By: Samantha Wright Allen
On the wall hang several plaques. Some are in recognition of research, some congratulate his years in professional service, and others, including a Capital Educators’ Award and a Graduate Mentorship Award, focus on teaching excellence.
“I like history,” says Nicolas Papadopoulos from his office at Carleton’s Sprott School of Business, where evidence of his life’s work hangs.
He points to one frame, commemorating his first published piece in 1976. The man who signed it then is the father of a professor who works five doors down from Papadopoulos at Carleton. After teaching international marketing and business for 39 years, he says there aren’t many in his field that he doesn’t know personally.
“Sometimes it’s scary,” he says with a laugh. But he’s most proud of his continued connection with students. He’s now friends with former students from every year he has ever taught.
Originally from Greece, Papadopoulos could easily have stayed in the private sector. He worked at Esso, 3M and Procter & Gamble until he was 28. But he always dreamed of being an academic and had once confided this to a colleague while pursuing an MBA. Then one night, while celebrating his wedding anniversary and a recent promotion with friends, the phone rang. It was his former MBA colleague, who now worked at a university in Canada.
“We have a position, do you want to come?” he remembers that colleague asking. He never looked back.
“Life is full of opportunities and oftentimes the right one comes along,” Papadopoulos says.
Now, he has almost 300 publications from research in 76 countries. Many of his studies are collaborative.
“You learn to work with others,” he says, adding he’s been playfully dubbed Mr. Synergy. As impressive as his prolific work is, it’s even more remarkable that more than 40 per cent of the papers are co-authored by people he has taught.
“I’ve had fantastic students,” he says, adding research is a key driver behind good teaching. “The two go hand in hand.”
The basics of his teaching approach haven’t changed over the years: a high level of interaction with students aiming to help them become the best they can be.
“The key is to be yourself (and) to be passionate and to really, really, really like what you do.” That’s the case with his love of international marketing. “If you live and breathe it, it comes across.”
He says students respond when a person teaches with knowledge, authority and confidence. And he tries to bring excitement and avoid the typical dry lecture.
“I don’t hesitate to show pictures, show ads or even sing a song,” Papadopoulos admits. He says the best teachers, not unlike advertisers, are always searching for the “A-ha! experience.”
“As you say something you see the students’ eyes suddenly light up. They’re having this epiphany,” Papadopoulos says. “The minute you do that – if you can implant that idea – and you see this excitement… then you say, ‘Geez, I’ve accomplished something.’”