Outstanding Educator Award

Associate Professor WIRTZ, Jochen

Department of Marketing

Assoc Prof Wirtz receives the Outstanding Educator Award for his heightened sense of service commitment to his students. With his niche expertise in services marketing, he has written high-impact textbooks on the subject and contributed significantly to the development of this module in the University's undergraduate and graduate programmes.

For Assoc Prof Wirtz there is no such thing as a normal class. Each session is different, driven as it is by his effort to keep student interest high and add value to what is being taught. His measure on both counts is the relevancy of what and how he teaches.

Through his research and consultancy work, he ensures his teaching materials keep abreast with the latest developments and best practices in industry. With him, imparting of knowledge is never a mere transfer of knowledge. It has to be visible, tangible and experiential for his students. "My advice to students is never to graduate without having worked somewhere to get an inside view of how an organisation works."

What is notable about Assoc Prof Wirtz is that he practises what he preaches. His textbook, Services Marketing in Asia - Managing People, Technology and Strategy, which he co-authored with NUS colleague Dr Keh Hean Tat and Prof Christopher Lovelock of Yale University, is considered one of the top two international textbooks on the subject. As a teacher, he is completely customer- and service-oriented. Lectures and tutorials under him are student-centred and interactive. He makes it a point to be in tune with his students, listening to their feedback, ideas and suggestions throughout the term. His self-designed feedback exercise given out at the end of each course is specific in its solicitation of detailed and anonymous information that he can act upon.

The value of such feedback as well as those from teaching evaluations is taken seriously by Assoc Prof Wirtz. In fact he credits them for his winning the University Award. When one considers how broad his student base is, his versatility and dynamism are clearly reflected. His students cut across the board from undergraduates to MBA students and senior managers in the Asia-Pacific Executive MBA Programme.