Insider Scoop: Interview with Dr. Emory Serviss

Dr. Emory Serviss is an instructor of Digital Marketing at AU and served as the Program Champion for the marketing department for around six and a half years.

Although Dr. Serviss finished his position as Program Champion this August, he is, thankfully, continuing his work for the Marketing Department and pursuing a research opportunity, as he recently completed his PhD in Marketing.

As a senior at Auburn who has just completed a Marketing minor and will be graduating this December, I wanted to share the positive impact Dr. Serviss has on Auburn’s campus. Unless you are a Marketing student at Auburn, you likely have not been able to interact with Dr. Serviss personally, and I feel that everyone should have that opportunity. I knew he would have many wise words to share with the Auburn family, so I am very excited to share them with you.  

The first question I asked Dr. Serviss was about his journey in becoming a professor at Auburn and later Program champion.

Dr. Serviss spent twenty years in industry before teaching. One of his first jobs after getting his MBA was at an ad agency in Atlanta. His first project was creating an e-commerce website for Coca-Cola in 1998 when the commercial internet was still relatively new.

After spending quite a few years working in digital marketing at a variety of companies and agencies, he found himself moving to Auburn due to a job opportunity for his wife.

While in Auburn, the digital marketing professor at the time was getting married and moving away, so the department chair posted an ad for a one-semester teaching opportunity. The Marketing department realized Dr. Serviss is an awesome professor and kept asking him back each semester to teach the class.

Three and a half years after starting a professor role for Digital Marketing, the program champion role opened up. During his time as Program Champion, he saw the research being done within the department and became very interested.

He completed his Doctorate in Marketing in the Spring of 2022 and began his research position in August of 2022.  

The second question I asked Dr. Serviss was about changes he has seen in students from the beginning of his career at Auburn to post-COVID, and how he has adapted to those changes as a professor.   

He mentions that the main thing that has changed is a drastic decline in student engagement.

“My classes are designed to have a lecture for fifteen minutes, and then an exercise surrounding the content we went over. Earlier in my career I would have a lot of back and forth with students about the activity, and now I really have to work hard at getting students to engage” explains Dr. Serviss.

On a positive note, he says he sees, “a lot more career focus earlier on in students' time at Auburn…and the more runway that you give yourself, the more time you will have to figure out exactly what you want to do post-graduation.”  

The third question I asked was about his successes in student networking.  

Dr. Serviss explains that he plays “matchmaker” when listening to students and what they want to accomplish and do after college. He says when he talks to students about what they want to do in their career, he asks, “What does that really mean to you?”

A majority of the time, what the student tells him is a different path, so he is able to help them realize that.

I had Dr. Serviss as a professor this past summer, and our first assignment was a student profile. We were able to tell him a little bit about ourselves, and I mentioned that my dream job was to work for a professional sports team in their Marketing department.

Not only did he converse with me about my dream, but he also sent me the email of the Marketing Director of a professional sports team that he knows. It truly meant a lot to me that he took the time to personally engage and help me network.  

The final question I asked Dr. Serviss was to give us one thing to take with us as we move into a new phase of life, beyond our Auburn experience.  

“Embrace lifelong learning.” Dr. Serviss explains that our classes at Auburn should not be the last classes we take. Even if we aren’t in a formal classroom, we can learn through podcasts, reading blogs and always staying on top of news and data in our industry. The other advice Dr. Serviss gives is to never stop networking. You never know when you may change your path in life completely, and those connections will always be there to help you out.  

Overall, I hope this interview helped to connect Dr. Serviss with all of you, and that we all were able to learn new things in the process. If you haven’t had the chance to meet Dr. Serviss and you find yourself in Lowder Hall, introduce yourself. It may be the best connection you ever make.  

Be Well, Auburn.