Professor of Marketing and Rawlco Scholar in Advertising Barb Phillips will be presented with the University of Saskatchewan Master Teacher Award at Spring Convocation June 5-8^th, 2012.

The award honours superior teaching, community engagement and innovation.

“We are privileged at Edwards to have many exceptional educators whose achievements are recognized with top awards, and Barb joins their ranks today,” says Dean Daphne Taras.

Phillips says her motto for the classroom is telling is not teaching.  “Although I think it is important to convey the strategies, steps, tools, and techniques of marketing in my courses, I believe that the key to learning is for students to practice and use the concepts in real settings,” she explains. “In my Branding course, my students and I discuss how to evaluate brand extensions, and then we eat Kraft Dinner crackers and judge whether those crackers are going to be successful.” 

In other courses, students learn how to develop an ad campaign and then apply those ideas to a real not-for-profit institution in Saskatoon.  Phillips’ students also explore sociological theories about why violence is popular and then play violent video games to experience different attitudes toward violence.

Phillips says she’s motivated to keep innovating because the marketing field is constantly changing. “There are hundreds of new ideas to explore every year,” she says. “Starbucks has a new logo—is that going to help or hurt the company? McDonald’s is copying Starbucks with its McCafe line—what will that do to the coffee house industry? Why did Tim Horton’s change its cup sizes?  I love marketing, and I love helping students learn about marketing, so that fascination and curiosity drives me.”

To celebrate the news of her award, Phillips had a pizza party with her kids and her husband, Fred, also a Master Teacher at U of S. “I feel grateful to receive this award because I know the amount of great teaching that occurs at the Edwards School of Business and the University of Saskatchewan,” she says. “To know that I am a part of that tradition is gratifying.”

For more information about the Dr. Barb Phillips and the Master Teacher Award, please click here.