Welcome to the inaugural issue of AMA Career & Classroom, offering timely, practical advice for all faculty interested in teaching and mentoring students preparing for careers in marketing.
The AMA has served the marketing academic profession since its founding in 1937, when the National Association of Marketing Teachers and the American Marketing Society merged. Over the years, marketing academia has changed in ways these founding groups could not have fathomed. AMA’s academic community has grown to a worldwide powerhouse—the only organization that serves the “big tent” of all that the study of marketing entails: consumer behavior, quantitative modeling, and strategy research. We take great pride in our place in the research community, and we offer many opportunities for service.
However, the teaching aspect of the academic career has not received as much attention, and today’s faculty face some daunting challenges. The field is changing: The adjunct professor and clinical faculty career tracks are an increasingly common phenomenon, fewer students follow the traditional high-school-to-college path, and universities are under greater pressure to demonstrate experiential learning and the impact of marketing education. We understand that marketing instructors could use some guidance.
In these pages, we aim to provide insights and conversation starters for classroom use, offering ways to easily integrate the latest research into your teaching portfolio. We’ve hand-picked these topics to pique students’ interest with real-world relevance.
Educators are welcome to distribute these pages or link to the electronic versions to spark class discussion. Many of these articles provide linked teaching resources like tool kits, lecture slides, case studies, and discussion questions.
Other sections offer advice for professors on teaching, advising, and your own professional development, from leading voices in the academic marketing field. We hope you’ll find these nuggets of wisdom useful as you navigate your academic career. These scholars bring a wealth of experience to the table, and you may recognize some names as authors of well-known textbooks and seminal research articles.
We welcome your contributions to future issues. Please visit ama.org/career-and-classroom for submission guidelines, or contact me directly to express your interest.
It has been a pleasure developing this new publication with my team, and we hope the care and creativity that Michelle Kritselis, T.J. Anderson, and Karin Horler have brought to this endeavor shine through every page. We are grateful to the advisory board for their valuable feedback and insightful suggestions. And don’t forget—AMA members receive early access to AMA Career & Classroom, so if you’re not a member, consider joining! Explore the benefits of AMA membership.
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Marilyn Stone is Director, Academic Communities and Journals, American Marketing Association.