UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 11, Page 2
November 9, 1995
Christine Kydd enjoys feedback from her students

     Christine Kydd always wanted to be a teacher, so she earned a
degree in mathematics and education at Bucknell University and started
her teaching career in the high school algebra classroom.
     "I liked the teaching part, but I didn't like the discipline
part," says Kydd, who two years later went back to school to get her
MBA at Drexel University in quantitative systems analysis, with a
minor in finance and a concentration in management information
systems.
     While pursing her MBA, she was a teaching assistant. Kydd said
she realized that she enjoyed herself while teaching undergraduate
statistics courses at that Philadelphia institution.
     "Statistics had a terrible reputation," she says, smiling. "It
was filled with people who, essentially, had to be there. I had a
great opportunity to turn things around and make the course both
understandable and enjoyable."
     Upon receiving her MBA, she went to work as an information
systems analyst in a private company where she served as a liaison
between technical staff and end users regarding the development of new
information systems.
     "I eventually decided that I liked teaching better than business
and decided to go back to school," she says.
     After receiving her doctorate from The Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania in 1984, Kydd came to the University of
Delaware's College of Business and Economics in September 1984 and was
promoted to associate professor in 1991.
     Her research focuses on decision making, behavioral issues in the
use and implementation of management information systems and
electronic collaboration technologies for group projects. Her
teaching, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, deals with
decision making within the operations management function and the use
of communication technologies in a business environment.
     Kydd said the feedback from students is something she
particularly enjoys. Apparently, her students share similar
sentiments. Last spring, Kydd was one of four faculty who received the
University's prestigious excellence-in-teaching award, based partly on
student nominations.
     "I like to see people who thought they would get nothing out of a
course, or thought it was going to be terrible, come back later and
say, "I really enjoyed that,' or 'I got something out of this course.'
It's especially satisfying when someone comes up afterward and says,
'I'm going to major in operations.' That's a real thrill."
     Asked to recall a significant incident during her teaching
career, Kydd immediately shared the story of the students who filled
out her mid-course evaluations during her first semester at Delaware.
     Kydd says the feedback indicated that a lot of what she was doing
was not well received and could be improved.
     "I changed the whole way in which I was teaching, and there were
dramatic changes in the classroom," she says. "One student, who had
been particularly inattentive and close to obnoxious, changed
dramatically, just like that. It was like a light bulb went on and
things meant something to her, and others, all of a sudden. At the end
of the semester, she told me she was going to major in operations. She
still comes back to visit me, and we talk about that incident, which
was beneficial to both of us. I even tell the story to current
students, and sometimes she visits my classes and talks to them, too."
     Accessibility to students is important, Kydd says. In addition to
office visits, she says she recently has made effective use of e-mail,
which allows her to respond rapidly and thoroughly to student
requests.
     Receiving the excellence-in-teaching award has been a high point
of Kydd's career.
     "I thought about it a lot, after I heard the news," Kydd says.
"An interesting thing is people started saying, 'Now you're one of the
best teachers on campus,' and 'Now I can ask you questions about
teaching.' But, I hadn't changed anything. I just did what I had been
doing all along.
     "There are other outstanding teachers on campus who are doing a
fine job, but who haven't been recognized and from whom I can learn
things. I went to a session on technology in the classroom, and other
people were using things that I'd like to incorporate into my classes.
     "If you want to know who the outstanding teachers are, ask the
students. They are the ones who can tell you who, in their minds, is
doing a good job in the classroom."
                                                         -Ed Okonowicz


This story is part of a series of articles featuring the 1995
recipients of the University's excellence-in-teaching and excellence-
in-advising awards.