“Students often start my class thinking business is dry, it’s only about profit, it’s opportunistic, it’s repulsive,” said Lorenzo Pizzi, associate professor of management. “My goal is for students to understand that work is about making people’s lives better, making an impact, creating energy and enthusiasm, creating purpose, and following a mission.”
To achieve this goal, Bizzi develops his teaching materials to better engage students and involve them in real-life projects using his personal connections with industry leaders.
His commitment to student engagement, equity, and inclusion earned him the 2023 Carol Barnes Teaching Excellence Award at Fullerton State University.
This isn’t the first time Bizzi has been recognized for his education. Received the Distinguished College Award Faculty of Administration and Economics in 2018 and holds a record, four consecutive years of being the Best Business Honors Professor Ever. Bizzi has been Program Director for the past five years, recruiting some of the college’s best students and helping them gain the knowledge and experience they need. Most students who graduate from an honors program find top jobs at organizations such as Disney, Goldman Sachs, Paramount Pictures, Boeing, the Big Four accounting firms and many more.
In his role as Director, Bizzi animated and developed the honors program. He teaches two courses in the program and acts as a mentor to the students during their time in the program. He has led the recruitment process of a strong pool of incoming applicants with an average GPA of over 4.25 and a rigorous selection process (only 10% of applicants are accepted into the program).
In addition, Bizzi has had a strong influence on the business community. Besides publication in leading academic journals, his work has appeared in the Financial Times and Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, Smart Company, Yahoo Finance, and CEO Magazine.
Bizzi has been considered an excellent teacher for years – by his colleagues and students at the Faculty of Management and Economics. In fact, its chapters generally fill up within two minutes of being posted. It has also consistently received the highest educational ratings.
Realizing that the best way to combat prejudice, discrimination, and injustice is to help students understand the beauty of differences in the world and different cultures, he created a Capstone University Course in Asia for CSUF students and led seven study abroad programs.
“Dr. Bizzi’s teaching philosophy is focused on creating a transformative impact on its students. It develops its own classroom materials that focus on student engagement in the classroom, and brings hands-on projects to provide students with context for the material,” said Sridhar Sundaram, dean of the School of Business and Economics. that are being taught.” Student feedback from his teaching assessments reflects the impact of such practices on student learning in the classroom. The student ratings given by Dr. Pezzi have always been above 3.9 (out of 4) while maintaining rigor in his classes.”
Dr. Pizzi also teaches the graduating class of the MBA, which is a client advisory project connected to the Center for Entrepreneurship, said Pizzi, Chair and Associate Professor of Management. “It is a class that requires an instructor to research and work closely with graduate students and industry executives. Since Lorenzo is always positive and light-hearted in his approach to this class, one would never know how difficult it was for him.”
Student comments include: “Attending this class has changed my life.” “I was so worried about the world after college but having had this experience, I’m excited and can’t wait for what the future holds for me.” “I was going to give my first child another semester with him.” “Attending his class is like eating Starburst and Skittles at the same time.” “I really want to fail this class so I can take it again.”