Putting Students Center Stage

Illinois State University prof Joe Solberg keeps the classroom environment comfortable by letting student input shape the direction of the lesson

by Dan Macsai

Joe Solberg
Professor of Business Law
Illinois State University

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BusinessWeek asked business undergrads to tell us about their favorite professors. Here's another installment in the series.

It was the mid-1990s on a spring afternoon in Joe Solberg's labor law class, and the professor, then 39, was watching one of his students, Ken, rattle off a run-of-the-mill case presentation. During his nine-plus years teaching business law at Illinois State University, Solberg had witnessed a variety of similar demonstrations. Most were predictable. But Ken had other plans.

Minutes into his speech, the youth pressed his back against the chalkboard, smearing white powder all over his shirt. His voice inflections changed abruptly. His handwriting turned quasi-illegible. And as Ken turned to face his fellow students—most of whom were muffling their laughter—Solberg suddenly realized the joke was on him. "Ken was mimicking my behavior," he recalls. "And by the way, he was spot on."

Ten years later, it appears the imitation was, indeed, a form of flattery. Of the 207 ISU undergrads polled in BusinessWeek's annual survey, roughly 10% gave Solberg top marks, making him the school's most popular business professor. It's the latest in a series of résumé-boosters for Solberg, who was named ISU's Most Outstanding Teacher (in 2001) and Outstanding MBA Professor (in 2003). "He's a great guy, inside the classroom and out," says Nick Calarco, who took Solberg's Real Estate Law class in 2006. "[The students] feel like he’s on our side."

So what's the Solberg secret? Letting the students "take center stage," he reveals. To introduce a lecture on employee relations, for example, Solberg will challenge the class with a question: "Has anyone here ever been hurt at work?" Then he'll address the issues raised in each response, working them into an overall message. Letting students guide a lesson, he says, creates a "loose, comfortable atmosphere" that lends itself to active learning.

Equal-Opportunity Classroom

The technique has scored with ISU undergrads. Among his pupils, Solberg has a reputation for being dynamic, down-to-earth, and highly approachable. While other teachers often "talk down" to students, says Calarco, Solberg values their input as much as his own. "He doesn't preach from some pedestal," Calarco explains. "When he's teaching, you feel like you're at the same level."

For Solberg, 50, the equal-opportunity classroom was a no-brainer. While attending law school in Chicago from 1979 to 1982, he learned how to push aside his own perspective. When discussing court cases, he says, listening to all sides of an argument was "far more important." Now, as a teacher, he tries to remain objective. "My own opinion doesn't matter," he says. "It's more important that students understand every aspect of an issue."

Grade-wise, Solberg's strategy is straightforward. Before tackling their three required exams (worth 80% of the final grade), students take an announced quiz (10%) to familiarize themselves with Solberg's testing format. Then, throughout the semester, they summarize newspaper articles (the final 10%) to keep up with issues in business law.

Teaching Ethics

Yet Solberg is perhaps best known for presenting difficult moral dilemmas. To illustrate the ethical issues in business law, for example, he'll draw up a basketball analogy: "You stepped out of bounds while making the winning shot in the championship game—do you tell the referee?" Then, presuming there's a strong difference of opinion (there usually is), students use class time to debate—and, more important, understand—every angle of the quandary.

Out of class, Solberg is equally energetic. He lives in Normal, Ill., with his wife, Patty, and five children. When he's not writing letters of recommendation, he'll spend time jogging, reading, and watching his kids play baseball or sing in chorus. "I'm just trying to keep up," he says.

But Solberg does have a not-so-dirty little secret. Although he's been out of school for more than 30 years, he periodically has every student's worst nightmare: sleeping through a final exam. "It's like, I'll show up at the building, and I'm late, and I have no clue where I'm supposed to take my test," Solberg explains. "I don't know—maybe it's some kind of secret fear." Or maybe he's just a college kid at heart.

Macsai is an intern at BusinessWeek.