Outstanding Future BA (Business Analytics) Prof Workshop at the University of Iowa

I recently returned from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. I was there to give an invited talk on research at the 3rd Future BA (Business Analytics) Workshop. Many thanks to Professor Ann Melissa Campbell for inviting me and congratulations to her and to her workshop co-organizers Professors Kang Zhao and Beste Basciftci on the success of the workshop!

There had been 80 applicants with 28 selected and participating with advanced PhD students and postdocs from many universities taking part including: UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Clemson, University of Oklahoma, University of Buffalo, Harvard, MIT, and UMass Amherst.  It was my first time in Iowa and it was great to see the faculty and to also hear from the other invited speakers: Professor Tallys Yunes, who spoke on teaching, and Professor Bin Gu, who also spoke on research. 

Below is a photo that was taken of the group. It was quite remarkable that I had met several of the PhD students previously. 

I was also thrilled that my PhD student, Dana Hassani, took part. It was great to hear him give the elevator speech on his research and to hear from the others.

What impressed me was the enthusiasm and passion of the participants for their research, which I found uplifting and inspiring. 

The workshop kept us all very busy with the presentations, nice lunches and coffee breaks, networking sessions, and a dinner at a winery.

We could not resist taking a few more photos and the smiles on everyone's faces show how rewarding this workshop was.

I have posted the slide deck of my presentation here.

I wish all those who took part best of luck on their research and completing their dissertations, if they have not done so, plus successful academic job interviews!

I was very touched by the number of nice email messages I received from the PhD students and participants - they were very heartwarming and I appreciate the politeness and the reaching out.

This group has established a very nice and supportive network and I warmly thank Professors Campbell, Zhao, and Basciftci. It was also terrific to hear from Professor Barrett Thomas and to see Professor Thiago Serra, who has just joined the Tippie Business Analytics faculty after spending 5 years at Bucknell University.

Some background on this workshop on its website here.

Multidisciplinary Multiinstitutional Teaching Panel Today at UMass Amherst

This is a VERY busy time of the semester in academia and the academic year with many deadlines but also celebrations.

Nevertheless, when the invitation came from Professor Ana Muriel of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Amherst to take part in a Faculty Teaching Panel, I had to say, "Yes!"

Because where would we be without our students?!

Do join us this afternoon, if you can (and I will try to write up some highlights on this blog afterwards for those who can;t make it) , for an event that I am sure will be very informative and interesting for all those grad students who are interested in pursuing an academic career and will be teaching soon, if they are not already. We can learn so much from one another.

Hope to see some of you there!

The Tarnishing of the Ivory Tower

Now that graduations are over with and before another set of conferences begins, one can reflect on the academic year that has passed.

At times I wish that the ivory tower was, indeed, ivory to reflect an integrity that one expects of academics.

However, I continue to observe that, at various colleges and universities, it is increasingly not those who have worked the hardest and the most diligently that get the promotions and rewards, but, rather, it is those with the right "political" networks.

I am seeing more administrative appointments without searches; deserving faculty, whose promotions are delayed or stymied or outrightly denied because of egregious falsehoods, disregard to policy manuals, and errors that propagate up the chain of decision-making, and a deemphasis of diversity and equal opportunity.

I know of a teaching award winning faculty member, who is also a member of a minority, who was told to postpone his promotion and tenure decision year so that others could go through the process before him.

I am seeing more searches in which the finalists have no female representation even in areas in which females are well-represented.

I am witnessing rude public firings of directors by other administrators for no reason than to include substitutes that match more closely the one who did the firing.

I am seeing academic positions that are getting filled not by the best as according to the job description but by friends of those in so-called leadership positions.

I know of a female faculty member whose required course was made unrequired midyear and program graduation requirements altered to suit recently hired faculty with students not even being informed.

It appears that, in cases, it is the case that higher-level administrators are tacitly approving the misbehaviors and bullying of others by the lower level administrators.

As a colleague of mine told me recently at one of our graduation ceremonies, and I concurred, individuals know the paths that they have taken to reach their destinations/positions and they have to live with the choices made. I sometimes feel that some may just lack a conscience.

It takes a leader with courage to right the wrongs and I wonder where are the administrators who are up to this task?! Sometimes too much delegation without proper oversight and communications can completely destabilize what a school or college has taken years to build.