C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard Business School

In the News

The Business of Teaching

Harvard Magazine, Nov-Dec 2006

As HBS differs from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) in curriculum, student experiences, and the teaching demands placed on professors, so its new Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning (established in late 2004) differs from FAS’s similarly named Bok Center. Staff from the Christensen Center, building on an existing four-day orientation to the school and case teaching for new faculty members, now regularly meet with professors, when asked, to review their teaching plans, attend and videotape a class, and then discuss the tape and their observations together.

Light Years Ahead

HBS Alumni Bulletin, Sep 2006

Jay Light, the School’s ninth Dean, talks about program innovation, faculty development, and the impact of globalization.
…First, we are recruiting from a wide variety of disciplines and providing the resources new faculty need to thrive in terms of both teaching and research. The Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning has been particularly helpful on this front. It enables new faculty who may not be familiar with case-method teaching to hone their classroom skills and to learn from the expert teachers the School has cultivated over the years.

Campaign Ends, Exceeds Expectations

HBS Alumni Bulletin, Dec 2005

…The HBS experience remains focused on participant-centered learning. Technology is also key to the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning, which helps new and experienced faculty improve their teaching skills through one-on-one coaching sessions, seminars, and workshops.

Christensen Center: Open for Business

HBS Alumni Bulletin, June 2005

Every day at HBS, several professors bring their unique teaching skills to the same material in the required MBA curriculum. So Willis Emmons, director of the School’s new Center for Teaching and Learning, videotaped multiple sections of a number of first-year courses in order to have side-by-side comparisons of how different faculty members approach the same course.

Emmons Heads Christensen Center

HBS Alumni Bulletin, December 2004

Willis Emmons (MBA '85, PHDBE '89) has rejoined HBS as the first director of the C.Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning. Emmons, who began his new position in October, taught at HBS from 1989 to 1999 as a member of the BGIE unit. He has spent the past five years teaching MBA, executive education, and undergraduate business courses at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he received the Graduate Teaching Award in 2003.

A Teacher of Teachers

HBS Alumni Bulletin, June 2004

Held in high esteem by former students and faculty alike, Chris Christensen is considered a founding father of case-method teaching. The Christensen Center will add to a long list of honors that its namesake received throughout his lifetime and posthumously.

Teaching and Learning Center Established, Honors Christensen's Legacy

HBS Alumni Bulletin, June 2004

Many HBS faculty members make it look easy. But anyone who has ever tried to lead a discussion among eighty students will quickly realize that case-method teaching is an art. It is an art that requires a tremendous amount of training, practice, mentoring, and continual refinement.