For many reasons, I was enthralled by this 30-page story. For one, because I’m in the MBA program and know first hand some of the issues. For another, I’m just beginning my awareness into training and adult education theories. And another, because I’ve worked in marketing for fifteen years and see this effort as a process enhancement tool to improve the product being sold. Good for them.
I expect academic institutions are beefing up their marketing budgets as they need to compete for students. Even thought the product being sold here is a 2-year masters degree, academia does not forgo its responsibility to deliver a valued product to a target audience that wants it.
Seeing this type of self-correction / evaluation in an MBA program to me is evidence of the more recent evolution from push to pull marketing. As consumers are being more and more diversified, and their power to seek and ask for what precisely they want, businesses have more pressure to deliver wanted products. The days of Ford saying they’ll only sell black cars are well over. To stay in the game, Ford needs to design cars that consumers want. They have to pull consumers in by offering products consumers want.
The same goes for academia. Its why the past few years I’ve noticed many billboards around town advertising the VCU MBA programs (regular and executive). Early on I thought this was silly, that a college needn’t advertise. But of course they should. They’re selling a product and need to get the word out that it’s a good product. They also need to constantly evaluate the product to determine what improvements can be made.
I applaud the department for acknowledging that several professors, maybe those very well respected, are very proud and confident that their teaching style of straight PowerPoint lecture is well received. And retained. It’s crazy.
While I was in college and had a few friends getting education degrees. When it was time for them to do their student teaching semesters, I remember asking my father the professor about where he had done his and what he thought about it. His response surprised me then, and I recall my surprise even to this day. He told me that to teach K-12 teachers are required to take education courses. To teach college and beyond, none are required. I asked him, “well how did you learn how to teach?” His response, “I just started doing it and learned on the fly.” It must have worked out for him as he’s retiring at the end of this month after 40 years of teaching across 4 different colleges and one large university. But I’m sure if he took ADLT 603, there would be one or two nuggets that he’d find helpful.
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Amanda - That's the reason I ended up in the School of Ed and not applying to the School of Business. I came into the program thinking I would go and teach at the community college and thought....uh oh, I don't know how to teach! I would say that professors that want to have many resources - at least at VCU. For grad students, there is the PFF program - Preparing Future Faculty. And for professors, there is the Center for Teaching Excellence - a group of dedicated professionals that help with the teaching process. They have great workshops and demonstrations for faculty across VCU. Thanks for this reflective post. It is very interesting how we have viewed higher ed very separate from k-12. I think we're starting to come around. The medical field/education is evident of it.
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