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Help! 

My Dean Wants Me to Teach a New Course in a New Area with a Person Who Is an Expert in the Field but Is Not an Academic.

Lessons from the Ivory Tower and Hollywood 101

James B. Hunt

Professor of Marketing

Cameron School of Business

UNCW

 

Please accept my apology for the longest title in CTE best practices history. If it caught your attention, GREAT! I did my job as a marketer. If you found it confusing or even intimidating, then you can appreciate my feelings on the day my dean approached me with an “opportunity.” Though I was smart enough to interpret “opportunity” as “Danger! Danger Will Robinson,” I was nevertheless powerless to run away. I took the bait and, am happy to say, enjoyed every bite and would do it again. This essay discusses my opportunity as a business marketing professor to work with Frank Capra, Jr. in developing the course, The Business of Film, for UNCW’s film studies program.

 

First…some background. As the Film Studies program was originally being formed in the late 1990s, it took the shape of an interdisciplinary program. Though it would eventually become its own department, it began with the input of interested faculty all across campus. Foreign languages, history, communication studies, English, creative writing, and others were all involved. At some point, someone (possibly Frank Capra, Jr. at Screen Gems, or Phil Furia, interim/acting director of the new film program) realized that the business side of filmmaking would need to be addressed in the coursework. Dr. Furia asked the dean of the business school, Howard Rockness, for assistance in course development and faculty support. No one in the business school at that time, including me, had particular expertise in the motion picture and entertainment business. I’m not sure why Dr. Rockness came knocking on my door, but when all the starters have fouled out the coach reaches for the guy who last made a free throw in practice. I had recently received a teaching award, so I guess he figured that I might struggle a bit, but wouldn’t fail miserably. And if I did fail miserably, he knew I already had tenure and would probably get over it.

The invitation was intriguing. Who wouldn’t be interested in delving into the glamorous world of Hollywood? Reading Variety and the Hollywood Reporter would be a nice change of pace from the Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. And there was the tasty bait…a chance to spend a week in Los Angeles meeting with Hollywood producers, movie financiers, and film professors from UCLA, USC, and other film schools. A colleague, Warren Gulko, had a grant related to the film industry and economic development in North Carolina. He had a trip planned to LA, and I was able to piggyback on his project to gather information for course planning and design. Incidentally, in addition to sample syllabi, reading lists, and advice, the data gathered from this trip ultimately resulted in a paper presented to the Society for Cinema Studies. So I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun. Why not?” Then came the kicker. Frank Capra, Jr., president of Screen Gems Studios was interested in co-teaching the class with me. First thought, “Brilliant! This opportunity keeps getting better!” Second thought, really more of a feeling deep down in the gut. PANIC. “Help!  My dean wants me to teach a new course in a new area with a person who is an expert in the field but is not an academic.” It was now time to navigate the challenges/pitfalls and opportunities/benefits of trying something new. Lessons learned? Here are a few:

Say yes. Do it.

I hope each of you in your academic career gets an opportunity to develop a new course in an area outside your primary discipline. It costs you time, sweat, and blood. Maybe some money, too. But trying something new, accepting a new challenge, is a good way to prevent becoming academically stale and burned out. Stretch. STReeeeeeETCH. We all like learning new things, or we wouldn’t be in this profession. I believe it was Christopher Reeve who said, “You can either swim in the shallow end of the pool, or choose to go out into the ocean.” And it will help your current courses, too. Consider this exercise analogy. Being a runner doesn't mean you only run. Many runners also swim, cycle, ski, snowshoe, row, play tennis or do aerobic dance. It's all part of cross-training, the use of more than one sport to improve one’s fitness level. So why not academic cross-training?

Create something. Build it from scratch. You’ll like it better.

*%$#@&* “What do you mean there’s no text, sample syllabus, test bank, instructor’s resource manual for this course?” Materials gathered on my Hollywood trip were helpful, but none of them were exactly what I needed. The course I was envisioning didn’t seem to exist, or at least I couldn’t find it. I must shamefully admit I was trying to take the wimpy way out and just copy something that had already been designed. Not only did I not want to re-invent the wheel, I wanted to steal the wheel off another vehicle. Well, none of the other vehicles were going in my direction. They all had other destinations, and I was forced to build my own car. The result was a course that I not only was proud to claim, but a course that delivered exactly what our students needed. For many, this was likely to be the only business course they would ever take. It had to have the right mix of marketing, finance, business law, and management principles, with a dose of accounting and project management thrown in. For other students, this would be the only film class they would ever take. It had to expose them to the entire lifecycle of a film product, from story idea, through production, and into exhibition. The class ultimately did all of these things.

It’s OK not to be the expert.

A lot of stress came from the fact that I was simply not an expert in the business of film. In fact, I wasn’t even an amateur. Truth was, I was a complete neophyte. A student working as an intern on Dawson’s Creek would have more knowledge than I would. Can it get any worse than that? Yes, it can. Not only might I look foolish in front of the students, but I would REALLY look bad when compared to Mr. Capra! I did not know Frank, and thus had no idea at that point how gracious a man he is and how wonderful it would be to work with him. So fear and intimidation were both things I had to wrestle with as I planned the course. My Hollywood trip was in March, and the class would not be offered until the following spring semester, so I had some time to at least work my way up to advanced neophyte. Ultimately, I taught the class several times, getting “more expert” each time. But along the way I realized that I didn’t need to be THE expert. In the film business class, it was not uncomfortable to allow Frank to answer questions I did not know or to have him lecture on the topics, like production scheduling, that would obviously be best assigned to him. But beyond that, I re-learned something I first discovered in my inaugural class as a doctoral teaching assistant. There would be days when a student would ask a question that I did not have an answer for. OK…many days. The choice was to (a) make up an answer and try to “sell” it, or (b) admit I didn’t know but would get back to them with the answer. You might get away with (a) once, but try it again and the students realize you are a fraud. In fact, they may then take great pleasure in playing “stump the instructor,” a game I remember playing in a marketing class I took as an undergraduate. (B) is the wiser choice, but you must be sure to come back the next class with the answer! The students will respect your candor, sincerity, caring, and work ethic.

 

Grasp the power of co-teaching a class. -or- Why you and your students will love this approach IF you don’t let ego get in the way and you play to each teacher’s strengths.

I provided the structure, created the overheads/slides, kept the class on track, made and graded the exams, and delivered the lectures on publicity, merchandising, business law, and marketing research. As I mentioned earlier, Frank would take the lectures on budgeting, production scheduling, film unions/guilds. Many times I would handle the first half of class with basic concepts, theory, and terminology, and then Frank would add life to the material with examples. He took care of securing fantastic guest speakers. Together we graded the movie ideas the students “pitched” and evaluated their business plans. It worked, and I think very well, because each of us allowed the other, in fact expected the other, to handle their share, and we recognized that we were each better at different things. As a practitioner, Frank had a different perspective and a different skill set from me. I have colleagues who have had miserable co-teaching experiences because each party wanted to be in charge or felt that they got stuck with more than their share, or just had good old-fashioned personality conflicts. It doesn’t always work. I realize I got lucky. But with respect and some planning upfront, you can really enhance the likelihood of success.

Recognize that you may have multiple audiences.

Depending on the semester, the Business of Film class had from 36 to 45 students. A challenge Frank and I faced was that half the students in the class were film studies majors and the others were business majors. No matter what material we covered, some students in the class would have some previous exposure, and the other half would be seeing it for the first time. I must confess that our course evaluations did include a few comments like, “wish you spent more time on film concepts,” while others would say, “wish you spent more time on business topics.” But by and large, this was apparently not perceived as a big problem. Entering the class, some students expressed concern that they would have difficulty because the course dealt with film/business, and they had never had a course in film/business. Covering a topic they were familiar with was seen as comforting more than it was seen as boring and repetitive. But beyond that, I believe Frank and I recognized early that we had two distinct audiences with different needs and maybe even different learning styles. Thus we tried to “mix it up” and have both left-brain and right-brain lectures, activities, speakers, and assignments. Since there were two of us, we also had the ability to change directions mid-class if necessary. For example, if I was delivering a particularly dynamic lecture on the use and misuse of marketing research, but noticed that by complete chance half the class had gone comatose, I could quickly handoff to Frank for some real Hollywood examples of misinterpreted surveys from movie preview audiences.

 

Don’t forget STYLE. 

Let’s pretend that you are given a similar opportunity. You’ll be spending a lot of time studying and preparing because, after all, this area is new for you.  Realize, though, that it’s not enough for you to have the knowledge…you and your co-instructor must be able to make it relevant and exciting.  Think about your style, which may be very different from that of your teaching partner. When you teach by yourself, you don’t necessarily think about style or even notice that you have one. But when you co-teach, differences in style jump out and grab you. I think as long as you and your teaching partner recognize you have different styles, it won’t be a problem. In fact, the students will probably enjoy these differences. We talk a lot about cultural diversity. Why not “style” diversity? Now, I can’t really define “style,” but I know it when I see it. It’s whatever it takes to earn extra attention and deliver something special. Because you want to have an impact on your class, you have to do more than just deliver well-structured information. You may have the most complete, most organized PowerPoint presentation on campus, but if your students simply download the notes from the web and sleep through class, it is doubtful you will ever have impact. You have to add those extra ingredients – enthusiasm…conviction…creativity. You may be a scientist, but you need to be an artist, too. Think of professors you had in college, or even high school. Which ones had an impact on you? Why? Think about a preacher, priest, or rabbi that has a special impact on you. Think about a politician or radio personality you enjoy listening to. Why are they effective? Because they are enthusiastic, convince you that they care about their subject and you, and find a way for their message to resonate with you. You may not like it, but you must find a way to resonate with your class. Part of my “style” is humor. Having a sense of humor can go a long way, but the humor needs to be on target, i.e., it should help the student remember a concept, not just remember me. If my student evaluations say, “funny as hell, but I have no idea what we were supposed to learn,” I’ve missed the mark. Maybe humor is not your thing, but I bet you are able to give examples that provide information and really clarify theories you are discussing. Or maybe you show clips from films, or bring in artifacts, or have a quote of the day, or work them over on case analyses like a drill sergeant, or leap atop a desk and deliver the lecture in semaphore... Bottom line, don’t forget style. As teachers, we are concerned about facts, theories, and models, but not concerned enough about how relevant and provocative we make these facts, theories, and models for our students.

Post script: I recently passed the film baton to business school colleague Pam Evers, who now teaches the course with Mr. Capra. I’m happy to say the course continues to improve, and the team approach continues to work.

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