From around the world, more than 2,000 nominations were submitted for the 2020 Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors recognition by Poets & Quants, a higher-education news organization specializing in business schools. Among the 160 professors considered, two professors from UC Riverside School of Business were selected for the honor, Ye Li and Marlo Raveendran. UCR is one of just five schools globally to boast two awardees this year.
The 40 Under 40 list identifies “educators who have demonstrated research acumen, teaching prowess, and impact students, former students, their colleagues and administration.”
Ye Li’s Instruction Reflects True Admiration for His Students and Their Diverse Experiences
Receiving nearly 100 nominations, Ye Li was lauded by the Poets & Quants evaluators: “Ye Li wowed us as much as he has students who have had the luck to see him in action in a classroom,” they stated in their announcement of the professor of management’s inclusion on the 40 Under 40 MBA Professors list. “What impressed us more than his mountains of research was the feedback current and former students gave, particularly about how much he genuinely and truly cares for those he teaches.”
With an impressive body of research, Li’s current investigation, he says, “studies the reasons people make various kinds of decisions, especially ones involving tradeoffs between sooner and later consequences. Some of my most influential work has looked at the role of emotions and cognitive ability at influencing these types of decisions. For example, sadness makes people less patient, while gratitude – but not happiness – makes them more patient.”
True to the observation of the Poets & Quants judges, Li’s passion in the classroom shows, and he’s particularly interested in the diversity of the students he teaches. “UC Riverside leads all major U.S. universities in students with Pell Grants, and more than half of students are first-generation college-goers,” he says. “So, I consider my efforts to make the class resonate with them time well spent.”
He admits to being lucky to teach a subject he’s passionate about, but he adds, “My favorite moments are when students report using class concepts in their lives and jobs.”
An Interactive Teaching Style Works for Marlo Raveendran’s Students
Perhaps one of the highest compliments a professor may receive is “I wish I could take her class again.” This statement from a student was among many declarations of support that the Poets & Quants editors published as evidence of Marlo Raveendran’s effectiveness in the classroom.
A UCR assistant professor of management, Raveendran’s research explores the way in which organizational structure and design decisions are influenced by individuals inside a firm. “The most practical discovery I’ve made is just how much our human nature influences organizational decisions,” she says. “When studying how groups of strangers approach division of labor … we were struck by how quickly they took newly formed group structures as given, even when the task allowed for more efficient choices.”
With a pronounced interactive teaching style, Raveendran integrates the deep knowledge she’s acquired through her research into her courses, including the core strategy class she teaches: “The concepts and frameworks are extremely simple. Instead of focusing on the content, I try to teach my students to think more analytically and to question what they read and what I say,” she says. “I love seeing my students’ minds grow. Over 10 weeks, our conversations deepen, and their responses and reasoning become more and more analytical and sophisticated.”
That strategy’s effectiveness is borne out in the student’s further observation of Raveendran’s teaching style: “[She] makes the topics she teaches interesting and shows she cares about students. It makes even the quiet students speak up and participate.”