Fraternization
I’ve been teaching since 2007, so that makes the span of time fifteen years. However, I took a few years off after ten years at Cornell, so I’ve really only been actively engaged in teaching for fourteen semesters, ten of them at Cornell and four of them at USD so far. I am scheduled to teach my ethics course again next semester so I will hit fifteen semesters for sure and will most likely be asked to teach again next Fall at least, so I may just make it to sixteen semesters. After that, all bets will be off since I will have more or less reached my 70th birthday, which is not so meaningful for an activity like teaching, but may be a psychological barrier for me. It’s actually less about age and more about how many times I want to teach the same material or the same course. I don’t feel so connected to USD that I believe there are people over there actively searching for ways to keep me engaged and teaching. I feel like I am an adjunct of convenience rather than an integral part of the faculty. I don’t think that’s all my own fault though I’m also sure I own part of that issue. I certainly haven’t gone and done a lot of schmoozing beyond the initial stage of hiring. My main driver, an accounting professor who was acting as Assistant Dean for Academics, was my sponsor (she is a Cornellian), has gone back into the faculty and while I stay in touch with her, I don’t sense much natural advocacy though she might do so if I asked. I also sense that the two Department Chairs who currently employ me find it much easier to use me to fill their needs than to go outside and seek anything better. One is on sabbatical in Europe so, let’s see if that changes when she returns. The other is here, but I still have yet to meet him and every time I send him something from the course in Advanced Corporate Finance, I tend to get crickets back. I don’t take offense at that, but it would be hard to take heart either.
This week, when I wandered into my finance classroom early, I encountered Matt, the oldest member of my class (he is 43 yers old). He asked me why I choose to teach. I gave him all my usual comments and justifications, but then said that the better question is how long I am likely to keep teaching. On the assumption that I have the choice in this matter, I find myself wondering if I can be as enthusiastic about teaching the same two courses going forward. On the positive side, there is far less to prepare since I feel I really do know the content and teaching materials even though the topics morph a little from one semester to another and there is certainly a need to update the classes and guest lecturers. I have now taught both course two times. I am pretty sure that teaching a third time will not yet get me to a point of diminishing returns, but I am unclear how many times I can teach the same courses before that point is reached.
My reasons for why I teach have everything to do with professionalism and staying relevant in the field of finance. There’s all that wanting to give back as well. But after the talking is done and I am just working my way through the semester, class after class and graded assignment after graded assignment, it boils down to the students. My courses at Cornell ranged in size from 40 to 110 students. At USD, my courses are more in the 15 to 30 size range. While I recall getting friendly with several of my students at Cornell, several of whom became teaching assistance for my courses, I couldn’t know too many. Indeed, one of them came to New York to work for me for a year and is still on my holiday card list. But for the most part, my relationship with students was as a friendly professor, kibitzing during a late afternoon class (I taught from 4-7pm at Cornell). At USD with the smaller classes and the fact that I teach from 7-10pm, I have had the ability to get to know my students at a much more personal level.
I pretty much know all 35 of my students (5 of them are taking both courses) this semester by first name. We share a bond of spending two of our weekly evenings at a fairly deserted campus. Before class there are a few other students and a few professors still around and getting food at the cafe, but by the time class ends, the only thing between us and the lights going off are the nighttime cleaning crew, so we are, in a sense, thrown together by circumstance. These students are all graduate business students and both courses are required courses. The ethics course is a required course for the MBA and the Advanced Corporate Finance course is a required course for a concentration in finance. I have never taught a required course before and here I am only teaching required courses. I believe in treating my students as adults. I make them do their assignments and I do try to grade them critically, but since the courses are supposed to curve to a B+/A-, no one who hands in assignments and shows up to most classes gets lower than a B- in the courses. If they need to Zoom into class or leave early or hand in assignment late, I am about as flexible as anyone could be. Discipline is simply not my MO. I care more about the quality of thought and expression than anything else.
I think my students recognize that I treat them like equals and they appreciate that. I also always make myself available for my students for career guidance and to give them some job referrals. They really appreciate that since that is at the core of why they are going to business school and taking up a lot of their time and money for that purpose. There certainly are some that actually want to learn something while they are at that, but to be honest, that is more and more incidental as online learning has given smart students the power to gather factual knowledge on their own.
This new-age version of knowledge transfer is such that I don’t feel I am there to pass on facts to these students, but rather to give them understanding and context. It is one of the reasons that my teaching takes on an overt storytelling tone. I find that its the best way to teach in this day and age and to this sort of student about these sort of topics. One might think that is particularly so for the ethics course, but it applies as much for the finance course…if not more so.
The result of all of this approach to teaching has been that I have developed some real friendships with my USD students. Every semester I am asked out for lunch, brunch, drinks or coffee by my students. There really is no ulterior motive from what I can tell. Grades aren’t involved. Jobs really aren’t involved. We have spent 16 weeks together and we have become friends. So tomorrow I am driving a half hour to LaJolla to have coffee with Sergio, one of my finance students. I don’t even drink coffee, but I will go because the bottom line is that the reason I teach is actually because I like the student interaction. Fraternization is what it is all about.