Kelley School of Business Adds New Member to Supply Chain Faculty

The newest faculty member at the IU Kelley School of Business Indianapolis brings with her a wealth of real-world experience, which remains vital to the education Kelley provides.

Peggy Daniels Lee serves as a clinical assistant professor of operations and supply chain management at the school. When considering the position, Lee said she took into account the opportunity to work with some of the best minds in the supply chain field.

“I think our faculty in operations and supply chain are top-notch in the country and are some of the best in the world. It really was a no-brainer,” Lee said.
Lee will teach both undergraduate and MBA level courses. She also said she was drawn to Kelley Indianapolis because of the way the students are taught to think of the interconnections of the supply chain process, from logistics to sourcing to manufacturing.

Before taking on teaching full-time, Lee worked for many years in the telecommunications industry. She has vast experience in project management and engineering logistical operations. She worked in various parts of the country and led major projects to improve efficiency and customer service. She taught part-time during her career, but later realized she wanted to focus on being a full-time college instructor.

“It really boiled down to my entire career I have done some form of teaching. Even when managing projects, your job is to translate the language … so everybody is on the same page,” Lee said of her career change. “Teaching is very much like that. You’re a translator. Your job is to learn the discipline enough where you can put it in a language the students can understand.”

She most recently taught MBA-level management courses at Penn State University Great Valley. She received her MBA with a marketing emphasis from the University of North Carolina and earned her Ph.D. in 2001 from George Washington University in logistics, operations and materials management. She has an undergraduate degree in English literature.

Lee will be breaking new ground at Kelley Indianapolis as she explores teaching courses and case studies in the virtual world of Second Life.

She explored Second Life while at Penn State and found it to be challenging and intimidating at first, but she still understood “it had great potential to extend education in ways we haven’t been able to do before.” Users are able to create business communities with classmates and instructors and discuss in real-time issues and situations pertinent to the real business world. She envisions creating virtual supply chains in Second Life so students can understand and participate in the process.