Joseph Euculano | College of Business since 1985
How did a music teacher end up explaining economics to generations of first-year students? In a word: entrepreneurship. As the owner of Instrumental Music Programs, among other small businesses, Joe Euculano provided educational and instructional services to parochial elementary schools throughout Delaware, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania from 1974 to 2008. Wilmington College recruited him to teach music appreciation, then he began attending marketing and finance courses to boost his company. “Those courses let me step away from music, from the nitty-gritty of running a business, and expand my spectrum of abilities,” he says. “Before long, I was filling out the requirements for an MBA.”
Experience and the educator. “I thought I could make a difference. I know that’s pretty cliché. But the MBA gave me the impetus to share what I’d learned as an entrepreneur. There’s not a class where I don’t mention something related to the lesson at hand. It’s about making things relevant to students. When you’re teaching and students ask, ‘Why is it this way?’, if you can’t relate how it affects them in the real world, you might as well just read them the textbook.”
The call of the classroom. “I actually enjoy teaching now more than I did 36 years ago, because then I didn’t know anything. How do you develop a five-hour lesson plan and keep students interested? I had to learn all that on my own. It wasn’t long, though, before it was something I really looked forward to doing. Technology has changed just about everything in the classroom, but what hasn’t changed on my end is that every time the block starts, I get a rush from connecting with students.”
Preparation for the world. “I try to teach not just economics, but real life. The business world, or whatever world you’re going into, is somewhat unforgiving. So if you have something due on Sunday night at 11:59, you’d better have it in. I think the instructors who push you to your abilities, those are the ones that you learn the most from — I learned accounting from Mike Karia — but I also think I’ve gained a lot of patience over the years.”
Leaps and boundaries. “When I started teaching here, it was a college you went to for business, and that was pretty much it. The classes were mainly men, who mainly worked for DuPont. Now, the diversity of majors and of students is amazing. Just incomprehensible. Of course, now you’ve also got to search high and low for a place to park at the main campus.”