At the center of the Venn diagram

On one of the hottest days of Arizona's infamous summer, some of Clinical Assistant Professor Matt Sopha’s students were already focused on fall, and were sending him emails about his class.

On one of the hottest days of Arizona's infamous summer, some of Clinical Assistant Professor Matt Sopha’s students were already focused on fall, and were sending him emails about his class. “W. P. Carey has a reputation that’s well-earned,” he said. “We have really good students.” Sopha should know. For the past two years he was on the faculty at Loyola University in Maryland, but before that he was a doctoral student in the W. P. Carey School’s Department of Information Systems.

In fact, he is a true native of ASU, having earned his bachelor’s and MBA degrees here. And he’s very happy to be back. In the fall he will be teaching the honors section of the introduction to information systems course that all business majors are required to take. In fact, his eager email correspondents are in that class. And he is just as enthusiastic about it as they are.

The course (Honors CIS 236, and its parent, CIS 235) is at the center of the Venn diagram of the business program. Technology infuses all of the functional areas of business, and no matter what their major, all students will use what they learn. “IT and IS permeates the culture,” he said. “Every one of us carries one or two devices at all times. The more we understand about the technology, the better our lives will be, the better we will do our jobs.” Sopha knows instructors are challenged to keep the attention of students — even when the topic is as important as technology — so he works hard to keep the class interesting.

One of his tactics is to assign his students some special reading: a novel. “The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win,” is by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford — three IT pros who created a story about a foundering fictional IT implementation that gets readers inside a technology team and its work. Sopha said it helps students understand the role of IT in a business.

Teacher in the making  

Sopha was a music student at ASU, and after he graduated he became a full-time performer. He was a member of theater groups in Phoenix and toured. But after a few years he decided he wanted to get into something with a more traditional career path, and he wanted more education. He landed a job in Best Buy’s business-to-business area, then he went to work at Sprint-Nextel. After he enrolled in the W. P. Carey MBA program, he discovered his passion for academics. This fall will not be Sopha’s first brush with CIS 236. As a doctoral student, he assisted former Clinical Associate Professor Sule Balkan, who adapted the curriculum for the first honors section in 2009.

Two years later, they led first year honors students through a project in which they developed an app for students and staff at Barrett, the Honors College at ASU. The project was the topic of a paper co-authored by Balkan and Sopha. Sopha’s students this fall will learn about business strategy, process management and other topics, in the context of information technology. They will also learn about Microsoft Access and Excel, two programs they will use throughout their careers. Until then, we’re guessing at least a few of them are reading a good book about IT.