Professional Resume

From 1980 to 1984, Bednar was the assistant professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business (then College of Business Administration) at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas.   He became assistant professor of management at Texas Tech University  from 1984 to 1986. He then moved back to the University of Arkansas as the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the Sam M. Walton College of Business from 1987 to 1992 and was then the director of the Management Decision-Making Lab from 1992 to 1997. In 1994, he was recognized as the outstanding teacher at the University of Arkansas and received the Burlington Northern Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has twice been the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award in the College of Business Administration.

Bednar then served as the president of Ricks College/Brigham Young University–Idaho from 1997 to 2004 in Rexburg, Idaho. There, he oversaw and managed the transition of the school from, what was at the time, the largest private junior college in the United States, Ricks College, to a four year university, Brigham Young University-Idaho.