Hunter is the instructor of Chemistry.  She received her Bachelor of Art degree in chemistry from the University of Mississippi, her Master of Art in Curriculum and Development from University of Mississippi. She is currently working on her Ph. D. in Mathematics and Science Education (MSE) with a concentration in Chemical Education.

While working on her Master degree, she taught Chemistry and Physical Science at Northwest Mississippi Community College and continue teaching there after she received her Master Degree.  During that time, she spent two summers teaching Chemistry for the Higher Opportunity Program at Columbia Engineering – Columbia University in New York.

Ms. Hunter began teaching at Cumberland University in the Fall of 2017 as an adjunct faculty member in Biochemistry and became a full-time faculty in the Fall of 2018. She is interested in the teaching and learning in the analytical chemistry, instrumentation analysis, and chemistry laboratory. She spent 13 years in the analytical laboratory working in various capacities: as a quality control chemist, analytical chemist, senior chemist, organic laboratory supervisor, and the laboratory manager. She worked with the routine analysis using EPA and Underground Storage Tank Program protocol as well as non-routine analysis, special projects, research projects and setting up new testing methods. She routinely trained chemists and technicians on instrumentation and analytical technique. With her background and with her passion on teaching and learning in the laboratory, she is pursuing her doctoral degree in the MSE program at Middle Tennessee State University. Her research on teaching and learning in Chemistry laboratory has been recently published in one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’ s Journals.