William Swart is a Professor of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at East Carolina University. He received his BS in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University and his PhD in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has held leadership positions in industry, including Corporate Vice President, and in the academia, including Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. He is the recipient of a NASA/JFK Group Achievement Award, the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) Operations Research Practice Award, and the Achievement in Operations Research Medal from the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).

Academics have long debated whether a university education should serve to provide a general foundation for life or to secure a livelihood. The former view was held for centuries during a time when education was dependent on one’s station in life. A member of the ruling class was taught to govern. Others could join a guild and learn a trade or work the land. The only other option was to join a religious order and be educated to serve God.

This view changed in the renaissance when members of the expanding middle class gained access to universities. Their expectations were to gain something more practical from attending a university. With the advent of the industrial revolution, universities became increasingly engaged in teaching skills that supported the industrial revolution – primarily mathematics, science and, later, engineering. Today, a university education is a de facto prerequisite to white collar employment.

The prevalent pedagogy has changed little since the middle ages. A professor standing in front of a classroom of students either reading or translating the contents of a book. Such a pedagogy serves to transfer knowledge, very much like reading a book on how to ride a bicycle might. However, when it comes to translating knowledge into practice, students and employers found that there was a huge difference between having the knowledge to, for example, ride a bicycle and being able to actually ride one successfully.

Closing the gap between knowledge and application has been a challenge for university programs designed to educate practitioners, such as engineering and business (not to speak of the health professions). The challenge arises from the dichotomy in the requirements for being a professor or a practitioner. To become a university professor, one must earn a PhD and engage in theoretical research that leads to grants and publications. To be a practitioner requires getting a job and develop one’s skills through years of practice. Having a PhD and teaching experience is not rewarded in industry, while industry experience is given very little value when applying for a job as a Professor.

Even when someone who has a PhD and has appropriate and relevant experience gained in industry, through consulting, and/or through applied research grants becomes a faculty member, the challenges of transferring that experience to students are more than meet the eyes. In this keynote address we will examine some of these challenges and explore how some of they might be overcome. We will discuss:

• Textbooks – do they really reflect what I have experienced in the real world?
• How do I package my experiences into learning modules?
• How can I replicate the real world in a “real” classroom?
• How do I avoid becoming a story teller and engage students in doing it, not just listening to it?
• How do I instill team teamwork into learning – e.g. how do I change the role of student from being an individual competing for a grade to a team member assisting others to achieve a grade.
• How do I become a coach and consultant to students as opposed to an authority figure that disseminated knowledge?
• How do I gain acceptance for being a “different” kind of teacher?