I was delighted to accept Bill Pasewark's invitation to act as guest editor for the “Special M.B.A. Section” because I am so very passionate about M.B.A. teaching.
In Fall 1994, I met my first M.B.A. class at The University of Texas at Austin as a newly minted Assistant Professor. The students were about my age and all had more business experience than I did. Needless to say I was in over my head and very intimidated. Thankfully, I had two amazingly generous mentors in Bob May and Eric Hirst, who also taught the M.B.A. core financial class that semester. They were very willing to let the new kid (me!) tag along. I adopted their approach—we used a different set of real-world financial statements in every class session—and I have not changed my M.O. in the ensuing years. It has proven to be a winning approach and I owe them a...
