Academy of Marketing Lifetime Achievement Award 2022: Acceptance Speech

On July 6, 2022 at the annual conference dinner in Huddersfield, UK, I was honored with an award from the Academy of Marketing for contribution to the Academy and to Marketing Achievement. Below is the text of my short speech.

Dr Lynn Vos – Lifetime fellowship award, Academy of Marketing, Huddersfield, July 2022

Acceptance speech

I am genuinely touched and honoured to receive this award. I hope that I can always live up to it. I will certainly try my best.

No honour or recognition such as this is gained alone. Any contribution I have made was achieved with the support and opportunities provided by others within this wonderful organization -The Academy of Marketing, its membership and the The Executive, in particular – thank you to Caroline, Anne Maria, Laura and John Egan and also to Anne Foye who was the backbone behind any work I did. Thank you to all the academics who shared their research, insights and ideas with me and helped to build my understanding and knowledge. My own institution in Calgary Canada, SAIT has also enthusiastically supported me to attend this event and receive this award so I thank my colleagues there as well.

A special thank you must go to my dear friend, colleague of 20+ years, mentor, research partner and exceptional human being, Professor Ross Brennan. Ross is responsible for getting me started. He never failed to provide thoughtful, useful feedback and support, and he was unfailingly kind. I miss him greatly and anyone who knew him feels the same.

Of all the roles that we hold as academics, teaching is probably the most complex, requiring great intellectual, physical and emotional labour and one that is most worthy of ongoing reflection and development. My time is limited here but in developing your skill – and we are always in development as teachers --consider the following three questions when developing your practice.

1. First, what is the purpose of marketing education?

This is a profoundly important epistemological question and how you answer it will, among other things, make your choices more intentional while helping you to better understand how and why your students achieve the results they do.

2. Second, what are students’ responsibilities in the learning process and what are your own?

Like the first, this will not be an easy question to answer and certainly a review of the learning literature will help you clarify things. I believe that answering this question will allow you to feel more confident in challenging your students that extra bit more.

One caveat here is to remember that learning to think well is developmental – the vast majority of our undergrads do not come to us with the ability to think critically. Much time, learning, feedback and practice is needed before this can occur. Some research suggests that ongoing education up to age 26 is needed. However, there is much we can do to support this process.

3. Third, what elements of your craft as an educator currently need the most attention?

The word ‘craft’ helps us to reflect upon just how much time, effort, practice, thinking, research and failure goes into perfecting any crafts.

Education, like other fields is filled with opinion, fads, myths and folklore that are often not investigated for their truth or value. For example, we often here how “We over-assess”, or that “we should not use lectures”, that “students are primarily motivated by grades and money” or that they have different “learning styles” we need to cater for. There are many more.

None of these has much if any empirical support. Remember, therefore, to refer to the vast evidence-based scholarship on teaching and learning to question these myths and each time you make your teaching decisions.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.