TLI Guest Lectures Showcase a Powerful Learning Loop

There’s a lot to be learned in the classroom, but getting an outside perspective is always a good thing. Industry-born insight can shine new light on the concepts and challenges scribbled on almost any whiteboard. At TLI, those rays of real-world input come in two forms: a largely adjunct faculty with a wealth of practical knowledge and guest lectures from professionals in the thick of it. Just ask TLI alum Doug Finley (MOT ’24).

“You’re hearing from the main faculty members’ pre-structured material,” Finley said. “But when you put that into the context of what the guest lecturers bring with their experiences, it really helps to solidify the concepts presented in class. It makes the curriculum far more real to the students and to myself as I was going through it.”

As a student in TLI’s Management of Technology master’s program, Finley was particularly struck by something faculty member Chip Laingen mentioned in the Science and Technology Policy class. The United States, while often categorized as a democracy, is more accurately described as a constitutional federal republic. It’s not exactly the fact you’d think would light a Management of Technology student on fire, but there Finley was, glowing.

“It truly sparked an interest in an area I’d never gone down before,” he said. “And it connected back to my work. I deal with policy constantly in my job.”  

Later, at a TLI networking event, Finley approached Laingen and expressed his continued interest and thought around the policy class, explaining it had stuck with him since completing the program. Finley’s insight, Laingen said, sparked an idea.

“Right then, the thought bubble popped into my head — guest lecturer,” Laingen said. “He was a former student, eager to give back and share his insights. It was an easy decision to bring him into the classroom.”

Finley, intent on sharing ideas and giving back to TLI and the university (he currently works as a service owner and product manager in the Office of Information Technology), returned to the classroom for a guest lecture on policy implementation in the technology sector — something Laingen has urged him to dub the “Finley Framework for Effective Policy Implementation.” As anything does when it involves passion, knowledge and curiosity, it went well.

During the lecture, Finley broke the class into three small groups of four people each and gave them an assignment to identify authoritative policy sources from the federal, state or institutional level. Their time limit? Six minutes.

For the TLI students, it was plenty.

Using AI tools, one of the groups found the API the federal government uses to publish policy changes and wrote a functional application that pulled that data into a dashboard. For Finley, that six-minute outcome was eye-opening.

“It blew my mind,” he said. “I’m taking that back into my professional life now, thinking, ‘Oh boy.’ It’s such a practical example of how quickly development is changing and what the new generation will expect.”

The student becomes the teacher becomes the student becomes the teacher becomes the … well, you get the point. A nice little loop of learning fostered by TLI’s rich network of guest lecturers.

“[A guest lecture] helps validate what we’re teaching while also introducing new ideas and perspectives on the challenges out there,” Laingen said. “That’s critical for our students, who are either about to enter or are already working in those environments but might not see some of these aspects day to day.”

Finley describes his guest lecturer experience as “incredible” and is already ready for more (you can expect to see him in class, future students). As for other alumni thinking about dipping a toe into the guest lecturer waters, he has a bit of sage advice.

“Whatever’s holding you back, just do it,” he said. “You’ll take so much away from the students and the engagement — probably more than you expect. If you structure your session to encourage conversation, you’ll be learning as much as you’re teaching.”