Mary Beth Marrs

Mary Beth Marrs is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Management Department and serves as the Harry M. Cornell, Jr. Director of the Cornell Leadership Program and is the Director of the Heartland Scholars Academy. Marrs was on the business faculty at Idaho State University prior to returning to the MU College of Business in 2000 as a visiting professor. In July 2003, she was appointed assistant dean for undergraduate programs. At the beginning of 2007, she was appointed as the Associate Dean and her responsibilities were expanded to also include the college’s strategic initiatives, a role she held through 2018.

As Director of the Cornell Leadership Program (CLP), Marrs provides leadership development for high achieving business students as part of their four year experience in CLP. The seminars she teaches are recognized for the innovations through examining business case studies from the headlines. In addition, she coordinates corporate trips to Wall Street, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Chile. Currently, Marrs is focused on developing the Heartland Scholars Academy, created in 2018, which supports the unique needs of first generation college students from rural communities. Her primary teaching interests are leadership and organizational behavior. At MU, Marrs served as the faculty advisor to Alpha Kappa Psi, the professional business fraternity, for 21 years and is currently the advisor to ProCLAIM.

In 2021, Marrs was recognized by the MU Alumni Association with the Distinguished Faculty Award which is given to one faculty member each year. She is the first recipient in history from the business school. Marrs was named Faculty Member of the Year by the college’s students in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, and is a recipient of an MU Excellence in Education Award (2002), the Kansas City College of Business Alumni Association’s Teacher of the Year Award (2004), the college’s O’Brien Excellence in Teaching Award (2007), the Kemper Teaching Fellowship (2009), and in 2010 was honored with the Faculty Alumni Award. She was also inducted into Mystical Seven, a campus honorary society in 2007. In 2012, Marrs was inducted into MU’s IMSE Hall of Fame. With research interests related to the effects of aggressive and deviant workplace behavior, Marrs’ work has been quoted in such publications as Workwise magazine and USA Today and has published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Prior to graduate school, she was a director of operations support in the U.S. Postal Service.

Marrs is a three time Mizzou alum (BS IE ’87, MBA ’95, PhD ’99), and says the best part of her job is working with students and watching them experience all that Mizzou has to offer. She and her husband Alan (BA Computer Science ’84) and their two children, Justin (BA Statistics ’21 and MA Statistics ’22) and Brooklyn (BSBA ’24 and BA ’24) reside in Ashland, Missouri. Marrs enjoys traveling and attending Mizzou athletic events with family and friends.