Business Profs that Make a Difference

I recently finished reading "Tuesdays with Morrie," by Mitch Albom, a book that I very much enjoyed. The book is filled with numerous memorable quotes attributed to Professor Morrie Schwartz, a former Professor at Brandeis University, on life, on living, and on education. Mitch Albom, who was a former student of his, captured in this wonderful book not only his deep affection and caring for this very special professor, but also the wisdom and love of life of this exceptional educator.

There was one part in the book, though, that I strongly disagreed with. Albom writes in the chapter, "The Professor, Part Two," that Morrie's classes at Brandeis were light on what you'd call "career skills" and heavy on "personal development."

And because of this, business and law students today might look at Morrie as foolishly naive about his contributions. How much money did the students go on to make? How many big-time cases did they win?

Then again, how many business or law students ever visit their old professors once they leave? Morrie's students did that all the time.

Albom, in his book, captured the essence of what makes a great teacher, and the book is a testament also to an exceptional writer as he takes the "final class" with his beloved professor through the final stages of his serious illness until his death.

As debates rage on regarding student evaluations of teachers at the college level, with Dr. Stanley Fish's provocative recent piece in The New York Times, as well as his followup with links to many thoughtful comments and responses, it is clear that the impact of a great teacher cannot be measured simply after the class and semester are over with a short questionnaire and evaluation form. Such a myopic but prevalent perspective may be convenient from an administrative point of view but does not measure true greatness in terms of instruction and lasting impact.

Those who were once students and who come back years and even decades after graduation to see a professor realize this, for sure.

In our local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, there is a front page article today on one of my colleagues, Professor Richard "Dick" Simpson, who is an accounting professor at the Isenberg School at UMass Amherst. Professor Simpson has been teaching for 42 years and his former students keep their accounting class notes for as long as thirty years. His remarkable influence on business education and on individual students has been recognized with numerous teaching awards.

One of Professor Simpson's present students, Carmelina Romano, who is a mother of two children (and who instead of bedtime stories read Professor Simpson's accounting class notes to her two young children) and was formerly homeless, was also featured in the article. She would bring her children to class, with his permission, studied about 20 hours a week for his class alone, and her 4 year old son would sometimes answer questions posed by Simpson in class to the fascination of the college students.

Ms. Romano wrote a letter nominating Simpson for the Mass Society of CPAs educator of the year and then hounded everyone who could possibly be involved with that decision to make sure that he received this honor.

Professor Simpson ended up receiving the Society's Career Achievement Award for Excellence in Accounting Education and stood with Romano when he got it.

So, business professors can make a difference!

When I returned from the ALIO-INFORMS conference, which took place in Argentina, 2 weeks ago, I found a business card under my office door. A former student of mine in the first class that I ever taught as a professor had left his business card under my door. He had been a student in my MBA class and was working very hard at a menial job to advance his education. To that class I brought my Brown University PhD diploma to show some students, who were mid-level managers, who doubted that I was a professor since I reminded them of their granddaughters.

The message on the business card said:

Dr. Nagurney:

It's been 25 years so I thought I would stop by and say hello!

Call me sometime.

This former student now has a top executive-level position with a major automobile company and his daughter will be matriculating at UMass in the Fall. I remember him just like yesterday. We will see each other in September.

MBA Gender Pay Gap -- Delusions of Progress

My colleague in Finance, Professor Ben S. Branch, brought to our attention an article, Women in Management: Delusions of Progress, in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), in its March 2010 edition.

The article was written by Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva, who found that women make, on the average, $4,600 less than men in their first post MBA jobs. The study conducted by them controlled for job level and industry. Men's salaries not only begin at a higher level, but then rise more quickly, with the consequence that the salary gap widens over time (and the researchers factored out such issues as having children or different goals/aspirations). The research tracked over 4,000 MBAs who graduated between 1996 and 2007.

Carter and Silva work for the firm Catalyst. They write in their HBR article: New research by our firm, Catalyst, shows that among graduates of elite MBA programs around the world—the high potentials on whom companies are counting to navigate the turbulent global economy over the next decade—women continue to lag men at every single career stage, right from their first professional jobs. Reports of progress in advancement, compensation, and career satisfaction are at best overstated, at worst just plain wrong.

Jim Turley, the Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, a sponsor of the research study, is quoted as saying “Frankly, the fact that the pipeline is not as healthy as we’d thought is both surprising and disappointing.” “Companies have been working on this, and I thought we’d seen progress. The last decade was supposed to be the ‘promised one,’ and it turns out that it wasn’t. This is a wake-up call for corporations.”

Companies (at least we had thought this) were, supposedly, engaged in efforts to enhance opportunities for women, but inequity remains entrenched.

Carter and Silva conclude that: companies must acknowledge their failure on this front, learn why they haven’t succeeded, and come up with better programs to help talented women advance. Interestingly, they also noted, in their study, that women tend to suffer from "bad, first bosses," who did not mentor them or support them.

Read their provocative and timely HBR article.

I thank my colleague, Professor Ben Branch, for bringing our attention to it. We need to act at all levels to reduce and to eliminate economic and financial disparities and to make sure that there is a level playing field for everyone. Listen up folks, the solution is not to have a world of just males.