McCombsToday: Ethics Professor Robert Prentice Wins 'Master Teacher' Award

The McCombs School of Business community already considers Robert Prentice an all-star professor, but now he's also officially a Master Teacher.

On Aug. 8, the director of the Business, Government, and Society department won the Master Teacher Competition at the Academy of Legal Studies (ALSB) annual conference in Boston. For his award-winning presentation, Prentice led a sample class showing how a professor might introduce the subject of behavioral ethics, which attempts to explain why people make ethical—and unethical—decisions. The audience voted for their favorite presentations. "I got the most votes, so apparently there had been a lot of drinking beforehand," Prentice jokes.

Despite his humility, this isn't the first time Prentice has been recognized for his top-notch teaching. Earlier this year, he was among the 12 professors selected from the University of Texas System's nine universities for induction into the inaugural class of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. The Academy was created to recognize outstanding educators across the UT System.

To be considered for his latest award, Prentice was among 14 professors nationwide who submitted a lengthy proposal to ALSB, the professional association of business law professors. From those proposals, a committee of past winners selected four finalists, who then presented their lectures at the ALSB convention to an audience of around 150 professors.

Prentice included a video on role morality from the Ethics Unwrapped series in his presentation. The video series aims to provide a high-quality, entertaining educational resource for teaching or learning about ethical decision-making. "Because today's students are visual learners and because most of the videos we have produced so far for Ethics Unwrapped illustrate concepts related to behavioral ethics, they are a wonderful learning tool," he says.

Prentice says he was pleased to win the award, especially since the topic of behavioral ethics represents a personal crusade for him. His enthusiasm is apparently contagious: Following his presentation, Prentice was approached by several professors who asked for copies of his PowerPoint slides, which he provided. "Many professors in the audience told me that they intend to use our Ethics Unwrapped videos to teach the subject," he says.

Sounds like even his fellow professors have something to learn from Prentice.

Full story at McCombsToday.