Press release
From UNCA News Services:
With the theme of “Dare to be Different,” educators from around the world, including Australia, Azerbaijan, and Canada in the interdisciplinary fields of management will gather for a four-day experiential conference June 5-8 at UNC Asheville.
This 40th Anniversary OBTC Teaching Conference for Management Educators is expected to bring to Asheville more than 225 educators and other professionals in the fields of organizational behavior, management, public administration and related disciplines.
“OBTC is the world’s premier management teaching conference,” said Northeastern University Professor Rae André, current president of the OBTS Teaching Society for Management Educators, sponsor of the annual conference. “Both new and experienced teacher-scholars join us each year for several days of inspiration, refreshment and camaraderie.”
OBTC was first held at Stanford University in 1974 and has been hosted at universities and colleges in 18 states and in two Canadian provinces ranging from small liberal arts institutions to doctoral granting universities. “What has remained common among the locations is the shared passion for effective teaching by faculty at the host universities,” said incoming OBTS president, LaSalle University Professor Joe Seltzer. “Holding the 40th anniversary conference at UNC Asheville is especially appropriate given the university’s highly successful mission to enhance student’s critical thinking through creative teaching and learning.”
With a session on using social media in the classroom going concurrent with one on the use of models found in martial arts and Buddhism to foster clarity and connection, this is a conference featuring unusual and diverse approaches to management education. OBTC 2013 program coordinator, Northern Michigan University Associate Professor Gary Stark, believes the conference theme and continually innovative approaches to teaching and learning are central to the decision to host its conference here in Asheville. “OBTC is different,” said Stark “We realized that OBTC continually challenges the status quo in management education just like Asheville challenges the status quo of society in a lot of ways. Asheville is different. OBTC and Asheville make a great combination and ‘Dare to be Different’ seemed to us to be the perfect theme for this great conference in this great city.”
“Our two organizations share a core belief in the importance of exemplary teaching and a respect for diverse learning opportunities,” said UNC Asheville Assistant Professor Micheal Stratton, site coordinator for OBTC 2013. “Just as OBTC brings together a melting pot of academicians to explore, debate and collaborate, UNC Asheville appreciates and implements inter- and multidisciplinary education in the pursuit of a seriously creative learning experience. Our liberal arts mission is a perfect match for the daring pedagogy that attendees learn at OBTC and then bring back to their respective classrooms.”
For more information, visit http://obtc.org or call 828.251.6554.
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