EMBA Class of 2021 Selects Winners of Annual Teaching Awards

Professors Lorenzo Caliendo, William Goetzman, Rodney Irwin, Douglas Kysar, Edieal Pinker, and Nils Rudi are the winners of the Yale School of Management’s MBA for Executives Teaching Awards, selected in a vote by the EMBA Class of 2021.

The students honored faculty in each of the MBA for Executives program’s three focus areas—healthcare, sustainability, and asset management—as well as recognizing teaching in the integrated MBA core curriculum taken by all EMBA students.

“I love teaching, and this recognition from my students was truly energizing in such a challenging year,” said Goetzman, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies who won the Asset Management Teaching Award.

Pinker, deputy dean and BearingPoint Professor of Operations Research who won the Healthcare Teaching Award, also expressed gratitude. “This is such an accomplished group of students that I find it an honor just to teach them,” he said.

Kysar, deputy dean and the Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School, shared the Sustainability Teaching Award with Rodney Irwin, lecturer and managing director, Redefining Value and Education, at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

“Each year I am in awe of the drive, sacrifice, and passion that EMBA students bring to completing this program,” Kysar said. “For the Class of 2021, my jaw has to drop even further since they have earned this degree under the most challenging of circumstances. What they have accomplished is amazing.”

Irwin also praised the students. “The EMBA Class of 2021 has been amazing to work with and to be honored by them in this way is very humbling,” he said. “I am a bit of an accidental educator, but my time with the students, and their reaction to my class, has given me food for thought about my future, just like I hope the sustainability curriculum has made them realize what they need to do with theirs.”

Nils Rudi, professor of operations management, and Lorenzo Caliendo, professor of economics, were also co-recipients. They shared the Core Teaching Award.

Caliendo called the year a teaching experience he’d never forget. “The patience and flexibility of the students to quickly switch from in-person to remote learning was crucial,” he said. “I need to thank them for the engagement, energy, deep questioning, and continuous feedback that made me a better teacher. I am honored by this award.” 

Rudi thanked the students for their perseverance. “Learning the foundations of probability is hard—at least it was for me,” he said.

“Given the fast pace of the probability course in the EMBA program, I’m aware that I made the students go through substantial struggles. To receive this award, despite the pain I inflicted on many of them, means a lot to me.”