College of Business and Technology Students Appreciate the Challenge of Dr. Seshadri’s Classes

There’s a difference between teaching students and simply teaching the content. At the University of Nebraska at Kearney, Dr. Sri Seshadri has been teaching students since 1993. Along with expertise gained from over a decade working in various engineering positions, he brings to the classroom a wealth of knowledge strengthened over the years thanks to his appetite for learning. In addition to his many research studies, featured in peer-reviewed journals such as the Small Business Institute Journal, Journal of Global Marketing, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Business Communication Quarterly, and Teaching Business Ethics, Seshadri is always willing to mentor both faculty and students as they embark upon their own research.

As someone who understands that learning is a lifelong process, his teaching style lends itself to giving students the freedom to think for themselves as they discover answers to their own questions. As a professional “coming from engineering he admits in some situations “there is one right answer. However, now that he’s teaching business and strategy, he realizes that “you’re dealing with people and that it’s impossible to “predict their behavior perfectly. For this reason, he makes sure to keep humanity at the forefront of the content he teaches in his classes.

Seshadri recognizes that we’re living in “a culture (where) students are looking for a right answer. He spends time building relationships with his students as he shares with them “your answer doesn’t have to match mine at all. He wants them to see how he “want(s) to know how (they) got the answer to allow him to understand their thought processes. He is then able to correct their mistakes without sacrificing the rigor of critical thinking he knows his students need not only as business professionals but as members of society.

He demands a lot from his students. He fondly remembers a student who expressed to him how, at times, she worried whether she would pass his class. At the end of the semester, she paid him the best compliment when she wrote about him that “he will let you sink but he will never let you drown. He designs challenging activities in his class to ensure his students are fully engaged with the content, have opportunities to think about their own thinking as they work with others, and participate in such a way that will prepare them for their future professions.

An example of an activity that stretches and strengthens his students is a simulation game he uses in his Sales Management course. During the final four weeks of the semester, Seshadri creates a scenario where his students are sales managers who decide on territory, forecast sales, hire and fire salespeople, decide on salary and commission, and do everything they would be required to do in the real world. He describes this game as “very competitive and states that he “scores them based on ranking.

Even though the top three are the only ones who can earn an A with the second three able to earn a B+, he shares that “nobody gets less than a C because he appreciates that, by playing the game, all of his students are learning. It’s this type of compassion that represents his desire to teach his students more than content. He also wants to make sure they understand how to best use the resources available to them as well as how to truly hone the soft skills not every professional possesses.

He has “found out for years that “students either don’t know how to do research or don’t know how to leverage the resources available to them at UNK. He spends time during class showing them how to find and correctly use these resources. He describes himself as “one of those guys who “jumps in when it comes to technology, so he understands his students need to be open to taking risks. However, he makes sure to explain to them the credibility of what they can find online by teaching them how to use databases correctly. He never wants to discourage the use of technology because he knows that “with technology, if you don’t jump in right now it becomes obsolete. As their professor, he also makes sure his students understand the need to include their critical thinking skills as they use technology.

In addition to his passion for technology, Seshadri is a voracious traveler. Having visited 26 countries to date, he uses this interest to give his students a broader view of the content they’re learning in his classes. In addition to sharing products he has brought back from his travels, he uses the contacts he has made internationally to give his students the chance to practice not only what they learn in class but also the strong soft skills he knows they’ll need in their future professional life.

In both his Marketing Research class and International Marketing class, his travels provide unique opportunities for his students. Whether he finds clients from Bulgaria who are part of a political party or clients from a pharmaceutical company in Bangor, India, having his students develop a marketing plan in a realistic manner helps them appreciate the breadth of skills they need to succeed while working with others. He shares how one student approached him about a client in India who discussed a “scheme with him. The student was concerned about the credibility of the client until Seshadri explained how, in India, the word “scheme doesn’t have the same negative connotation as it does in America. This type of decoding is just one example where, through his understanding of communication, he’s been able to share with his students more than they can learn from the limited pages of a textbook.

For Seshadri, teaching is about more than content. As he has spent the past three decades in the classroom, he has seen a lot of changes. One thing that hasn’t changed, and never will, is the need to keep humanity at the front of the class. He allows his students to pick industries of interest to them to get them fully engaged in the concepts he’s teaching them. He lends his expertise freely when a student needs help with research. He’s keenly aware that his students need to learn more than marketing from him and makes sure to create lessons that develop the intrinsic love of learning they’ll need to continue their education long after they leave his classroom.

Students who enter the door, whether on campus or virtually, of one of Seshadri’s classes can expect to be challenged. When they leave at the end of the semester, they’ll carry with them more than knowledge. Their experience as one of his students will include the spark for learning he has ignited in them. He admits he learns as much from them as they do from him. This type of win-win attitude is one of many reasons Dr. Sri Seshadri is the type of professor the University of Nebraska at Kearney is proud to call one of their own.