Students Honor Saloner, Barnett, Flanagan With Teaching Awards
May 2008
STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS —Professors Garth Saloner, Bill Barnett, and Robert Flanagan were honored May 27 by students at the Graduate School of Business who presented them with 2008 distinguished teacher awards.
Saloner, who headed the committee that created the new MBA curriculum, is also director of the School’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. He has accompanied students on trips to countries including South Africa and Ghana as part of their academic experience and was honored by MBA students who said he “demonstrated an uncanny command of the classroom: Tough, rigorous, serious, attentive, and fun.” Saloner is the Jeffrey Skoll Professor of Electronic Commerce, Strategic Management, and Economics.
Barnett, recipient of the PhD Distinguished Service award, was cited by doctoral students whom he advises for being engaged with his students and supporting their work. The Thomas Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations, Barnett is director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy and director or co-director of three executive education programs.
Flanagan, who this year taught the Sloan course in economics, is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of International Labor Economics and Policy Analysis, Emeritus. In presenting him with the Sloan Distinguished Teaching Award, he was cited for his ability to leadership in the classroom.
More than 40 faculty members were nominated for one of the three awards recognizing not only outstanding work in the classroom but also in advising and working with students in related settings.
“We are blessed with such great faculty at our School, and I applaud the student groups for recognizing excellence in teaching at this time of year,” said Dean Robert L. Joss. “These faculty are the best at what they do and professional in every way.”
In nominating Saloner, one student noted: “He holds us to a very high standard. Not a minute of teaching time is wasted. Outside the classroom he is involved in lunches, study trips, dinners with students. He genuinely cares for students.”
“This is an extraordinary student body dedicated to the improvement of management,” Saloner told students at an outdoor awards ceremony.
“You challenge the frameworks we teach, inspiring us to expand the boundaries. I taught the Endeavor case for the first time this year and after the discussion I sat down and rewrote the teaching plan.”
Saloner, who also received the MBA teaching award in 1993, earned his PhD from the Business School in 1982.
“When I was a PhD student—before email, before cell phones—my thesis advisor was John Roberts (the School’s John H. Scully Professor of Economics, Strategic Management, and International Business). Without him I probably would not be here.” Saloner also credited other faculty for influencing his writing and teaching, including Robert Burgelman and Irving Grousbeck.
Barnett, who earned his PhD at UC Berkeley in 1988, thanked Glenn Carroll, the Laurence W. Lane Professor of Organizations, who was his thesis advisor.
Doctoral student, Nick Switanek, one of Barnett’s advisees, said he often hears a loud internal voice saying “No!” “Bill sees a maybe and often a yes. He’s wonderful to exchange ideas with. He always knew how to meet me where I was and to help me grow.”
Barnett is also an advisor to doctoral student Elizabeth Pontikes who credited him with leading her to be an ethical researcher, and to “focus on what the data’s showing” rather than what might be expected.
In the Sloan classroom, Flanagan faces some students with zero background in economics while others have undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics.
“Everyone learned in his class. No one was left behind. Everyone benefited and improved their level of knowledge,” said Libby Brown.
Classmate Felipe Porzio added, “No matter what level of knowledge people had coming into the class, everyone was able to learn and grow.”
"Based on our experience, preference and leanings, most of us had strong opinions about macro and micro-economics before the classes started." recalled Sarath Boyapati, another member of the class. "Prof. Flanagan used logic, rationale, theories and their applications to challenge our assumptions and intuition. By the end of the course, he managed to transform our thinking. Most of us had performed a mental 180 degrees by the time the course ended."