Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business has named Dr. Kyle Bunds as the head of the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
Bunds joins Spears Business from North Carolina State University, where he served as an associate professor and the director of undergraduate programs for the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. In that role, he led one of the college's largest undergraduate programs, overseeing strategic planning, curriculum innovation, academic assessment, advising, enrollment management and student success initiatives.
“Returning to my home state to lead the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management is a tremendous honor and a very meaningful opportunity for my family and I,” said Bunds. “I am grateful to the leadership of the Spears School of Business, Associate Dean Marlys Mason, who chaired the search committee, and the entire search committee for their confidence in me and for the opportunity to join the Spears Business community. I am excited to work alongside an exceptional community of faculty, staff, students, alumni and industry partners. I look forward to building on the school’s strong foundation while creating new opportunities and expanding the ways we contribute to the future of hospitality, tourism and events.”
At NC State, Bunds worked with faculty, staff, students, alumni and industry partners to implement the department's tourism and event management degree pathway and to create esports curriculum pathways spanning multiple colleges. He also expanded interdisciplinary learning opportunities, co-directed study abroad programs in the United Kingdom and Germany, and strengthened experiential education initiatives designed to prepare students for a rapidly evolving workforce.
Bunds' research examines the connection between sport, the environment and development, with his current work focused on the relationship between sport, tourism and extreme weather in the sport business and youth sport industries. His research has earned national recognition, including the 2020 Early Career Research Award from Human Kinetics and the Sociology of Sport Journal, as well as the 2021 Collaboration and Innovation Award for Geospatial Analytics at NC State University for his work with Geospatial Applications for Problem Solving. He has received grant funding from organizations including the United States Soccer Foundation, the USGA, KABOOM!, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and his research has appeared in academic journals, book chapters, and technical reports, as well as two books and an upcoming textbook.
Beyond the classroom, Bunds has mentored graduate students and early-career faculty and has chaired numerous graduate committees. He was a 2024-25 Provost Faculty Fellow for University Leadership at NC State, focused on developing interdisciplinary research opportunities for students, and a 2022-24 Digital Education Learning Technologies Applications Faculty Fellow, focused on integrating immersive educational technologies across campus.
He currently serves as co-lead of the Sport Ecology Group, director of the Sport Ecology Graduate Student Mentorship Initiative, review editor for Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, and as an editorial board member for the Journal of Amateur Sport.
A Tulsa native, Bunds earned his Ph.D. in sport management from Florida State University and his master's and bachelor's degrees from the University of Oklahoma. He and his wife, Natalie Swisher Bunds, also an Oklahoma native, have three children.
Founded in 1937, the OSU School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Spears School of Business has evolved into a business-focused academic program that educates students and conducts research for the food and beverage, lodging, event planning and tourism management industries. OSU ranks 11th nationally and 27th globally among hospitality and tourism management programs, according to ShanghaiRanking.com.