Faculty Spotlight
Jeff Rosensweig
Associate Professor of International Business and Finance
Jeffrey Rosensweig is the Director of the Global Perspectives Program at Goizueta Business School. His research and teaching focus on investing and business in the global economy. He also specializes in financial, macroeconomic, and business forecasting. Professor Rosensweig was recently selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the twelve favorite professors in all executive MBA programs worldwide. He also received the Distinguished Educator award from Emory’s Executive MBA students for four consecutive years. Professor Rosensweig served as the Chairman of Emory University’s Center for Ethics for thirteen years.
The following is a condensed version of an interview with Professor Rosensweig from April 27, 2010:
What inspired you to become a teacher?
I had good role models. My undergraduate mentor, James Tobin, went on to win the Nobel Prize in economics. I was impressed by how much concern he had not just for graduate students, but also for undergraduates, even while doing pathbreaking research. His deep concern for individuals inspired me. For instance, a lot of his good research was about unemployment, and I think he felt viscerally how bad it was for people and their families when they were unemployed, and he saw economics as a tool not just to be studied theoretically but as something that could be applied to make people’s lives better. When I got to MIT I had more exceptional professors. Two of them won the Nobel Prize, and they were both very good teachers. I came from a tradition of people who, no matter how exalted, really were committed to excellent teaching.
What attracted you to Emory?
I like the comfortable relationship of a high-quality business school with a high-quality liberal arts college. I enjoy being involved with multidisciplinary things, such as the Latin American and Caribbean Studies faculty. I like the Emory Center for Ethics. I enjoy having great business school colleagues and also the opportunity to either work with or share ideas with wonderful scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and medical school. I think Emory at its core cares about teaching more than most top twenty universities, and we at Goizueta care more about teaching than other top twenty business schools.
How would you describe your philosophy of teaching?
My approach to teaching is to care about students, but that doesn’t mean be easy on them. The goal is for them to learn a lot and to grow as individuals, and – since I teach business in a global economy – to grow in their global awareness and multicultural and multinational sensitivity, but with some rigor brought to it. No one could say I’ve won teaching awards because I was too nice; it’s because students learn a lot and want to come to class. In fact, I think I’m one of the few professors at Emory who routinely fails students, although I have no data on this. I have extremely high standards.
How has your approach to teaching evolved?
At first I tried to be too popular and wanted students to love my course and think I was a wonderful teacher. Maybe that’s a common fault of young professors. It’s more important to be respected as a teacher. My approach to teaching has always been interactive and to engage students. One thing that has made a difference is the introduction of technology that now seems simple to people, such as PowerPoint, because I have abysmal handwriting. I used to scribble all over the blackboard. With PowerPoint I can face the students. It’s readable and I don’t waste their time writing something they probably can’t read anyway. Little things like that have helped me make better use of the time in class, but also to continually engage students and make them think for themselves.
How would you like your students to remember you after they leave Emory?
I want them to say that Professor Rosensweig cared enough about us to make us work hard and was tough on us when it was called for, because he had high standards and he had a lot of belief in our potential. Because of his approach and the effort he put in, we attribute some of the success we’ve had in our lives and careers to having such dedicated teachers at Emory.
What’s one experience that stands out in your teaching career?
I flunked a student just a few days before graduation. His parents were flying in from another country. Of course I got lobbied to change the grade to a low pass, but I said ‘you didn’t do the work for fourteen weeks, it’s a little late now.’ I and the school said that if he could do satisfactory work he could eventually graduate. I told him that I had faith in him, but that he would have to rise to his own potential and have more faith in himself. We worked out a plan where he could complete a serious piece of research over the summer. He did it. Everyone was proud of it, and he was then allowed to graduate. Since then, he’s been one of the students who has been most supportive of me, because I think it showed him that I have I high principles but also enough concern for students to bring out the best in them.
What advice would you give to new professors?
The most important thing is to find your own style. Everyone has unique gifts and particular weaknesses. If the weaknesses drag you down as a teacher, you have to work to strengthen them. I suggest looking back at four or five teachers that have influenced you and had different approaches, then see what you can take away that will fit your own gifts so that you become the best teacher you can be. Ultimately the world can have professors who teach with a multiplicity of styles and approaches. In fact, it’s much better for students if they learn things from teachers who approach things in very different ways, because people learn in different ways.
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