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Great teaching requires not just a great faculty member in front of the class,
well prepared, it requires a great class.
You can do nothing in the GSB environment without a prepared and
responsive student body, and so all of the students here today should feel that they
have a share in the award and we thank you for that engagement in the classroom.
And so congratulate today's winner, but I also congratulate
all the faculty who are great teachers at the GSB and the students and
staff for making these experiences for you what they are.
And without further ado, I'd like to hand things over to Ross Andrees.
Everyone here today has, at some point or another, had that teacher.
The one who pushed you to identify a new interest or passion.
The one who challenged your world view,
who inspired you to connect with classmates in unexpected ways.
Who helped you, in ways small and large, leave the classroom and
make an impact on the world in a manner that is meaningful to you.
The GSB distinguished teaching award is one formal opportunity to acknowledge
a professor who has been to many of you that teacher.
It is the highest teaching honor bestowed upon at teacher at the GSB, and
is presented annually based on feedback provided by current MBA students.
Each year the student body and the academic committee choose a selection
committee of five students to oversee the process of determining the award winner.
This year you submitted 123 nominations for 36 professors.
The words you used to describe these professors were uplifting.
It made all five of us proud to be students here at the GSB.
While we only get to formally recognize one person today, we hope each of you
takes the opportunity to acknowledge all of the amazing teachers in our midst.
Seek them out for lunch or write them a note.
Make sure they know the difference they have made in our lives.
If the nominations are any indication of how you feel,
we know they will be blown away by the impact that they have made.
To start that process, we wanted to recognize three honorable
mentions and share some of the incredible words that you wrote.
The following are quotations from student nominations.
The first honorable mention.
I'm not an accountant but
I couldn't imagine a profession further down on my list of interests.
Yet accounting with Becky Lester was so well taught, so intriguing,
and so real world applicable that I caught myself
going through my former company's financial statements just to see what I
could understand about the company and its financial health through accounting.
She made it engaging and fun.
During our last class, she teared up as she thanked us for a positive
experience in her first year, a sign of her emotional investment in her students.
Becky is the best.
The second honorable mention [APPLAUSE]
David Dadson is a deeply insightful and
charismatic professor.
In everything he does, the students feel a genuine dedication to his or
her own development.
In class, David balances open discussion, drawing out students opinions and
challenging them to reflect fully, with offering his own thoughtful opinions and
solutions.
Out of class, he is always available to students, be it for
a chat or for a dinner.
He gives literally everything he has to teaching MGE.
And he does it with such a wonderful job.
[APPLAUSE] And the third honorable mention,
Glenn Kramon is the most committed teacher I've ever had.
He injects tremendous thought, personalization, and
expertise into his winning writing course.
I feel inspired, motivated and confident to take greater risks in my writing and
communication.
His kindness and genuine concern for students inspired my writing and
my overall personal and professional development.
He is a gem of a teacher and the GSB is lucky to have him.
[APPLAUSE] On behalf of the committee and the entire student body,
thank you to these incredible individuals for their hard work,
compassion and dedication to teaching at GSB.
And now to Alex Wolf for the winner of this year's recipient.
>> I am incredibly privileged to introduce this year's distinguished teaching
award winner.
An individual who was my own teacher last year.
I have many of my own words to describe this year's winner.
Engaging, dedicated, encouraging,
compassionate, inspiring.
But the truth is, all of you said it best.
In your nominations, one of you wrote,
the way she teaches makes me want to wake up at 8 AM on a Monday.
>> [LAUGH] >> Another wrote,
she is the best teacher I ever had at the GSB.
When at times I was disappointed with school, she gave me hope.
She engaged with the group like few professors I ever had.
She is a gifted lecturer,.
Nearly every student I know who took her class adored her.
It would be hard to find someone who didn't come away
having learned a great deal.
She genuinely loves what she is doing, which makes individuals more engaged and
interested in the material.
It was by far the class I was most worried about.
By the end of the quarter, it was the class I looked forward most to attending.
She was always giving of her time after class to speak through concepts.
She was exceedingly patient.
She encouraged me to see the gray areas.
She was amazing on our GST.
She went above expectations numerous times.
Finally, one of you wrote,
I went to one of the best accounting universities in the US.
I majored in accounting and
upon graduation I was awarded the most outstanding accounting student award.
This isn't me, this is one of you.
>> [LAUGH] >> I am a CPA and
I worked at the largest accounting firm in the world.
In all of this experience, she is the best accounting professor I've ever had.
It's not even close.
Her technical skills are fantastic, but it's her passion that makes her stand out.
She has an unique way of getting students excited about accounting, and
bringing energy and liveliness to the classroom.
She cares about her students and their learning outcomes.
I was initially upset when I was being forced to take an accounting course.
Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be my best class at the GSB.
On behalf of the GSB student body, we are proud to present the 2016
distinguished teaching award to a professor who made me excited at
eight in the morning on a Monday to talk about accounting.
Who inspired all of us with her passion.
Who helped us with her patience and her care, and
who dedicated herself to making so many of us a little more prepared for
the challenges of the world beyond the GSB.
Please join us in congratulating the 2016 distinguished teaching award winner,
Elizabeth Blankespoor.
>> [APPLAUSE]
>> All right, well thank you so much.
I'm deeply honored that you found value in my classes and in interactions with me.
And it's wonderful to hear your appreciation,
first through this award, which has been given to an impressive list or
really excellent teachers over the years.
And it's also wonderful to hear your appreciation through the introduction
Alex just gave.
It was wonderful.
My cheeks are still a little bit burning, so thank you so much.
If I think back to when I decided to be a teacher,
probably the first inkling came in first grade.
I would play school in the afternoons with my older sister.
And I would always try to convince her that she should let me be the teacher,
just once.
I never actually persuaded her to let me, so my desire to teach
went unchecked by the reality of how hard it actually is to teach well.
When I finished my undergraduate, I was an auditor.
That was my first main job.
And I found that I enjoyed accounting in that field, but
I was frustrated that I was always the person that people dreaded to meet.
So I decided to shift careers and become an accounting professor,
because everyone really loves the first day of accounting class.
>> [NOISE] [APPLAUSE] >> When I got to Stanford,
I quickly realized that each class it's really it's this dance.
Where there's give and take between me and you.
What I would come in and
I would have some financial reporting topics that I wanted us to discuss,
but really the experience was it depended on how all of you responded.
And so, there might be some difficult steps,
like when I threw excerpts of the FASB and
the IASB standards at you, or when I gave you a final exam that lasted a lifetime.
But there were also some steps that were maybe more raw, maybe more personal.
Like the many many conversations we had about earnings management.
What it is, how to recognize it.
What is okay to do and what is not okay to do.
As we kind of worked through and defined the boundaries of truth telling.
You also gave room for bad days.
We gave room for bad days to both of us.
So, for you, it would be the 8 AM Monday after the big weekend.
For me, it would be the I was up all night with my infant daughter mornings.
But in either case, we gave each other room.
We also challenged each other.
Whether it would be talking about real life, real life work situations, what-if
scenarios or just general conversations and debates about the topics.
In the end you were fantastic dance partners,
so I truly enjoyed the interactions and thank you for the great moves.
When I came to Stanford from Michigan, I knew the weather would be better, but
the best part has been the culture.
And that's something that you, the students,
really perpetuate, this idea of being very open and
supportive but also ambitious and curious and really drinking deeply of life.
Whether it's in a classroom, whether it's across the world on the GST or
anywhere else and so I've been thrilled to be here.
It's really a privilege to interact with the incredible students and teachers and
researchers that are here really shaping the world.
I'd like to thank a few people that helped me hit the ground running
and keep running.
The first of these is Mary Barth.
I think she's right over there.
So, she was the one that taught the class before me.
She's been an invaluable mentor and she really introduced me to the art and
the dance of teaching here at Stanford.
Handed me a, you know,
she passed on a course structure that was really well designed and thoughtful.
And then had the patience to let me watch her in action for an entire quarter and
ask her every question I could think of.
So thank you, thank you, thank you Mary.
The rest too, the faculty at GSB, both accounting and
non-accounting, have been very great, very open, supportive,
willing to talk about how they do classes, willing to let me sit in on classes.
And in general providing a great example,
so thank you to the rest of the GSB faculty, as well.
And then, of course, I have to thank my husband, Adam, and my son and daughter.
Adam hates the 8 AM mornings as much as you do, but he held down the fort at home,
and got the kids to school, and did that whole thing with great skill.
And I can't forget my son and daughter who provided all the fantastic stories about
raisin bran consumption that helped me explain asset securitizations and
market completion.
So those are all good things too.
And then finally, since you're my captive audience, I wanted to take one last time
to give you some parting kind of goals that I have and
encouragement for you first after the global financial reporting class.
So my students you'll remember this mantra.
I feel like I said it a lot.
But essentially,
my hope is that you'll be able to face a financial reporting question and
one, be able to understand and articulate what the economics are, what's going on.
The second would be to find and read the relevant accounting standards and
not fall asleep, or at least not more than once.
And then third to thoughtfully apply those standards and
to consider are the economic being portrayed or are they not?
Where are the problem areas, the questionable areas?
And, in thinking about that, that means as a CEO, where do I need to explain more or
as an investor or as a regulator, what do I need to ask more questions about?
I have a few broad reminders for
anyone who took accounting or could be interested in accounting and
that's the first is that conveying the economics can be really difficult.
Accounting standards, they're not these black and
white rules that'll just give you the right answers.
Instead, the goal of them is to show that there is judgment, there is flexibility,
and that's okay.
The second is to remember that these are set by, and they're implemented by, and
they're used by people.
And these people have difference incentives.
So, remembering that this is all about communication and
understanding the nuances and the incentives.
And the last one is that I hope you get a chance to experience the joy and
the satisfaction that comes from communicating and
understanding what's actually going on in financial statements and, of course,
making sure that the balance sheet actually balances.
So, as my six year old son would say about his impressive Spider-Man skills,
with great power comes great responsibility.
So, go forth and use your accounting knowledge wisely.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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