|
Meeting of Minds
What exactly keeps highly sought-after faculty members
here, year after year? Many agree that foremost is the
dynamic interaction with their colleagues. Collaboration
with other professors, inside the department and out,
often results in some of their best research.
Whenever the Wharton faculty hold a "brown-bag
lunch," Jeremy Siegel will most likely be in attendance.
At these casual gatherings, faculty take time out to talk
about their most recent work, bounce ideas off their
colleagues, and share stories of the classroom. With so
many great minds in a relaxed atmosphere, the result
is bound to be interesting.
"If I have an idea I am wrestling with, I bring it
up at one of the lunches," says Siegel, who is widely
respected for his research on productivity and long-term
portfolios. He will be published in the near
future. "The level of resource is so deep here, I rarely
need to go anywhere else," he explains.
"At Wharton, I have more intense, productive
interaction with faculty members outside my
department than I have ever had anywhere else,"
says Donaldson. "For example, I recently heard a
paper presented by my colleagues in Operations and
Information Management. The paper dealt with
trust and how lies can be empirically correlated with
a breakdown in a company. Here were colleagues
applying statistical skills to an ethical topic and
asking, what are the practical implications of lying?
It turned out to be fascinating and starkly relevant
for today's climate."
"Professors here don't walk in lockstep," he
continues. "They are individuals. Wharton hires the
brightest people and gives them the freedom to do what
they want to … and what they are best at. Every day,
there is some kind of academic or intellectual event
where people are presenting information I haven't seen
anywhere else. Wharton is an intellectual smorgasbord
so large that it's impossible to sample everything!"
|
