Staton shrinks gap between school and ‘real world’

[Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Mark Staton's position at Western. He is an assistant professor of marketing. ]

Conveying the importance of class material can be a tough task, and connecting students to professionals in the private sector can be even more difficult – but one Western Washington University professor has found a way to simultaneously do both.

Throughout his first year of working at Western, Assistant Professor of Marketing Mark Staton has built up a unique repertoire of lesson plans to engage and educate his Digital Marketing students. His lesson plans have included Google Analytics certification, a blog that students update twice a week on Digital Marketing topics, online coding classes and weekly Google+ video chats with industry professionals who can speak about a topic and the skills students need to get hired by leading companies.

“My goal as a professor with digital marketing is to make sure everyone gets a job,” Staton said. “I like to get as many industry professionals as possible to speak to the class through Google+, because [those industry professionals] clearly know what is going on.”

Appropriately, Staton has networked with many of these professionals through Twitter, a social networking tool that is referred to often in his class. Staton’s goal is to connect his current students with seasoned professionals who can talk in depth about digital marketing topics, their importance, and the direction in which the field is going. He tries to pair that with recent graduates in the field who can talk about how they got their job and what their day-to-day is like.

Industry professionals that Staton has brought into his classroom via Google+ have been from companies like SEER Interactive, Red Rokk Interactive, Hootsuite, ComScore and Razorfish. Many of them have said that the topics covered in digital marketing are necessary for graduates to know inside out so they don’t get lost in a crowded hiring pool.

A Western alumnus and past student of Staton’s, Brian Boyd (Marketing, ’13), attested to the success of the class. “Mark's class was one of the most invaluable classes I have taken at Western,” he said “My employer was very excited that I had Google Analytics certification and that I had been learning to code. I walked away with something I could hold up above a degree and say: Yes, I did this. Yes, I understand this and yes, I would love to work for you in order to do more for your business.”

Nearly 15 years ago, Staton worked for an internet startup that was later acquired by Lycos, one of the first search-engine providers.

“What we call ‘social media’ now, we called ‘community tools’ back then,” he said. Staton has seen digital marketing evolve rapidly and wants students to have the tools necessary to keep up to date. “I have to prepare a new class every quarter. I don’t use a textbook because a textbook would be out of date by the time we use it,” Staton said. 

Staton attended the University of Virginia, where students are called first years, second years, third years and fourth years. The University was founded by Thomas Jefferson who had a philosophy that no one should be called a senior because no one is a senior in terms of their education. Even when you are about to graduate, you are just in the fourth year of your education, and your education goes on forever, Staton said. 

Staton’s class reflects this philosophy.

“Just because we learn it now, doesn’t mean it’s going to be particularly relevant a year from now, so I want to encourage the students to think about themselves as lifelong learners and give them the tools they will need to educate themselves later.”

Staton also believes that professors should engage students and expect a lot from them.

“It’s not that long ago that I was taking classes, I remember what it was like to be in a class that wasn’t particularly interesting, so I try to make it very interactive, I try to make it fun, but I also have high standards,” Staton said. “I want my students to understand that once they graduate the stakes are pretty high and I would be doing them a disservice as their professor if I don’t have high expectations to match.”