Teaching & Learning

January 2008 will be 5 years for me as an adjunct faculty member of Wayland Baptist University. Initially I taught courses such as Principles of Marketing, Market Promotion, Consumer Behavior and Global Marketing on campus. Now I am a member of the Virtual Campus focusing mainly on distance education around Principles of Marketing and Human Resources Management. Each Semester (4 semesters a year) I get two new groups of students and begin the process of introducing them to the various concepts and provide insight into the latest marketing theory.

After interacting with thousands of students from across the globe I wanted to take a moment and reflect on the impact that this profession has had on me. In many ways teaching a course really enables you to emerse yourself in the content. When you are a student your main responsibility is to comprehend the information that is presented to you. When you are on the other side of the desk not only do you need to comprehend the information, but you also need to be able to apply the concepts to real world scenarios that are relevant to your students to truly enhance the learning experience.

What I have found over the years is that students want the information presented to them to be relevant to their lives in some way. So this makes my job even easier as marketing impacts everyone on a daily basis. It would be very difficult to go through a day without some type of message either directly or indirectly trying to capture your attention. Radio, Television, Print, Online… no matter where you go you are constantly being reminded about various brands trying to maintain their position or gain market share against competitors. 

Many of my students own businesses and this allows them to have a better understanding of how they can reach their target audiences and understand the many facets of their envrionment (Political, Technical, Competition, etc…)

I am very grateful for the experiences and the interact with all of my students. Thank you all.