Are colleges and universities keeping up with the changes in marketing? To answer this question, Prof Scott Cowley of Western Michigan University surveyed 529 US University marketing programs. Here are the results: out of all higher education institutions that teach marketing, 27% do not offer a single digital marketing course. Of those that do have digital in their curriculum, half of them offer only one digital marketing course. It seems even when schools have a digital component that they’re uncommitted to it. Students at 9 out of 10 of these schools can graduate with a degree without taking a digital marketing course.
Prof Cowley pointed out the mismatch between schools and the outside world. “Traditional marketers are struggling to upskill, marketing graduates have studied a syllabus that doesn’t include digital techniques, and digital professionals have inconsistent abilities due to a lack of standardized skills training”
But there’s a growing number of Profs that are bringing Off-Campus experts and their ideas into the classroom to help the next generation of marketers meet today’s needs. One of them is our guest, Jonathan Simon, who, since becoming a professor at U of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Business, has influenced how their marketing programs are taught. He not only uses his educational background (which includes a BA and an MBA) to teach but he also draws from time in the private sector where he worked with media companies and in the mobile technology space.
People, concepts and products mentioned:
Episode Reboot:
“If you are out in industry, keep learning. These students are hungry and they are gunning for your job”
