By Jenni Beaver
For Professor Marilyn Eastman the doctorate is almost in. In December of this year she will have successfully completed her dissertation and will change the title on her business card from Professor Eastman to Doctor.
After being away for twenty years, she says everything has come full circle. She is now teaching marketing in Morningside’s business department.
“The whole way marketers communicate and consumers communicate back is changing dramatically.” Eastman says the changes in the marketing world are affecting how professors teach the academic side of the industry. Professors in universities across the country now have to adapt to a virtual, social, and constantly changing network of communication.
“We as faculty need to change the way we teach marketing to help our students be ready for these 21st century jobs that are coming.” This is where the root of her dissertation research began.
She is using the two sections of her Principles of Marketing class to find out how online social communication impacts how students learn. “Can we create an environment where student learning actually changes because we’re using social media as part of our teaching?”
While her research is still ongoing, she says, “There is an optimal level of communication. Students don’t like to be over-communicated or under-communicated to… there’s a right balance and a right message.”
Professor Eastman also hopes to break barriers between social media in teaching and the apprehension displayed on the professor side of the equation. “There is a huge faculty resistance to using these kinds of technologies. That surprised me. Even among marketing faculty. Only about three percent of marketing faculty across the country are using social media in their classroom. Which to me seemed extremely low.”
Twenty-first century marketers are using 21st century technologies to grab and hold consumers. Eastman believes by teaching students the importance of this new media, they will be better professionals in the field and even better consumers.
According to Eastman, her final goals are larger than simply finishing the dissertation. “I want to help design the teaching practices that are effective for other faculty to use as they think of adding these sorts of technology to their classrooms… because social media is how businesses are marketing these days.”
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