Meet the Professors - Roy Busby

Dr. Roy Busby is a senior professor of advertising at the University of North Texas, runs an advertising consulting firm and is accredited in public relations. He currently teaches five classes, most of which he developed.

Amber Downing/NTNewsnet

Dr. Roy Busby never intended to be a teacher or an advertising consultant.

He grew up in Lancaster, Texas where his life revolved around friends, school and baseball.

“I still remember the way you picked your church,” Busby said. “You went to the church who had the best baseball team.”

After graduating from high school, The Cincinnati Reds offered Roy “The Buzz” Busby a $1,000 signing bonus to pitch. He thought about it for a few days, “but I wanted to go to college and I wanted to learn,” he said.

Busby earned both his Undergraduate degree in Journalism and his MBA in Marketing at the University of North Texas. But between getting the two degrees he was drafted into the army. He worked in administration in Huntsville, Alabama.

In their free time, the men played baseball.

“I never let anyone know I was a pitcher, because I liked to hit,” Busby said.

He had a .500 batting average while there and got the highest compliment a batter can get, “they started throwing at me,” Busby said.

In the 1960’s he took a leave of absence from his job in investor relations at Texas Instruments. He wanted to get his doctorate at the University of Oklahoma.

Busby took a 39 hours course load while teaching in both the business and advertising colleges.

In 1968, UNT asked Busby to be Director of Public Information. He decided to work at UNT rather than go back to T.I. He continued work on his doctorate through correspondence. Busby received his doctorate in business administration in 1974 with special work in advertising from the University of Oklahoma.

Busby has held many positions in university administration including assistant to the president, secretary to the Board of Regents and vice president.

“There’s a lesson in that, always be open to and train to do different things,” Busby said. “I couldn’t see myself teaching full time. I was pretty sure I was going back to corporate.”

But Busby was curious about advertising consulting. He wanted to start his own firm. He’s on his 38th client right now, “but I’m trying not to have any,” Busby said.

When he started consulting, his teaching immediately got better, “because when you’re teaching, you’re in the firing line,” he said.

Busby has received offers to go back to administration and to teach at other universities. But he’s got no plans of quitting any time soon.

“I have no idea when I won’t do it [work],” Busby said. “But like in baseball, you know when your fastball is slowing down.”

Dr. Busby Talks About Teaching at UNT

Comments

By Charlie McRae on March 11th, 2009 at 12:11 am

One of my favorite professors. Great article, very interesting. Would have even read further if it was more in-depth.

By Nathan Beasley on March 17th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Busby is one of the coolest professors you could ask for. If you ever get the opportunity you HAVE to take his class. I never knew he could play ball well, but as a professor he’s still excited to teach to this day. It’s a very rare thing to find these days, but the journalism department has quite of few of those people on their staff.

By Elise Brooking on March 31st, 2009 at 11:25 am

Nathan Beasley! I never would have imagined seeing you on here! It’s a small world. I haven’t had the chance to take Busby, but I do hear he’s great.