His Classes Mean Business

Engagement and relevance are the ways Dr. Bill Carner, Associate Professor of Business at Westminster College, describes his teaching philosophy.  “Engagement and relevance create interest which leads to learning which, in turn, leads to success in the classroom,” Dr. Carner says.  “The students are the reason we are here.”

In keeping classes relevant, Dr. Carner’s content many times centers on a case study the day it was released, and he tries to bring his classes the freshest news and trends in the world of marketing.  His enthusiasm for the subject of marketing leads to exciting classroom discussions and many students take advantage of his “open door” office hours to not only discuss classroom topics but how to start a business or prepare for graduate school.

Students coming to Bill Carner for entrepreneurship advice is no surprise to those who know him.  He brings a wealth of real world business experience to the table.  As a youth, he started his own first successful business selling sports booster products for high schools such as sweatshirts and license plates in Springfield, MO.  Prior to his academic experience, he ran his own corporation for 13 years, offering service to over 2,500 financial institutions nationwide until the business was acquired by Thomson International in 1990.

“Having started five businesses in my career, I try to bring a sense of entrepreneurship to all my classes,” Dr. Carner says.  “I have had at least three students per year start businesses of their own with advice and guidance I was happy to share.”

Before coming to Westminster, he was Director of the Business Foundations Program and Senior Lecturer in the Marketing Department of the University of Texas in Austin.  He was involved in the program since its inception in 1995 as a faculty member developing the marketing coursework.  During the twelve year history of the Foundations program, they served approximately 25,000 students per year, and during that time period certified almost 10,000 students..

While he was at the University of Texas (UT), he also developed the Direct Marketing and the Sports and Entertainment Marketing courses and taught the product development course for MBAs as they prepared for Moot Corp, an international entrepreneurial competition founded at UT.

Before teaching at UT, Dr. Carner was Chair of the Marketing Department at St. Edward’s University and was highly involved in curriculum policies, administration, and recruiting for graduate programs there as a part of the MBA Graduate School Council.

Dr. Carner holds an A.B. from  Drury University in business administration and economics and an MBA in finance and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

While keeping his hand in the industry through his service on boards such as the international marketing journal Innovative Marketing and Journal of Interactive Marketing, he finds a great deal of self-satisfaction in the Westminster College academic environment.  “My reward is the students who come by my office during and after the semester saying they want to major in marketing,” says Dr. Carner.

Above video: Ryan Lockhart, ’14 and Patrick Glauber, ’13 share their classroom experiences Dr. Carner