Elaine Young
Associate Professor
Marketing and E-Business
Innovations in e-business, marketing
Elaine Young doesn't blur the line between classroom and business world-she blows it away. As the director of Champlain College's Marketing and e-Business programs, Elaine encourages her students to get real.
"The students in our e-Business program are incredibly entrepreneurial. Most have begun their own business ventures," she says. Part of the fun for her is watching the way students collaborate on projects. "If the group project in the marketing class is to come up with a new product, the students work together to decide what that it will be." From snowboard innovations and smart windows to real-time language translators, the possibilities are endless.
Making the marketing decision easy
Elaine, who has been an assistant professor at Champlain since 2001, teaches Marketing, Exploring Marketing, Internet-based Marketing, Non-profit and Social Marketing, and Marketing Management and Internet Issues. She doesn't waste any time introducing her students to the real world of marketing.
"The Exploring Marketing class allows freshmen the opportunity to really explore different areas of marketing through interviews with professionals, reading seminal marketing books, observing different aspects of marketing and solving a marketing challenge for an on-campus club or organization," she says. "The true benefit of this course is that students can try it out and learn about the major right away. They can apply what they are learning in other classes and they learn very quickly if marketing is the right path for them."
Classes and causes right out of the headlines
Elaine is a firm believer in problem-based and experiential learning practices, and often takes risks in her classroom that go beyond the traditional realm of academics. She is always ready and willing to improvise. In the 2005 fall semester, for example, she gave students the opportunity to throw out the course outline for the semester and work on Hurricane Katrina relief. "The process has been incredibly educational as students have struggled to figure out how to have the greatest impact around the issue," Elaine said. They settled on an event on campus with all the proceeds going to the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Elaine's energy and innovation, along with flexibility allowed by the college, make Champlain's marketing courses unique. "We are one of the few colleges that offer a specific e-Business degree that marries traditional business with the technology know-how individuals need to succeed in business, and more importantly, on their own as entrepreneurs," she says.
Even at home, her interests range from traditional to futuristic. When she's not teaching marketing classes, Elaine Young can be found in her garden, chatting with neighbors on the front porch or engaging in something more contemporary: playing Majesty and Everquest on her computer.
A television commercial parody for a country music album.