{"id":586,"date":"2026-01-22T20:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/?p=586"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:50:12","slug":"learning-by-doing-dr-chi-zhangs-approach-to-marketing-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/2026\/01\/22\/learning-by-doing-dr-chi-zhangs-approach-to-marketing-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning By Doing: Dr. Chi Zhang’s Approach to Marketing Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr. Chi Zhang<\/a> didn\u2019t set out to become a marketing professor. In fact, when she started college in central China, she wasn\u2019t even sure what business was. As a first-generation college student trying to make pragmatic choices, she picked computer science because it felt safe. \u201cI knew it would get me a job, but I also knew pretty quickly that coding all day wasn\u2019t where I wanted to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, she added an English major \u2013 another practical decision at the time, when English proficiency was rare and highly valued in East Asia. But it wasn\u2019t until she joined an international consulting project led by a business faculty member that something clicked. \u201cThat experience opened my eyes,\u201d Dr. Zhang said. \u201cI realized I wanted to be in the business world. I wanted to understand how organizations worked \u2013 and I wanted to create impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was just one problem: she\u2019d never studied business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI taught myself marketing,\u201d she laughed. \u201cEnough to pass the master\u2019s admissions exam in China, which is very hard. You\u2019re tested on everything \u2013 math, English, and your chosen field. I basically learned an entire major on my own.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That determination led her to the marketing graduate program at Huazhong University of Science and Technology \u2013 one of China’s top 10 universities \u2013 where she began conducting research in nonprofit organization (NPO) marketing. But even then, she wondered whether she could take the next step: moving across the world to study marketing in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know if I could make it,\u201d she admitted. \u201cMarketing requires cultural knowledge, writing, and communicating. It was intimidating.\u201d She eased into it with a master\u2019s degree in information systems and operations management at the University of Florida \u2013 a bridge between her technical background and her growing interest in marketing. She excelled academically, but her heart wasn\u2019t on the technical side anymore. \u201cI knew I needed to stop hesitating,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I applied to Ph.D. programs in marketing and fully committed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That choice eventually led her to the Lacy School of Business \u2013 and to a place that immediately felt right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly, it reminds me of my hometown in China,\u201d she said. \u201cMid-sized, friendly, welcoming. People here take the time to get to know you. That matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At LSB, Dr. Zhang teaches some of the most data-driven courses in the curriculum. For undergraduate students, she teaches Marketing Analytics, Digital Marketing, and AI in Marketing. For graduate students, she teaches AI in Business for MBA students and Marketing Analytics in the Business Analytics program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While those course titles can intimidate students, she sees that as part of the opportunity. \u201cMarketing is changing so fast,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s normal for students to feel nervous about data or analytics. My goal is to help them build confidence \u2013 because once you know you can learn something, you\u2019re unstoppable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her classes combine data tools like Tableau with hands-on experiential work, often in partnership with local nonprofits. In her digital marketing course, students develop real campaigns for organizations that serve immigrant families, women seeking legal aid, and other community groups with limited resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe students do incredible work,\u201d Dr. Zhang said. \u201cAnd for the nonprofits, it\u2019s marketing support they might not otherwise have. It\u2019s a perfect example of how learning can make an immediate difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Zhang\u2019s dedication to impactful teaching extends into her research as well. She recently published her first sole-authored paper in pedagogical research: \u201cEnhancing Student Engagement and Class Performance in a Marketing Analytics Course: A Student-Empowered Flipped Classroom (SEFC) Approach<\/a>\u201d in the Journal of Advancement of Marketing Education<\/em>. The study explores how giving students\u2019 ownership over analytic topics \u2013 selecting, researching, and teaching them to peers \u2013 transforms apprehensive learners into confident practitioners. \u201cWatching students go from nervous about data to empowered in decision-making is truly fulfilling,\u201d she said. In addition to the scholarship of teaching and learning, her research focuses on nonprofit marketing \u2013 an area she has explored for many years \u2013 as well as AI in marketing and consumer well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That belief in constant learning is woven into both her teaching philosophy and her life philosophy. She jokes that becoming a mother to two young daughters made her a better professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen observing how my little kids learn new things, it gives me many ideas and examples to share with students. I show them how different machine learning models \u2013 like neural networks \u2013 identify patterns from data. I often use real-life examples to demonstrate that how we teach our children parallels, how machine learning experts train models, and how we should design AI prompts to effectively interact with large language models\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at the end of the day, she hopes her students leave her classroom with something deeper than a set of skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarketing is fun,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s dynamic, creative, analytical \u2013 all of it. But more than anything, I want students to walk away believing in themselves. Confidence grows with practice. Curiosity opens doors. That\u2019s true in marketing, and it\u2019s true in life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Chi Zhang didn\u2019t set out to become a marketing professor. In fact, when she started college in central China, she wasn\u2019t even sure what business was. As a first-generation college student trying to make pragmatic choices, she picked computer science because it felt safe. \u201cI knew it would get me a job, but I also knew pretty quickly that coding all day wasn\u2019t where I wanted to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, she added an English major \u2013 another practical decision at the time, when English proficiency was rare and highly valued in East Asia. But it wasn\u2019t until she joined an international consulting project led by a business faculty member that something clicked. \u201cThat experience opened my eyes,\u201d Dr. Zhang said. \u201cI realized I wanted to be in the business world. I wanted to understand how organizations worked \u2013 and I wanted to create impact.\u201d There was just one problem: she\u2019d never studied business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2812,"featured_media":697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-insights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}