Bill describes his career path that took him from a student of Executive MBA program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha to its director including responsibility for non-degree offerings. Bill shares importance of storytelling in effective teaching of professionals and how his long business career helps him to make his stories relevant to his students and his programs more effective. His smooth transition from a private sector to university environment surprised his colleagues but it was not accidental. Bill also talks about his new programs and future plans.
“Since 1992 I’ve been teaching a class in the college of business here at UNO in marketing and I’ve had several different teaching assignments in marketing for the college. But in addition to that it also gave me an opportunity to do some internal teaching at Valmont.”
“You can tell the story. If you can help the individual visualize a particular situation and walk them through that process and then ask them: “How would you apply your skills and knowledge to address this particular issue?””
“A lot of what we did in the classroom was built around these case studies of actual things that I encountered I but also the research around a firm and the things you have to look for that within a firm that’s going to help you decide whether or not you want to do business with this operation or not.”
“I’ve always tried to take a look at what problems do I need to address today, what priorities do I need to work on.”
“To me the most motivating thing about coming to work on a daily basis is “Who am I going to help today?” and “How am I going to be able to help them gain the results that they want?””
“Through some conversations recently that I’ve had with CMED colleagues that we’re going to take a look at the opportunity of perhaps offering a Mini MBA as an open enrollment program.”
“If somebody knows that we do these Executive Education programs they’re more likely to pick up the phone and contact us or they may have a conversation with someone who is familiar with what we do and they’re directed to us.”
“I talked to a lot of my colleagues and friends on both sides and they’re not exactly sure how I’ve been able to make the transition so smoothly [from the private sector to Higher Education].”
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Links:
University of Nebraska at Omaha, Executive Education
Bill Swanson LinkedIn Profile
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