L.A. Business Professor's Passion To Educate Serves Many Future Laborers
As more students continue to seek higher education, the aggregate of job prospects for post-secondary instructors will rise. In the coming years, colleges, universities and trade schools within greater Los Angeles will hire additional faculty members to help prepare the next generation of laborers. By 2022, more than 15,000 new business teachers are expected to have already been added to national payrolls. This marks a 15 percent increase in the number of educators that were helping students meet specific career goals in 2012.
Dr. Charles M. Vance said he entered the educational field for far-reaching reasons. "I love the positive interaction opportunities that I can have in the lives of my students," said Vance, a professor and co-chair of the management department in the College of Business Administration at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). "I also enjoy the creative challenge of designing engaging learning experiences that contribute to their personal and professional development."
Which degrees helped you reach success?
"Beyond my undergraduate degree in psychology at Brigham Young University, I continued to obtain a master's in organizational behavior at the same institution, then a Doctorate of Philosophy in instructional technology at Syracuse University."
How is your doctorate proving beneficial?
"I am continually enhancing and developing new courses for my LMU students to help prepare them for future career success. I also apply my trade to assist organizations in their customized employee training, management and executive education and organizational change and development."
What are you doing to further sharpen your knowledge and skills?
"I have broadened my focus to the international dimension and teach undergrads and Master of Business Administration students about international talent management. My current research is investigating the expat-preneur phenomenon, particularly Americans who are developing new venture careers abroad."
What is your message to endeavoring educators?
"I advise aspiring educators to first get a doctorate in an area where they have a passion. They must then publish and present their scholarly and creative works for academic and practitioner audiences to build their reputation and credibility, all the while serving and networking like crazy. Opportunities will inevitably present themselves."
Sharon Raiford Bush is an award-winning journalist. Some news articles she has authored are archived by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
