The world of Business in some minds may revolve around the image of numbers and money and…well, harsh ways of getting there. However, where the image might fail to extend to is one where creative mind power every source of that money. In business, there are many brains needed: people like organizers, leaders, and strategists. A special brain is taken to focus on seemingly contrasting pieces: ones of numbers and ones of creativity.
In a perfect world, this combination would flow through every hand in the industry. And though a lack of a perfect world, Gordon’s School of Business has come together with the Adams School of Music and The Arts to conduct a search for a professor to fulfill the new Digital Marketing/Media position. Within the decision making, Communication Arts Associate Professor Chris Underation confirms that difficulty in the hiring process remains in the fact that, “They have to be good at the business side of things, which would be the research [and] the development [of launching a business],” going on to say, “But they also have to be good at creating the content, [as in] shooting the video, creating the audio, and doing design work.” Underation noted, “Those skills don’t typically come together in a package.” In reference to past years, Underation recognized that a number of students with minds intrigued on art and marketing side of the industry ended up double majoring in Com. and Business. Faculty saw it too, which just last year led to the Business and the Arts school cultivating the studies to become one, now found in the major of Digital Marketing and Communications. Significant to Gordon, Underation noted, “As far as we know, there aren’t any other schools that have anything even remote to this.”
Business and Marketing Associate Professor Greg Smith explains the Business world in two ways: “There’s the strategy side: ‘Who’s our customer? What’s our message? How are we going to reach them?’ And then there’s always the execution side, which is: ‘What videos are we going to produce? How are we going to do it? What are we going to say on social media?”
Infamously known as such a relentless industry, it is not abnormal to question where God could possibly be present within it. Though within the Com/Arts side of the hiring process, Underation recognizes in Business, “You can cut corners; you can do things that are marginally ethical.” Speaking on Gordon’s Business program, Underation goes on to say, “They encourage students to bring their faith to the table, and it actually has a role in how you think about things and present things [within the industry].”
Smith, on the other hand, speaks on his experience before teaching saying, “I spent thirty-some odd years in the business…I had to be a marketer. A lot of people think that’s kind of an oxymoron. [They think] you can’t be a marketer if you’re going to be a Christian.” Defying the prejudices he said, “You can be, you just have to do it the right way.” Smith adds that within the School of Business, “[All the professors] here have been practitioners…we’ve been out in the industry, so we’ve had to live our faith out there.” He remarked, “I think that adds a lot [to the program]. In all our classes, we really focus on that faith integration.” In order to keep God within the center of the Business School, it is crucial in the process of hiring for the new Digital Marketing/Media position that candidates demonstrate a love for God that heightens over the cruelty of the competitive industry.
With a keen eye, professors like Underation and Smith work alongside actively interviewing the candidates in which Smith assured, “We have some very good candidates…and I expect that we’ll be able to hire one of them.” The new hire will be determined sometime in early 2025 and will start teaching Fall of 2025.
Leave a Reply