Associate Professor Dean Johnson of the School of Business and Economics has received the 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award in the associate professor/professor category for the second time. He joins the ranks of only three other Michigan Tech faculty members to have been honored in both categories of the award since its inception in 1952. Johnson’s class offerings include derivative securities, investments, principles of finance and applied portfolio management.

What engages a student enough to make them say, “Johnson’s classes have increased my interest in my major by 100 percent”? The answer comes from students surveyed in Johnson’s investment analysis class. One student says, in a nutshell, “He knows his stuff, keeps students involved and seems to really enjoy teaching his subject.” Several students have commented on the real-world connections made in the classroom. One says, “He cares about the subject and wants to ensure that students understand it and will be able to apply it in real-life situations.”

Johnson says the pedagogy of finance is grounded in the real world. “I tie class material to what’s going on in the financial markets,” he says. “Maybe I’m lucky that with finance, it’s pretty easy to make those connections. We have the stock market, CNBC–it’s front and center every day.” And it’s easy for the School to keep an eye on current events with the new stock ticker located on the first floor of the Academic Office Building–Johnson had a hand in implementing the TV monitor that “brings the market alive” for students and faculty.

Current affairs are at the forefront of his classroom. A typical day in principles of finance calls for students to lead a session on happenings in the market at the beginning of class.

And in the Applied Portfolio Management Program (APMP), the brainchild of Johnson, students gain practical experience in managing a portfolio for a real client, the Michigan Tech Fund. The class, a select group of students, has excelled in managing a $1-million pool of funds contributed by outside donors. The APMP has won the national RISE investment competition in the value category three times in the past eight years.

“Professor Johnson has done a remarkable job of developing and implementing the nationally recognized Applied Portfolio Management Program,” says Darrell Radson, dean of the School of Business and Economics. “We’ve had students come to Michigan Tech just to study in the Program. His unique teaching style allows him to convey difficult financial principles in an applied manner, giving students the ability to be successful financial analysts and investors.”

Johnson goes beyond making practical connections in his classroom–he also makes it a priority to “get to know students as people.” One student says, “He truly cares about the development and understanding of each student.”

Johnson says his perspective on teaching has remained unchanged since he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2000. “When I walk into the classroom, I have an hour to make a difference in the lives of those students,” he says. “Teaching isn’t just a job for me. If it’s a job for me, it’ll be a job for the students.”

“I realize students, instead of just faces in the crowd, are here to make their lives better. I try to find out where they’re from and what career goals they have,” he says. “Once you develop a personal relationship, it becomes so much easier to push, push, push them to learn and study because they realize I truly have their best interest at heart.”

It’s clear that students pick up on this lesson and come out of his classes in the black, so to speak. One student comments, “He is the best teacher I have ever had, and I have learned so much in a short amount of time.”

What does Johnson enjoy most about teaching? “Simply seeing students connect the dots, seeing the ‘light-bulb’ moment on their faces. And hearing back from students five years later on how well they’ve done.”

Students in the Tech MBA program are eligible to compete for a position in the Applied Portfolio Management Program.

Assistant Professor David Orozco from Michigan Technological University’s School of Business and Economics presented a research paper, “Innovation Policy and Friends of the Court: Intellectual Property Advocacy Before the US Supreme Court,” Tuesday at the Max Planck Society’s Munich Intellectual Property Law Center, in Germany.

David’s research and teaching focus on the competitive advantage obtained by the proactive management of legal rights and intellectual properties. He received a juris doctor degree from Northwestern University and a bachelor of science in economics degree from New York University. He teaches business law and entrepreneurship at Michigan Tech.

His research paper showed that firms actively shape their and rivals’ ability to protect an innovation from imitation and to capture profits generated from the innovation through their decision-making processes. This decision-making is partially based on firm-related characteristics like technological factors, strategic interactions, institutional capabilities and power relationships in bargaining situations and the firms’ preference among property rules.

David will be teaching the Entrepreneurship course for our MBA this year. Find out more about David and his research on his blog — I.P in the U.P.

The guest blogger today is Marcus Carli, a current MBA student at Michigan Tech who just recently completed an internship with Caterpillar Inc.

Marcus says:

As a spring intern working for Caterpillar Incorporated at their global headquarters in Peoria, IL, I had a phenomenal experience. Starting on the first day, I began work on extensive technical marking projects for my work group. This included a requirements consolidation project for the largest mining customers in the world, the writing of competitive analyses, which will be published by Caterpillar, a sigma project that allowed me to acquire my six sigma green belt, and Knowledge Network presentations that will be given to Cat employees in Australia, Canada, and the United States. My employment here also gave me the opportunity to go on facility tours, see new product demonstrations, and the ability to network throughout Caterpillar.

My MBA education at Michigan Tech provided me with a solid foundation to not only complete these projects at the highest level of competency, but also allowed me to be very successful. From my experience as a student at Michigan Tech, the professors excel in teaching the students how to write, present, and communicate. These are skills that I used everyday while working at Caterpillar.

Perception management involves actively performing (or not performing) a set of activities and behaviors in order to thoughtfully and deliberately manage how other people perceive you. These activities and behaviors are in areas like verbal and non-verbal communication, work environment, volunteerism, and image. In today’s blog, I’m going to talk about image.

 People make up their minds about you within the first few seconds of meeting you. The only thing under your control at that point is your appearance. A positive impression will create a halo effect, positively coloring a person’s feelings about you for the next several minutes. If you begin with a negative impression, it will be very hard to change. But it doesn’t end with first impressions. People are confirming or revising their opinion about you every time they meet you. While having a solid, established, positive reputation can smooth over a few faux pas, perception management can let you save that for when you really need it.

I grew up with a casual approach to dressing. Most days, I wore jeans and a flannel shirt, and that’s still my preference. However, I have slowly and reluctantly come to the conclusion that I have to pay more attention to my attire, everyday and everywhere. Whether I’m at work, at the store, volunteering at soccer, or at church, I run into people that I know and meet new people. If I want them to see me as a savvy business professional, I have to “act” the part by dressing like a savvy business professional.

If you think that how people dress doesn’t make a difference, consider how dress is viewed in our society. A future MBA student was telling me about the game show “Cash Cab.” If the contestant needs help, they are allowed to ask a person on the street (a street shout-out), in which case, the contestant usually looks for a man in a suit. Why? “…because they think he’ll be Ivy League educated.” (greenbaypressgazette.com) People wearing a suit are simply assumed to be educated professionals.

This doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit everyday, but a little attention to your appearance will go a long way for perception management. Upgrade from jeans and a t-shirt to khakis and a polo. Save your sneakers for the gym, and buy yourself some nice leather shoes. Looking good doesn’t mean you have to be uncomfortable.

Dress like you are going to meet the most influential person in your life. You just might.

Nils Stenvig is pursuing an MBA and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering at Michigan Tech. Recently, Nils and Adam Manty, a graduate of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received the Outstanding Poster Award for “Reducing Blackout Likelihood via Advances in Tripping, Re-Closing, Load Shedding and System Separation Strategies” in the IREE Section at the National Science Foundation Engineering Education Programs Awardees Conference, held Feb. 1-3 in Reston, Va.

The poster integrated research from projects titled “Transient Analysis of Single Pole Tripping and Re-Closing Strategies on the 300kV Aura-Orkdal Line,” “Transformer Magnetization Measurement Inaccuracies” and “Dynamic VAR Control.”

Nils and Adam are advised by Associate Professor Bruce Mork from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition, Nils is advised by Director of Graduate Business Programs Ruth Archer from the School of Business and Economics.

Nils says: “I actually ended up talking quite a bit about our MBA program, tying a bit of energy economics into my research spiel. A lot of people were really impressed with the MTU group. This will now be an annual event, and the business school should consider sending a representative in future years. It was a really interesting and educational experience!”

Congratulations, Nils!