If you have taken accounting or are a graduate student in the Lally School, then you probably have heard of Bob Boylan, a clinical assistant professor in RPI’s school of management.
This year is Boylan’s fourteenth at Rensselaer, and he currently teaches a number of undergraduate and graduate classes including Accounting for Decision Making in the undergraduate school, Business Economics and Financial & Managerial Economics, and Financial Reporting and Managerial Reporting in the Executive M.B.A. program. He also designed and implemented Business Economics for Professional Distance Education, which has received support from companies such as IBM, Ford, and GM, and has also led RPI’s attempt to enter the distance market for an M.B.A.
As far as his research at Rensselaer goes, Boylan deals with practical, very business-oriented issues, he said, which is a change from the usual research conducted by most professors.
Boylan majored in accounting and minored in economics at Franklin and Marshall College. He then went on to get his M.B.A. from the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. in economics from Duke University.
In addition to being a professor at Rensselaer, Boylan also provides corporate training for Rensselaer to clients in the Albany area, works for the Raptor Group—a consulting firm that focuses on corporate training—and is a principal partner of a small accounting practice.
Boylan has earned many awards including the Lilly Teaching Fellowship in 1990, Teacher of the Year in 1993, EMBA Teacher of the Year, and he has also had the highest teaching evaluations at the graduate level for the past 10 years. Boylan has also published numerous papers, presentations, and industry reports on a wide range of subject matter.
When asked what he enjoyed most about RPI, he replied, "The students here are spectacular, bright, and articulate." If he could change one thing about Rensselaer, Boylan said it would be the way that the faculty, staff, and students interact. He thinks it is important for everyone, undergraduate and graduate, to interact better and to be happy when they graduate from Rensselaer.
Boylan said that he thinks his classes are "competitive, but fair" and that students who take a course with him will be able to remember the material that they learned and apply it to other courses that they take in the future.
To vote for Boylan for Poly Person of the Year, keep an eye out in The Poly later in the semester for more details.
