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Soules Spotlight

Meet the Hibbs Institute Faculty Fellows at UT Tyler

Housed within the Soules College of Business, the Hibbs Institute of Business and Economic Research is comprised of highly skilled, multidisciplinary professionals who work collaboratively to provide the best data and the most rigorous research to help East Texans in businesses and government agencies make well-informed decisions.

The Hibbs Institute not only conducts regional research in business and economics, but it also functions as a small consulting firm in economics that can produce specific requests from local governments, organizations or businesses at a cost, according to acting director and UT Tyler senior research analyst Dr. Manuel Reyes. He noted that the Hibbs Research Fellows are an important aspect to the institute by conducting related research reports, which are aligned with the kind of research the institute develops.

Reyes “The Hibbs Fellows are an important part of the institute because they contribute to the institute’s objectives and help produce more reports that ultimately reach more people,” said Reyes, who was hired in spring 2018 to help develop the entity.

To become a Research Fellow, UT Tyler faculty and staff must develop and submit a current research proposal in regional economics/business, which is then evaluated and approved by the Hibbs Institute Advisory Board.

Read on to learn more about Hibbs Institute Research Fellows, Dr. Marilyn Young and Dr. Kim Nimon, faculty within the Soules College of Business.

Young Meet Dr. Marilyn Young

Professor of Management

Dr. Marilyn Young teaches management courses and is the longest-serving faculty at UT Tyler. She has served as chair of the management and marketing department, director of the Small Business Institute and founding president of UT Tyler’s Beta Gamma Sigma student chapter.

Young was appointed a Hibbs Fellow in 2011 because of her marketing and business research, especially labor markets and wage and benefits in Texas. She has continued to study labor markets for economic development agencies for over 30 years. She works alongside Reyes in analyzing the 23-county East Texas region in preparing Hibbs newsletters and briefs. Young was recently certified in JobsEQ by Chmura Economics & Analytics. As a Hibbs Research Fellow, her work includes understanding hidden unemployment and underutilized of workers.

In her latest Hibbs Brief, she acknowledged the importance of organizations and workers who have met tremendous challenges with determination and are vital to economic development. Her Veterans Day Hibbs Newsletter focused on veterans as emerging entrepreneurs. Young continues the veteran study focusing on social entrepreneurship and is currently assessing business students and their entrepreneurial intentions.

She also works with Dr. Jim Cater, director of the Center for Family & Small Enterprises. Their latest research and publications are in the areas of family business and entrepreneurship, especially veterans, women, Hispanics and millennials.

Young believes education is a means to a successful career and an increased quality of life, and she is happy to help students and the East Texas businesses in her role as a Fellow.

“I enjoy preparing students for successful careers and helping organizations succeed by providing them with timely and accurate data to help in decision making,” Young said. “My management classes in the Soules College of Business are extremely important, especially understanding factors within our economic system of freedom and the business organizations and employees that make the system work.”

So, what advice does Young offer UT Tyler students? “Be resilient, accept responsibility and learn to adapt to change,” she said. “Be a positive team player and show appreciation to others when they succeed and be happy for their achievements.”

Along with her teaching and research, Young is currently writing about how to reclaim American values, such as achievement, self-reliance, competition and hard work. Also, after living in Spain, she continues to study Spanish.

Nimon Meet Dr. Kim Nimon

Interim chair, human resource development department and PhD program coordinator

Serving UT Tyler since 2014, Dr. Kim Nimon is the interim chair of the human resource development department and PhD program coordinator. She teaches the quantitative methods core for the PhD HRD students. Her research areas are employee engagement and quantitative analytic methodologies. She served as a Hibbs Research Fellow for AY 2020-21.

In her role as a Fellow, Nimon was instrumental in designing and administering the East Texas Employee Engagement Survey that was comprised of instruments that she co-developed with The Ken Blanchard Companies. This survey allowed leaders to see what employees thought about their job, organization and people, and how those perceptions related to their intent to stay with the company, endorse the organization and use organizational citizenship behaviors.

She enjoys working alongside colleagues within the Hibbs Institute to make a difference.

“It has been a privilege to have East Texas employees take our published surveys that have been administered across the United States and internationally and see how the results can be used to improve their work environment,” Nimon said.

In the future, she hopes to expand the reach of companies that have their employees participate in the East Texas Employee Engagement Survey, and manage the process on an annual basis so that the team can assess change over time.

Nimon also calls it a privilege to work alongside “pillars of the HRD discipline,” noting that the HRD department has a long-standing tradition of service and excellence among its faculty and students. The doctoral students have been awarded the “Dissertation of the Year” by the Academy of Human Resource Development in 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2014 and 2012; by the American Educational Research Association in 2018, and the American Association of University Administrators in 2021.

Nimon’s advice for Soules students is for them to take charge of their own learning and take risks. “When I was in school, I was often more concerned about the grade rather than the learning, and so I try to encourage my students to focus more on learning than on the grade. I often ask them did learning occur and am thrilled when they spontaneously say in class that learning has occurred.”

She enjoys reading, staying active and spending time with her family and precocious rescue cat, Tackle.

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