Dr. Jay Gary, one of America’s leading foresight educators, came to Oral Roberts in 2015 with more than two decades of entrepreneurial experience in higher education, business consulting and Christian ministry. He serves as ORU’s Assistant Dean of Online and Lifelong Learning, responsible for online adjunct faculty and online degree program development.
“We live in a time of accelerating change. There is no better place to be than ORU, and standing behind our faculty to develop our whole-person empowered learning,” Dr. Gary states. “My passion is to fulfill the promise of the ‘college of everywhere’ and maintain quality, affordability and flexibility for today’s non-traditional students.”
His most recent work at ORU is helping create the Doctor of Strategic Leadership to provide mid- to senior-career professionals, who have substantial work experience, to opportunity to build their personal, organizational, and public leadership skills around wicked problems facing their institution.
For more than 15 years, Dr. Gary has served as a professor of foresight and innovation
to mid-career professionals, based on his work as a strategy consultant to non-profit,
public and private enterprises. He has supervised over 85 students in doctoral projects,
including recent projects on “Disruptive Innovation in Christian Higher Education”
and the “The Future of Latinos 2030: U.S. Workforce and Education Forecasts.”
Dr. Gary’s own research has focused on defining credentials and professional development
pathways for futurists, entrepreneurs and innovators. His latest published paper,
“The future of foresight professionals: Results from a global Delphi study,” considers
how institutions might adapt to develop future focused analysts, managers and consultants.
Other papers have focused on “Outlook for 2020: Results from a real-time Delphi survey
of global Pentecostal leaders,” or “The future according to Jesus: A Galilean model
of foresight,” which was selected by Emerald Management as one of 50 best articles
of 15,000 in 2008.
In 2003, Dr. Gary was a founding member of the Association of Professional Futurists
and served as their board chair from 2018-2020. He is also the co-founder of the Christian
Futures Network and serves on an auxiliary board for the Center for the Study of Global
Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. He is known among Christian audiences as
the lead developer of the AD 2000 Movement, as well as the “Perspectives on the World
Christian Movement” program that has enrolled 100,000 adults since its start.
He and his wife live in Tulsa and have two grown children. They enjoy Cuban food, great books and science fiction movies.