This Course Rocks: Teaching the Importance of Performance

Two LeBow College of Business colleagues met to discuss a classroom consulting project; they left with plans for a live concert.

Daniel Korschun, associate professor of marketing, and Alison Young, executive director of the Institute for Strategic Leadership wanted students to get hands-on experience understanding the connection between social responsibility and business performance, which is often a challenge for today’s leaders.

So Korschun and Young arranged for a live case study for Korschun’s course, “Corporate Responsibility: Performance with Purpose,” in which representatives of the non-profit, called “Right to Rock” and School of Rock were present to answer student questions.

School of Rock now includes 180 franchises in 32 states and nine countries. It provides music education and life lessons to thousands of high-school students around the world. 

“School of Rock is trying to spread the message that music performance is important, that it can help kids develop skills they can transfer to other parts of their lives,” Korschun said. “Through the course, we hope to contribute to that vision while we give Drexel students a chance to learn the importance of both management skills and civic engagement.”

Joe Roberts, chairman of the board of School of Rock and President of Right to Rock, Dave Marsh, a School of Rock franchise owner, and Rik Alison, music director of the School of Rock Main Line, all came out to discuss the company’s mission, while three Drexel students who are former School of Rock students — C.J. Nave, Brendan Marsh and Allie Cohen — performed for Korschun’s class.

Not only did the class feature a talk with some of the companies top business officials, but it featured three School of Rock graduates performing a concert in Gerri C. LeBow Hall’s classroom 109.

“The objective here is to marry two very different sides: The commerce side where the business makes a profit, and the art side, where kids learn and grow and they impact their lives and yours through music,” Roberts explained to the class.

With that as an example, Korschun’s class was able to touch on a subject that doesn’t get a lot of class time in most business curricula.

“This is also a chance to familiarize students with franchises,” Korschun said. “Business schools don’t spend much time on how they work, yet they represent a big chunk of the economy. They bring different types of challenges though, so this case will likely be eye-opening for many students.”

Overall, Korschun and Young hope the performance and talk in this class will give students a better idea of the theme of the course, how making a profit and being a positive force in society can be intertwined.

“Music can touch people in ways nothing else can,” Korschun explained. “We wanted to familiarize students with what the company is doing and we wanted people to feel it in their bones and in their heart.”