When David Fleming graduated from George Jenkins High School in Lakeland, he decided to stay home and go far. Today, after earning BA and MBA degrees from the USF in Lakeland, he is a Ph.D. candidate at USF Tampa.

The campus' "Stay home. Go far" tagline wasn't introduced until after his graduation, but Fleming lists family and strong ties to the area as reasons he stayed in Lakeland. "Starting at Polk Community College for two years and then continuing at USF in Lakeland seemed like a natural fit," he says.

"The key for me was the academic environment. I enjoyed having smaller classes, receiving personal attention and getting to know everyone. I took a few classes in Tampa, but it was nice to stay close to home."

Fleming majored in psychology with a minor in business and graduated summa cum laude. He then went on to earn an MBA degree. He also served for two years as president of the Student Government Association, where he had the opportunity to help plan the new USF campus at the eastern intersection of I-4 and Polk Parkway. "Plus I met my wife at this campus!" he says with a smile.

"David is a stellar person, one of our premier students," says Assistant Professor Andrew Artis, Ph.D.
"He's an ideal Ph.D. student. He's now teaching me things I wouldn't learn on my own. I truly see us more as colleagues than as professor and student."

Artis says Fleming serves as a metaphor for how far this campus has come in recent years. "In the past, students like him would have had to leave Polk County. What's great is that now they're finding what they need right here."

As a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Marketing at the USF College of Business Administration, Fleming is currently taking classes and working on his comprehensive paper, which a committee must review and approve before he begins his dissertation. For that project he is researching the impact of technology on marketing and customer satisfaction. To further his research, SunTrust Bank in Lakeland gave him access to its customers and employees.

"The comprehensive paper focuses on developing a scale to measure people's perceptions of companies with regards to how they deal with technology," says Fleming. "Currently there are a lot of measurements of how individuals relate to technology, but none that look at how customers view the companies that they frequent. SunTrust was gracious enough to grant me access to its branches in the Lakeland area to conduct this initial study, which will let me construct a scale to measure how both customers and employees perceive the relationship of the company with technology"

Fleming aims to use that scale in his dissertation, which will look at the influence of those perceptions on customer satisfaction and retention.

"Because of the high caliber of instructors here, David had the chance to do active, hands-on research, which was tremendous preparation for the Ph.D. program," says Artis. "That hands-on experience is a key to USF's polytechnic concept. We're definitely a premier local research university."

Professor Paul Solomon, Ph.D., agrees. "David Fleming is an ideal candidate for the Ph.D.," he says. "By going to the USF Lakeland campus he was mentored closely by the Lakeland faculty. He entered the Ph.D. program with an advantage over his classmates as a result of his close association with the faculty at Lakeland.

"As the chair of his committee, I am confident of his continued success in the field. USF is proud to have people like Lakeland's David Fleming in our program."

Fleming's success has helped build a stronger foundation for those who follow in his footsteps. "By continuing to work with us he's now paying back to the campus," says Artis. "He's helped mentor and train our research assistants. And working with him has helped me become a better professor."

Looking ahead, David Fleming hopes to become the kind of university professor that instills the same passion that he received from his favorite professors while at USF.