Scott Beyer
by Morgan Counts
Student Multimedia Reporter
life lessons in the classroom
If there’s one thing more challenging than learning about risk management and insurance regulations, it could be teaching it. Keeping students engaged in finance classes is no easy task. That is why in the middle of reviewing for the final exam in Risk Management and Insurance at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Scott Beyer tells the story of his college friend who took Beyer’s dad’s car on an off-road joyride and ended up in jail. The lesson? The difference between primary and secondary insurance.
Beyer, a professor of finance and insurance for UW Oshkosh’s College of Business, tries to find ways to make his students excited about the content of his courses.
“Dr. Beyer did an excellent job of keeping
students engaged in the material through real-world case studies that got the
students involved,” said Bryce Gannon, a senior at UW Oshkosh majoring in
finance, with a minor in risk management and insurance. Gannon took both
Commercial Risk Management and Advanced Risk Management with Beyer. “He is
well-connected in the community, so he brought in a wide array of professionals
to talk about their roles in risk management.”
Dr. Scott Beyer with daughter, Anna, at the 2012 French Open in Paris.
In addition to bringing outside insight into the classroom, Beyer also uses popular culture to pull his students back into an otherwise dense lecture.
“I’ll see a video from a movie or a clip from “The Simpsons” that refers to something in finance,” he said. “It may be a joke, but it could start a good discussion. That 20 seconds, even if I’m just referencing the video, can bring everybody back in just like that, and all of a sudden I have a fresh window where they’re still engaged.”
Beyer knows how important his role is in motivating students to learn more. Although he has a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Missouri, he wasn’t always an enthusiastic learner.
