When it comes to building their careers, business professionals often turn to continuing-education courses to learn new skills and concepts.
Then there are those who prefer to grow professionally by doing the teaching themselves.
Increasingly, full-time professionals are finding themselves in the role of part-time professor. Sure, it’s a way to make a few extra bucks – and occasionally they’re able to get continuing-education credits while teaching a class or two as an adjunct professor.
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But for many, it also is a rewarding challenge that exposes them to the fresh ideas of fertile minds, and motivates them to analyze their profession in a way they might not otherwise.
“Teaching gives professionals the chance to share their ideas and experiences with bright undergraduate and graduate students,” said Edward Mazze, dean of the University of Rhode Island’s College of Business Administration.
“These students ask the type of questions that aren’t limited to the individual’s specific job. They keep you alert and really get you thinking,” Mazze said. He said URI’s business school aims to have three or four businesspeople teach courses each semester.
Colleges and universities increasingly are looking to pad their faculty with part-time professionals who are able to bring real-world experience to the lecture hall. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 43 percent of faculty at U.S. colleges and universities are part time – up from 22 percent three decades ago.
The Bryant College Executive Development Center, which offers dozens of professional-training courses, relies solely on adjunct professors who can bring to life the issues they confront on a regular basis. The program has courses in financial planning, human resources, technology, leadership and other areas.
“We want people who are out there doing these every day,” says Jennifer Chasse, the center’s program manager.
Frank Cerilli, vice president of compensation and benefits at AAA Southern New England in Warwick, has taught the “employee relations” course under Bryant’s human resource management program for the past three years.
Cerilli said he encourages students to share experiences from their own workplaces: tales of problem employees, innovative retention strategies, quirky reward programs. It’s a way to build a frame of reference for other students – and himself.
“Their stories and examples add to class dynamics, and sharing that information is a way to get best practices out there,” he said.
He added that preparation for the class also helps. Instead of trotting out the same stale lessons and case studies semester after semester, Cerilli scours human-resource trade journals and the Internet for the latest HR literature. It’s something a non-teaching professional might not make the time to do.
“People do tend to get complacent in their responsibilities,” he said. “(Teaching) is a way for me to have an open mind and make sure that I keep as current as possible in the (HR) field with things like legal issues and reward/recognition programs.”
Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey, the former president of Tennessee-based investment firm Morgan Keegan & Co., teaches an investment course at URI. The class oversees the business school’s “Ram fund,” a $100,000, student-managed investment portfolio.
Laffey, whose stock-picking prowess was once highlighted in a Wall Street Journal story, says there are always things to learn from teaching his students.
“The nice thing about students is that they have a fresh perspective; most have never bought stocks before,” Laffey said. “I’m always picking up stuff from them.”
Plus, there is a “selfish” motive for teaching the course, Laffey said.
“It keeps my hand in the stock market,” he said with a laugh.
Mazze said students tend to soak up the real-life anecdotes of full-time professionals because they often go beyond sanitized business theory, and – if presented well – can serve as living case studies.
“Students always like to hear from businesspeople about their experiences, because they’re often up front about failures as well as their successes,” he said.
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