Looking for something to listen to during this time of social distancing?
Experience Darden (MBA-focused) and The ExecMBA Podcast (Executive MBA and Global Executive MBA-focused) feature weekly conversations with members of the Darden community, and both are a great way to learn more about life as a Darden student.
On the Experience Darden podcast, we were recently joined by Darden Professor and Associate Dean for Washington, D.C., Area Initiatives Greg Fairchild (MBA ‘92).
During the interview, Fairchild reflects on the “Ethics Through Literature” elective he leads in our full-time MBA program, which he took with Professor Ed Freeman when he was an MBA student in the early nineties — and became the very inspiration for his own Ph.D. Fairchild also discusses the importance of thoughtful narrative and effective storytelling, as well as the value that the arts can have future business leaders.
Looking for a few reading suggestions? You’re definitely going to want to check out the conversation.
View just a few of Fairchild’s recommendations below, but listen to the full episode to hear why these were his picks:
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- Grand Union by Zadie Smith
- Deacon King Kong: A Novel by James McBride
- Alys, Always by Harriet Lane
Fairchild also shared insights about leading virtual classes, and how this experience differs from some of his previous online teaching:
I have to think really hard about how I connect people together. We’ve created learning teams and learning groups within the class, which is about 70 people. We’ve also created ways that people can interact asynchronously through assignments to work on and things to do together that they do in between class meeting times. One of the things that will be a virtue out of this moment for all of us is that there will be some things we’ll all learn about teaching that we didn’t know before — that we didn’t do before — that will make us better teachers in the end.
This episode also highlights the ongoing work of the Resilience Education initiative, which Fairchild leads alongside his wife and fellow Darden alum Tierney Fairchild (MBA ‘94).
We’ve kept the podcasts up and running as we’ve shifted from in-person to remote interviews, and over the past few weeks, we’ve shared some previously recorded conversations as well as some new interviews, including updates to our full-time MBA application process and our Executive MBA application process, student organization spotlights (Asia Business Club at Darden | Darden African Business Organization), alumni conversations (Sara Conner (EMBA ‘18)) and more. Find our podcasts across a host of platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and more.
Check out faculty thought leadership published on Ideas to Action. And stay connected with us via social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, WeChat
