Tinker speaks about the importance of a liberal education

Students, faculty and guests listened intently to Dr. Nathan Tinker's lecture, "The Accidental Executive, or How to Succeed in Business With a Liberal Arts Degree," on Tuesday, March 2. Tinker, the co-founder and executive vice president of the NanoBusiness Alliance, oversees all industry research, education, and liaison initiatives. He is also a founder and president of NanoBusiness Development Group, the Alliance's consulting and market intelligence arm.

Tinker is the author of more than 20 market industry analyses and reports. He is an advisor of the The Nanotechnology Opportunity Report and PBS's Nanotechnology documentary series.

Tinker was invited to speak because his success story is unique.

Though he has made his career in the business world, he holds a PhD in 17 century English literature from Fordham University. Having a degree in liberal arts is uncharacteristic of people in business, and Tinker's lecture focused on how he has managed to make his career in a field other than academia, without possessing the business degrees typical of his peers.

Dr. Rose DeAngelis, director of the honors program at Marist, introduced Tinker, mentioning that the two of them had gone to graduate school together. Tinker, whose entire lecture was punctuated with wit, humorously alluded to his bond with DeAngelis. He inserted a photo of her into his slideshow. By doing so be illustrated the opportunities he had been given to work with experts in the liberal arts arena.

Every semester a guest speaker gives the honors lecture, and Tinker was invited this semester as "the representative from the School of Management," DeAngelis said.

However, she said that the business field was "interdisciplinary," which could appeal to people in many areas of study.

Tinker began his lecture by giving a brief background of himself. He then informed the audience of the importance of liberal arts in today's world.

"The fact is that liberal arts students play a major role in the business world," Tinker said. He provided a list of CFOs who have liberal arts, not business, degrees; a list that included Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, Steve Case, Michael Eisner, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Forbes, and most notably George W. Bush. These people have all succeeded in the business world with degrees in fields such as literature, philosophy, and even East Asian history.

The point Dr. Tinker conveyed was that liberal arts majors were seen by potential employers to be smarter and more broadly educated; and harder workers, because they understand the system of critical thought and the concept of working through problems.

In finding that corporate strategic intelligence focused on five areas; research, close reading, critical analysis, synthesis, and persuasion; Dr. Tinker said he realized this was "exactly what we do in freshman writing" class.

"This was automatic for someone with my education," Dr. Tinker said of his experience finding a business-related job while holding a liberal arts degree.

Dr. Tinker also talked extensively on nanotechnology, which is the art of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale to create improvements in technology. Nanotechnology in the commercial market is providing ways to develop things such as stain-resistant clothing, tennis rackets containing carbon nanotubes ("to make it seem like you're Andre Agassi when you're not," Dr. Tinker said), better sunscreen lotions, windows with particle-repellant coatings, and even a coating for toilet bowls which would make them basically self-cleaning. He also said the U.S. Navy is using a nanopartical coating in the paint used to paint their boats, which would quadruple the length of time they could wait in repainting the boats.

"Business needs ideas from literature, history, philosophy," said Dr. Tinker. "Anyone can be taught the business," he said. Companies need someone who can do the work and do it well, he said, which is why liberal arts students are so successful in their professions.

"More and more organizations are recognizing the usefulness of the liberal arts employee," he said.

Marist history professor Dr. Sally Dwyer-McNulty attended the lecture to support the Honors Program, as she teaches classes within it. She also was curious to hear Dr. Tinker's perspective on the value of a liberal arts education.

"I was very interested to find out what someone did with his PhD besides academia," Dr. Dwyer-McNulty said.