Faculty Excellence at UMUC

Interviewer:

Please tell us about yourself—what made you decide to teach at UMUC? What kind of work do you do when you are not teaching at UMUC? Are there any life experiences that have influenced your teaching at UMUC? If so, please share one story.

Joe D'Mello:

I always enjoyed teaching, and that was something I missed during the 16 years I spent in the corporate world. After quitting the corporate world in 2001 to start my own training and consulting business, I decided to re-establish my ties with academia, while trying to still retain the flexibility to pursue my business interests at the same time. Teaching for an online school would permit that flexibility because I would not be tied down to specific classroom hours. I decided to join UMUC six years ago because of its preeminence in online education, and I have never regretted that decision.

I work at Exequity, the company I started after quitting the corporate world. I am the president of the company and do much of the training that the company offers. Most of my time is spent running seminars open to the public, as well as on-site seminars for corporations. The seminars are focused on enhancing clients’ execution capabilities through improved project and process management. Our clients include the Fortune 500 as well as smaller companies.

I teach in the Business & Executive programs department, mostly MBA classes and also a few in the doctoral business program. There is no one story that I can share, but my life and professional experiences collectively have had a profound influence on my teaching. From a life experience viewpoint, I grew up in India and immigrated to the US in 1976. This enables me to share global perspectives with my students.

My 16 years in the corporate world, working in different management capacities and varied positions in industry (and also in different countries), enable me to provide a very practical orientation atop the conceptual foundations that the courses cover.

Finally, my present day-to-day business activities and experiences are also very synergistic with the courses I teach. The MBA courses I teach are primarily focused on operations and project management which lie at the core of a company’s execution apparatus, hence tie in very directly to Exequity’s focus on execution.

Interviewer:

How would you describe your teaching style or philosophy? What experiences or person(s) have influenced your style or philosophy?

Joe D'Mello:

My teaching philosophy is very simple: I focus on creating value for my students. The creation of value is a basic and fundamental economic principle that underlies any meaningful work that we humans perform – whether in our professional or personal lives. In the final analysis, if my students do not believe that the value they have derived from my class is commensurate with the time, effort, and cost investment they have made in attending my class, then I have failed them.

I focus on creating value for them in two ways: first, I attempt to impart practical and immediately applicable knowledge and techniques, so they can derive some career value from my class. Second, I try to give them a conceptual appreciation of the material covered, so that they can perceive the practical value as part of a broader conceptual framework that can enhance their critical thinking, analytical, and decision making skills.

My style has also been shaped by technology. I make it a point to use tools like web conferencing (and their built-in application sharing capability) to communicate and explain complex concepts that are usually difficult to grasp by merely reading a textbook or listening to pure audio.

Finally, the search for simplicity and the desire to simplify also shapes my teaching style. I try to make business concepts and techniques simple for my students. At the core of every concept, topic, or technique is a handful of simple facts or principles. I try to bring these to the attention of students so that they can gain a greater appreciation of the concepts and also see them from a more intuitive and common sense viewpoint.

I have had professors in the past that seemed to get a secret thrill from trying to make simple things look complex. It seemed to me that their sense of importance was linked to making it appear to their students that they had an uncanny mastery over the complex. I resolved to never adopt that approach, but rather to try to simplify the complex. In that sense, I guess you could say that these former professors influenced my teaching style or philosophy!

Of course, my day-to-day business experiences, as well as my experiences from 16 years in the corporate world, have also shaped my teaching style. They constantly remind me that as a faculty member in an MBA program, I need to bring a very real world and practical approach to the classroom, one that equips my students to implement changes and realize bottom line improvements in their companies and organizations!

Interviewer:

Please explain if you do something special or unique in your teaching and what made you develop this.

Joe D'Mello:

As I stated earlier, I always try to leverage technology in the classroom. Even in the days when we did not have web conferencing (like WIMBA), I consistently simulated real time interaction with students by having conference calls with students every week, during which I would have them all look at slides or notes or spreadsheets, and I would then carefully walk through these step-by-step, answering questions and clarifying complex concepts. Students loved it at the time, and many of them attributed their understanding of complex quantitative techniques to these sessions. This method came to be nicknamed as the “D’Mello Method” and was subsequently adopted by other faculty. Of course, with the advent of web conferencing, this technique has morphed into one that realizes the same effect using a web conference.

Interviewer:

What do you think it is about your teaching style that appeals to students?

Joe D'Mello:

Frankly, I think my students would be better qualified to answer this question! However, if I were to guess, I think students look for sincerity, fairness, and expertise in a professor. I believe that most of my students perceive me as being sincerely committed to providing them a high-quality learning experience and they appreciate my efforts to be fair and transparent in my grading. Many have also complimented me on my very practically oriented teaching style, and my determination to simplify complex concepts and techniques.

Interviewer:

Do you teach face-to-face, online, or both? Do you have a preference between teaching face-to-face and online? If so, please explain.

Joe D'Mello:

I teach online. I don't really have a preference, although each modality has a distinctly different dynamic. The success factors differ and I think some students gravitate more naturally to one vs. the other. I enjoy both modalities. (My business-related training is all face-to-face.)

Interviewer:

Please tell us about your chosen discipline-i.e., what made you interested in the area initially? What do you do to stay current in your discipline? What do you like best about teaching in your discipline?

Joe D'Mello:

My discipline is project management and operations. During the 16 years I spent in the corporate world, I observed that the one skill in short supply was “execution”: the ability to get things done! It was easy to find functional experts (in marketing, finance, HR, accounting, R&D, etc.) but very difficult to find a person who could efficiently undertake and successfully complete a large and complex project. This made me interested in project management which is an area that I regard as being my core competence.

My business-related training and consulting keep me current, as does my reading in the discipline of project management and operations. I am also a member of the Project Management Institute and a certified Project Management professional. Further, I am frequently invited by corporations and other leading universities (like the University of Chicago – I live in the suburban Chicago area) to deliver short seminars in project management to executives and managers.

I love my discipline because it relates to the challenges that are facing corporations today. The current economic climate and the continuing globalization trend are driving corporations to do more with less, to have tighter controls and monitoring mechanisms, and to innovate with fewer resources. Superior execution enabled by project and process management is, in my opinion, going to prove more and more indispensible.

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s companies used technology (to a great extent) to realize competitive advantage. While technology will continue to realize competitive advantage, I believe that it will prove to be less of an enabler of competitive advantage because technological prowess is no longer the prerogative of a few large companies. Superior execution will complement and perhaps even overtake technology as an enabler of competitive advantage.

Interviewer:

What is the most challenging to you in teaching in this area? What teaching strategy do you use when you encounter the challenge? Are there any special challenges in teaching this subject matter online?  If yes, please explain what could be done to meet the challenges.

Joe D'Mello:

The main challenge I encounter is to teach students about execution and project management challenges when they have not had much experience with these disciplines. For example, a person who has worked mainly in sales may not fully relate to execution challenges. In such cases, I attempt to relate the material to personal challenges or home-related projects, because the principles and techniques apply equally here as well. I also challenge such students to keep an eye out for such principles and techniques in their own work area because the techniques could very well apply to it indirectly, although not in a very obvious way.

Yes, the quantitative aspects of project management and operations are quite challenging to teach online. It takes quite a bit of patience and innovation. As I have pointed out earlier, technology does come to the rescue here to some extent. The use of web-conferencing enables me to explain some complex quantitative techniques to students. This is particularly beneficial to students who are quantitatively challenged.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to students who are interested in majoring or working in your discipline?

Joe D'Mello:

I would advise students who are interested in majoring in operations or project management, or those who are interested in working in these areas, to first learn self-management skills: good and realistic goal setting, planning, time management, decision making, effective communication, etc. Organization and discipline are vital to executing and getting results in the workplace! Also, they should try to obtain adequate training in these disciplines and top off this training with a relevant certification, such as a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in the case of Project Management.

Interviewer:

In your opinion, what makes UMUC the college of choice for students?

Joe D'Mello:

UMUC professors are practitioners who also have the academic credentials to put practice and experience in a framework and context that is intellectually stimulating and academically rigorous. Not every university has faculty who actively practice the profession. I think UMUC is a great choice for those who want the right balance of academic rigor and practical orientation.

Interviewer:

In your opinion, what makes UMUC the employer of choice for future faculty members?

Joe D'Mello:

There is a great sense of camaraderie among the faculty in my department, and I truly feel a part of the academic community at UMUC. I also have input into curriculum and academic decisions. I like the program and believe that it can add value to students’ careers. Finally, I think that the students themselves are good. I have had students at UMUC who compare favorably with the best students I have taught anywhere else. All these factors contribute to my belief that UMUC should be strongly considered as an employer of choice by qualified and motivated folks who enjoy teaching - especially those who would like to balance their teaching interests with other business or professional pursuits.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to new faculty who are interested in teaching in your discipline at UMUC?

Joe D'Mello:

I would suggest that they discuss their interests with other faculty and try to clearly understand what it takes to do a great job at teaching in the MBA program. Again, I would stress organization and discipline, so one can consistently set aside time on a daily and weekly basis to create value for students in the classroom.