Students in the Social Media Influencer Marketing course, which debuted in the George Washington University School of Business (GWSB) in fall 2023, as well those enrolled in the new spring semester course on marketing sustainable businesses, are getting a taste of what new faculty is bringing to the school.
David Brown, who has joined GWSB as a visiting instructor of marketing, designed the courses in response to student interest. Slots for the electives, which are open to undergraduate and graduate students, were snapped up quickly and both ended with long waiting lists.
Brown, an academician and practitioner who has spent 15 years working in partnership marketing for the cybersecurity firm ReversingLabs, said the new courses aim to keep students competitive when they enter the job market.
“The Social Media Influencer Marketing course is about how to be a social media marketing manager,” explained Brown. “Unlike other areas of marketing where it’s a one-way street, the use of social media can bring a big benefit for a company, from a customer service aspect and from a sentiment aspect. Social media is also great for product launches and getting feedback on what your customers would like to see.”
Brown said the course makes students view social media from a business perspective, determining the right social media content and tools for companies, the optimal way to use social media influencers, and how business can adapt to new social media trends to add impact to their messaging.
Brown is one of five new faculty members at GWSB. Other new full-time faculty are two professors in decision sciences, Yuan Guo and Patrick Hall; Visiting Assistant Professor of International Business Anoma Kulathunga; and Research Professor of Real Estate Stephen O’Connor, who also leads the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis (CREUA).
“These scholars are poised to add new dimensions to the research and teaching within their fields and have already impressed us with their contributions to pressing and contemporary issues related to artificial intelligence, consumers, global business, housing and marketing,” said former Dean of GWSB, Anuj Mehrotra.
Three of the new faculty members have long-time ties to GWSB, through their own educations, work as adjuncts, or both. Brown has two GW degrees: an undergraduate degree in international affairs and a Master of Science in Tourism Administration (now known as a Master of Science in Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management). He also was co-instructor of the first online Introduction to Marketing course and, a year and a half ago, began teaching its in-person iteration.
Another familiar face is Kulathunga, a senior finance sector consultant with the World Bank, a former central bank regulator in South Asia, and co-author of nine books that address financial sector stability and risk-sharing innovation. She earned her Master of Science in Finance and PhD in international finance and development economics at GWSB and, for 14 years when her World Bank travel schedule allowed, taught international business as an adjunct.
Kulathunga, who is from Sri Lanka, is credited with developing economic indicators that more accurately reflect the finance soundness of countries in development.
“The World Bank had this one set of indicators to evaluate all the countries in the world. I argued that you need to look at small countries through a different lens because they do not have developed financial markets,” Kulathunga explained. “I started looking at things like financial inclusion and saving payment systems. I worked on that project for five years, collecting data and establishing financial indicators.”
Hall, assistant teaching professor of decision sciences and an expert in the fast-evolving field of artificial intelligence (AI), also taught previously at the school as an adjunct. Like Brown and Kulathonga, he comes to the classroom with experience as a practitioner, notably through his work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He is currently involved with the NIST Professional Research Program (PREP), which provides research opportunities to faculty, students and graduates at GW and other universities.
As an educator, his goal is to make students AI literate.
“AI, like all technologies, has pros and cons, and to get the most out of it you want to maximize the pros and minimize the cons,” Hall said. “Most people think about ChatGPT to write email but there are some who are thinking about it to build better biological weapons. Another real AI risk is child pornography. And there’s the issue of generating mis- and dis-information at larger scales. We’ve seen the effect that can have on politics and our democratic institutions.”
Hall makes students use generative AI in his Writing in the Discipline course so they can understand “these kinds of tools … to be competitive in the coming decades.” He also teaches using examples from the nonprofit AI Incident Database, which catalogs AI failures or harm with a goal of averting recurrences.
Guo, the other new faculty member of the Department of Decision Sciences, is focused on operations management. Her scholarship includes research that looks at subscription box services, impulse buying in connection with social media, and fashion retailers’ use of online platforms to sell second-hand goods.
As the new chair of CREUA, O’Connor said he hopes to position the School of Business as an influencer in national affordable housing discussions. Although CREUA concentrates on commercial real estate, he is pushing to add coursework that examines the national challenge of affordable housing.
“We can distinguish ourselves with that kind of research,” he said.