We ended the grad class on Saturday with a good discussion about ethics.It was prompted by Wacy Pruitt’s review of The Big Kahuna. This led to mention of Death of a Salesman. I quickly realized how little the class knew about classic movies in that someone said, isn’t that an old movie? Well I have referenced the Dustin Hoffman version above but originally Lee J Cobb starred in the Broadway version of Arthur Miller’s play. It has subsequently been done for both tv and film by several actors. Every would be marketing major should be required to see it BEFORE majoring in marketing.
All that led us to a discussion of The Smartest Guys in the Room. And finally the class got where I had envisioned. Turns out Jason had gotten so enthused about it the week before the found it and watched it and wanted to discuss it. Ditto for the rest of the class. Even though the regualr time had ended, the class stayed round for a while to discuss how in fact the smartest guys in the room were actually a bunch of crooks and charlatans, but then the ethical question is, did they know that or was there a never ending ability to rationalize their behavior to themselves? Such is the draw of ethical discussion.
Reflecting on that, I asked myself how I might infuse the other classes in such a manner. I think part of the problem is that every one has not seen the movie being discussed or read the book and so is not drawn into the discussion. In a perfect world, we would have movie matinee with popcorn, all watch the same one, and then have the discussion. The next best thing I can do, is to schedule you presentations and post a hyperlink so you can read about the movie or book and start forming your own opinions.I think this will also raise the bar for our presenters.
Hoping this will raise the interest level, I will be positioning everyone this Monday in the other two classes.
DLE
Professor Elam 
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