Undergraduate Educator Spotlight: Dr. Datha Martinez

My junior year of undergraduate, I spent the first semester in England. When I returned in the spring, it was my first semester taking upper-level marketing courses, the first of which was Retail Management with Dr. Martinez. Of all of the educators I had at Truman, she is the one I remember best. Despite a rather chaotic semester (in general, but in her course specifically, I was on a team that was difficult to motivate which led to me having a breakdown in her office), she made the course memorable with her "Tell me something good" (aka Chaka Khan) Tuesdays, encouraging but no-nonsense attitude, and insistence on treating everyone with formal respect (we were always Mr. or Miss [last  name] in class, which was a departure from our other classes and seemed to demand greater seriousness within class because of it).

I was thrilled to take Marketing Research with her the following semester (a required course) and Selling and Sales Management (an elective). The latter she laced with hands-on experience, including required business professional days (constructive criticism included) and a midterm where we had to role play a sales situation as she played a randomly selected buyer type - she also graded us on our handshake as part of the exam. The former introduced us to a rigorous level of applied research for a local business or campus department. She had recruited the clients and vetted the projects beforehand; my team had the pleasure of being her first team to work with a target population under 18. As such, she assisted us brainstorming how we might approach the assignment in order to receive IRB approval for our research. She continued to be attentive (to the entire class) as we crafted surveys, collected data, and began analysis. I remember going to her office for help interpreting correlations we had run on some of the variables because I could not make the explanation make sense in my head. After that, she asked how the rest of the analysis was going and provided feedback on structuring the final report for her and our client.

Dr. Martinez was easy to talk to and I felt comfortable approaching her whenever I needed an explanation or some advice/support. She wrote recommendations for me while I job-hunted my senior year and when I applied to graduate school initially. I still communicate with her every now and then.

To summarize what made her my favorite instructor:

• She was stern, but kind. She had standards that she expected us to reach; they may have seemed impossible, but she was there to provide the resources and encouragement we need to realize it was possible.
• She incorporated applicable learning in the classroom. We still learned from textbooks, but she incorporated practical skills like business dress, handshakes, interacting with a client, and presenting the implications of results. She also encouraged us to stay apprised of what was happening in current business news (which was the focus of Chaka Khan Tuesdays).
• She treated us as young professionals and supported us as students. Yes, I was always (and still am) Miss Nabity, but I've also cried in her office because I didn't think my team was going to finish our case in the next week since my sections were the only ones done. She responded with compassion and understanding. (For the record, I had every intent to be a reational young professional and not a distraught student in that meeting.)
• She was an effective and engaging communicator. There are classes I've taken where I remember nothing from being in class because it was a recitation of a slide deck. She knew how to be engaging. (And it wasn't just playing Chaka Khan at the start of class on Tuesdays.) She would incorporate stories, elaborate on the slide deck, and direct questions to specific individuals in the class - both for factual answers and opinions. She made class an experience; one that, if you missed it, you missed a lot more than a regurgitation of the book chapter in slide deck form.
• She was human. This is a trait I especially appreciate in many educators I've had. By this, I mean they let us peek into their world a little, to know they have a family at home, they have other obligations that may slow response times, etc. It's good to know professors are people, too. I find, even when I've disliked a class with a professor, I often still like the professor as a person if they've allowed us to see them as such.