Mark Pruett
Focused on decisions.
We should help make students more curious, more creative, and more dedicated to doing some good in the world.
I love being in the classroom.
Diverse settings: Undergraduate, master’s, and executive levels. In the US and overseas. In school and in the community. I also taught a specialized course for Senior Executive Service candidates in the Department of Defense, and guest-lectured annually at the FBI Academy to forensic lab managers from across the country.
Diverse students: I have been lucky to teach students from many backgrounds. Students from many countries, with diverse cultures and languages, dreams and plans. Small-town first-to-college, and cosmopolitan executives and scientists. Athletes and veterans. Business students, and many from liberal/fine/performing arts and engineering/sciences. Teenagers and grandparents, refugees and politicians. Students with strong families, students with none. Students who fly planes for fun, students so poor they sleep in their cars.
My dad once said that the best part of being a professor is spending your life around people that never age. I agree, and include learning about the astonishing range of human experiences that each new semester brings to the classroom.
I still hear from students in my very earliest classes, some as lifelong friends.
Diverse subjects: Management-themed courses including strategy, creativity, international business, entrepreneurship, management principles, management in the movies, human resources, technology/innovation, and managing change. Each was either built from scratch or re-built from the bottom up.
Diverse methods: Students say my teaching style is different, but I don’t pursue difference for its own sake. My students learn the advice of 17th century Japanese samurai warrior Musashi: do nothing that is of no purpose. I believe what matters most in education is the fostering of open, engaged, and informed minds.
Most of all, I want to build curiosity about the world and involvement in life. At any level of education, we need graduates with knowledge and skills, but we especially need graduates with a greater sense of purpose, of confidence in their ability, of excitement about how wonderful, interesting, and complex the world is and can be for them. And, particularly, we need graduates committed to the roles they will play in society’s future, committed to improving the world, committed to something beyond their own interests, and with an understanding of how to go forward.
The first and last days of class are my favorites. For me, the first day is like the curtain rising on a stage. It might begin with a discussion of Cirque du Soleil, a tale of Peter the Great, a story of Ernest Shackleton’s disastrous journey, or a question about the history of music. History is important in all my teaching, and each beginning leads directly into the course subject. The semester’s last day is the final scene—reminding them why we were here, where it will lead them next in their education, and reviewing the course and life lessons I hope they will take with them.
My style is relaxed, engaged, and rigorous. Unusual projects, written assignments, class discussions, and even multiple choice exam questions can be used to stress critical thinking and application of terms, concepts, and principles.
Detailed syllabi, lectures, and assignments combine with wide-ranging examples and “out-of-the-blue” questions in class. Sometimes students say “I had to think about what you were doing or saying because I wasn’t sure where it was going, and in the end it tied right back into the topic.” Leading students in a direction—to think about what we’re doing and why—is crucial not only for teaching specific material but for fostering curiosity and building a commitment to lifelong learning.
Syllabi in the works
Business & History–this course will not teach the history of business but will give students an understanding of how history shapes and explains business at global, international, industry, firm and technological levels of analysis. See my personal take on why history matters.
Creativity 2–this course will extend and reinforce topics and concepts introduced in Fostering & Managing Creativity 1 by working on an in-depth semester-long project.
Practical Intellectual Property–this applied course will teach students how to protect and work with creative and inventive intellectual property by studying patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing, and trade secret protections.
Example syllabi
Fostering & Managing Creativity 1
Management Principles/Leadership
Entrepreneurship 1: Intro to Ent.
Entrepreneurship 2: Business Plans
Freshman Entrepreneurship Seminar & Residential Learning Community
Management of Technological Change
“Start-Your-Own-Business” workshops—with a colleague, designed and delivered (9 times) a 3-workshop series to hundreds of nascent businesses.
Developed numerous new courses: Management in the Movies Fostering + Managing Creativity Freshman Seminar/Residential Community in Entrepreneurship Scandinavia + Austria study-abroads Managing Technology + Innovation Managing Change (Exec MBA)
Coordinated a 6-month sabbatical for Dr. Harun Şeşen of the Turkish Military Academy to visit the US—have co-authored numerous articles on entrepreneurship.
Co-founder of the Appalachian State University Center for Entrepreneurship.
New cross-campus minor, cross-campus activities with music, art, technology, rec mgmt depts., new curriculum, faculty + staff hiring, diverse events for students, community relationship-building.
International entrepreneurship education relationship development—visited business schools in Austria and Sweden (guest-lectured in multiple classes), Czech Republic and Hungary.
Student City Business Experience—organized downtown business tour for 70 students, with city manager presentation about business environment and start-ups, scavenger hunt and prizes, and social reception.
Voluntary assistance—periodically meet with individual entrepreneurs, retailers, non-profits, manufacturers, former students, or others looking at start-ups or acquisitions.
Created and funded annual scholarship for international travel (ASU)
Created and solicited funding to help endow a memorial fund scholarship (GMU)
Martha Guy Summer Institute—5 years as lecturer/plan judge for residential program for high school students.
Association of Student Entrepreneurs—7 years as advisor to largest student club on campus.
Discussant—National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers annual conferences. (Portland, Cincinnati)
Business plan judge for four years in ASU’s Music Industries major.
Mentored prize-winner, Global Student Entrepreneur Awards international competition. (St. Louis)
Small + Medium Enterprise + Entrepreneurship Education (SMEEE grantee meeting. (Bamberg, GER)
Global Opportunities Conference panelist (ASU)
Tryon International Film Festival: research to find foreign film audience groups in region.
Tryon Fourth Friday Art Walk: helped initiate and develop monthly event (4 years)
Spartanburg Art Museum—board of directors. Heavy work on museum budgeting and events. (3 years)
Spartanburg Art Walk—published monthly report of all new art exhibits, website and other outlets. (4 years)
Two 2 Transform: Judge in student photography competition, USC Upstate.
Picture Perfect—coordinated numerous galleries for special citywide joint photography exhibit.
Standing Out!—designed business workshop for artists regarding planning, marketing and accounting.
Self-Employment in the Arts—obtained grant to take students to a 3-day conference at U. of Tampa.
ASU Open “APPerture” Film Festival: selection judge.
ASU Music Industries major: Guest lectures on creativity and entrepreneurship. (4 years)
The Creativity Foundation: advisor. (Washington, DC)
Chair, AcademyArts track, Academy of Management annual meeting. (Seattle)
Federal Bureau of Investigation—guest speaker, FBI Academy, Laboratories Division accreditation course for forensic lab managers across the country (Quantico, VA, four years)
Department of Defense—DLAMP (Defense Leadership & Management Program)—taught week-long residential course in Massachusetts for Senior Executive Service candidates.
Spartanburg Downtown Association—Board of Directors, three years.
United Way of the Piedmont—financial reviews of grantees. (Spartanburg, SC)
Spartanburg International Festival—arranged student volunteers at 12,000 attendee festival.
“Priorities and Practices”—member survey report for Spartanburg Downtown Association.
Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce—speaker, entrepreneurship + economic development.
McGraw-Hill—textbook focus groups (entrepreneurship, Chicago; strategy, Dallas)
Boone Area Chamber of Commerce—speaker, local economy + university-business relations.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund—facilitator, multi-day planning retreat. (Baltimore)
Student group support/student recruiting
- Sigma Iota Epsilon management honors fraternity advisor (3 years)
- Association of Student Entrepreneurs—advisor to ASU’s largest student club (7 years)
- World Trade Association student club—speaker on history and trade relations
- Community garden—helped student group create an on-campus community garden
- Geo. Wash Univ. MBA case competition—recruit & advise GMU teams (2 years)
- EDS undergraduate case competition (TX)—recruit & advise GMU team
- Student recruiting at semi-annual ASU Open House events (5 years)
- Host for visiting Swedish student/faculty group for two weeks
Committees
- USC Upstate—marketing faculty search; scheduling, curriculum, & general education committees; Office of Sponsored Awards evaluations for faculty release time and research assistants.
- ASU—numerous faculty searches in strategy, entrepreneurship, and rec mgmt programs), scholarships (5 years), department personnel (2 years), and supply chain management minor planning.
- GMU—MBA curriculum, undergraduate core, undergraduate policy, strategy course revision.
Journal/conference reviewing in entrepreneurship, strategy, innovation: AMR, J. of Management Inquiry, IEEE, R&D Management, J. of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Int’l J. of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Handbook of Research on Teaching Ethics in Business & Management Education, African Education Research Journal, Academy of Management conf., USASBE conf., etc.
Name-reader for business school and university graduations (4 years)
Tour guide for German university president and faculty, Chapman Cultural Center, Spartanburg SC
International Entrepreneurship Faculty Development. Three-day program. (U. of Colorado-Denver)
Social Entrepreneurship and Education Consortium. Three-day workshop sponsored by U. of Aarhus, NC State, and Stanford) on integration of social entrepreneurship into curricula. (Denmark)
ARDI Leadership Summit: Tapping Creative Assets. Conference on creative economy. (Greensboro, NC)
W. Edwards Deming Quality Enhancement Seminar (4-day course) (Champaign, IL)