M. Cecil Mackey

Who is M. Cecil Mackey?

M. Cecil Mackey was the president of University of South Florida from 1971 to 1976, Texas Tech University from 1976 to 1979, and Michigan State University from 1979 to 1985.

Prior to these academic posts, he was director of the Office of Policy and Development for the Federal Aviation Agency, director of the Office of Transportation Policy for the U.S. Department of Commerce, and assistant secretary for Policy and Development for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mackey holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in economics from the University of Alabama and a doctorate from the University of Illinois where he focused on economic theory, the history of economic thought, and the relationship of government to business and finance in economics. He also holds a Bachelor of Laws degree and studied graduate law at Harvard University.

He currently is a faculty member in the Department of Economics at Michigan State University, where he teaches online and hybrid courses in comparative economics, macroeconomics and general business law as well as focused-topic film study courses for the English department. Mackey is assisted in his coursework by long-time Michigan State University research assistants Steve Heslip and Sam McPherson. Under Mackey's supervision, McPherson was Michigan State's first-ever "cyber" or "virtual" teaching assistant, in terms of physically residing out of the region while assisting with hybrid course instruction online.