Matt Marx

Bruce F. Failing Sr. Professor of Entrepreneurship, Cornell University

As Faculty Director of Entrepreneurship@Cornell, I am tasked with coordinating our campus-wide entrepreneurial curriculum. Despite its non-metropolitan location, Cornell ranks in the top 5 or top 6 worldwide for undergrad who have founded venture-backed startups, and also top 5 for "unicorns." Nearly one in seven Cornellians becomes an entrepreneur at some point in their career.

My main focus as Faculty Director has been revamping the undergraduate Entrepreneurship Minor. The revised Entrepreneurship Minor is streamlined, with a Practicum capstone, a new Hackathon course, and a relaunched gateway/survey course that received 5.0/5.0 ratings from two different instructors last year. Enrollment in the Entrepreneurship Minor is up nearly 30% since last year. This year we are introducing an undergraduate-level course on Venture Financing. We also launched a sortable list of entrepreneurship courses by topic.

My own teaching is at the undergraduate, MBA, and Executive levels, primarily on entrepreneurship but also innovation. I've received 5.0/5.0 ratings more than half a dozen semesters and in 2024 was recognized with the Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Cornell Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. I enthusiastically use the case method but take precautions to avoid the sort of bias that can arise when not administered carefully, and which has led many institutions to limit the % of final grade from class participation. I use a six-step approach to promote a fair classroom:

  1. Confess. Tell your students on day one that participation grading is inherently unfair because the instructor has to call on you (unlike a quiz, where everyone "participates"). Ask them to tell you (or a TA) if they feel like they are not getting an opportunity to participate.
  2. Transcribe comments. Enlist a TA to write down a short summary of what everyone says (but do the grading yourself). If possible, record the class so you can double-check.
  3. Warm calls for quiet students. This technique I learned from the great instructor Jan Rivkin. Go up to a student just before class and ask them if they are willing to start the class that day. If not, it's as if they passed on a cold call, but without the public humiliation.
  4. Don't call on the first student to raise their hand. I used to do this, but one student helped me understand that I was unconsciously disfavoring students for whom English was a second language. "I need a few seconds to translate the thoughts in my head," s/he said in the post-semester feedback.
  5. Track demographics. Break down the participation grades by native language, gender, sides of the room, seniors vs. juniors, business vs. non-business students, or other relevant margins. Tell the students every few weeks how they are doing, both individuallyh and as subgroups.
  6. Blind-graded written work to balance out participation.

Here's a Twitter/X thread on additional teaching tips.