{"id":14840,"date":"2014-04-28T09:25:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T13:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=14840"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:28:18","slug":"creating-ha-moment-business-professor-reflects-decades-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2014\/creating-ha-moment-business-professor-reflects-decades-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating the \u2018A-ha!\u2019 moment: Business professor reflects on decades of teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Creating the \u2018A-ha!\u2019 moment: Business professor reflects on decades of teaching\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

By: Samantha Wright Allen <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019 Award and a Graduate Mentorship Award, focus on teaching excellence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like history,\u201d says Nicolas Papadopoulos from his office at Carleton\u2019s Sprott School of Business, where evidence of his life\u2019s work hangs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nicolas<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t many in his field that he doesn\u2019t know personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s scary,\u201d he says with a laugh. But he\u2019s most proud of his continued connection with students. He\u2019s now friends with former students from every year he has ever taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a position, do you want to come?\u201d he remembers that colleague asking. He never looked back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLife is full of opportunities and oftentimes the right one comes along,” Papadopoulos says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, he has almost 300 publications from research in 76 countries. Many of his studies are collaborative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou learn to work with others,\u201d he says, adding he\u2019s been playfully dubbed Mr. Synergy. As impressive as his prolific work is, it\u2019s even more remarkable that more than 40 per cent of the papers are co-authored by people he has taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had fantastic students,\u201d he says, adding research is a key driver behind good teaching. \u201cThe two go hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basics of his teaching approach haven\u2019t changed over the years: a high level of interaction with students aiming to help them become the best they can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nicolas<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe key is to be yourself (and) to be passionate and to really, really, really like what you do.\u201d That\u2019s the case with his love of international marketing. \u201cIf you live and breathe it, it comes across.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t hesitate to show pictures, show ads or even sing a song,\u201d Papadopoulos admits. He says the best teachers, not unlike advertisers, are always searching for the \u201cA-ha! experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs you say something you see the students’ eyes suddenly light up. They\u2019re having this epiphany,\u201d Papadopoulos says. \u201cThe minute you do that \u2013 if you can implant that idea \u2013 and you see this excitement… then you say, \u2018Geez, I\u2019ve accomplished something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019 Award and a Graduate Mentorship Award, focus on teaching excellence. \u201cI like history,\u201d says Nicolas Papadopoulos from his office at Carleton\u2019s Sprott School of Business, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42992,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14840\/revisions\/42992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}