For a very long time I had been reluctant to share my thoughts in public, but then I thought why not? I work at AIU on line. We are an on line University. We are accredited. We are different than any other University you may know about.  First, because we have the most user friendly platform of the world and we are working on it to keep that way. Second, because we have the fire and the passion to do what we are doing for our students. Third, because we are on a path of constant improvements; the official name of this activity being "institutional effectiveness". 

I wear more than one hat at this school. This blog is in my capacity of Professor of International Business. I'll have another blog hopefully in my capacity of MBA chair. 

Now to what brought me to teach International Business (IB)? Here's one of the answers: I was first in International Business, THEN, I moved to Academia. I have been around and I visited the world. See my home page @ http://www.aschkenazi.com/ .  This has caused me to "walk the talk". I mean by that there is always a practical application to the theories I explain. My students will never hear me talking about something that has not practical applications to the field of International Business. 

Not that I have anything against the field of theoretical research (had this been the case, I would have never got my Ph.D....), but we the professors of business, must have a sense of urgency in preparing our MBA students for their careers... So we train our students to be first problem solvers (with a big portion of theory at the graduate level). 

My doctoral dissertation is about international business. I said it before because in my "other life", I had an international career. Is that enough of a reason to teach IB? I don't think so. Many of my former colleagues went on foreign assignments for several times, came back, shared their experiences, and that was it. The next reason I could think of, is the passion of the subject. I know I mentioned the word passionate before, but this time it's about my subject matter. This type of "sickness" is common to any Subject Matter Expert (SME). Their field is the most interesting subject of the world...