Professor Christina Kalberg, MBA is an Associate Professor of Marketing in the Fermanian School of Business. She has nearly 20 years of experience in marketing, including brand awareness, B2B and B2C marketing, fundraising, public relations, public advocacy, public speaking, and leadership. Kalberg is currently in the process of completing her D.B.A. in Marketing at Anderson University.
Listen to her Lomacast: A Point Loma Nazarene University Podcast below:
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Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to Lomacast. A Point Loma Nazarene University podcast. My name is Jim Daichendt. I am the provost and chief academic officer here at Point Loma. And what follows is an interview with Professor Christina Kalberg. She is an associate professor of marketing in the Fermanian School of Business. And in the interview, we talk about her professional background, which includes some marketing and fundraising, as well as what marketing education looks like at the university with some really great examples from her classes. Lastly, we touch on AI, artificial intelligence, and how she is using it in the classroom with her students. I'd recently seen a presentation she did a few weeks ago and found it to be incredibly enlightening. And I hope it's useful for all of you. Thanks for listening.
Professor Kalbergr, welcome to Lomacast. We've been doing this for a few weeks now, and you are the first person to represent the Fermanian School of Business on the podcast.
Yay! I'm honored.
I am excited to have you. So with all these podcasts, it's been nice because we've been able to double with meetings and things that we're catching up on with the university business. So thanks for being part of this today.
You're welcome.
So we were just talking about, you're starting your fifth year here.
I am.
At Point Loma. But before Point Loma, you had a whole other career. Could you walk folks through your industry experience?
Absolutely. So I've spent my entire career in marketing. I have over 20 years in the nonprofit sector. My heart was really for service-based marketing rather than product-based marketing, nothing wrong with product-based marketing. But I knew that if I was going to do marketing in sales, I wanted to do it for good instead of just for revenue, which I think is a good fit with our more than the bottom line Fermanian School of Business motto. Another reason why I love the school and why I think it's a fit. So I actually, I'm from San Diego, but I went to school in Northern California. And when I graduated with my undergrad degree in journalism, with an emphasis in public relations, I came back home to San Diego and started marketing for nonprofits. I actually spent my first 10 years in hospice at a very young age, which was very interesting. I learned a lot of really great lessons. And that's when I developed all of my industry experience. So I was actually the director of marketing, but I oversaw all of operations. I started an entire sales team and was able to double our revenue at that nonprofit in two years, which was pretty incredible. And I also did fundraising, all of the design and all of that. So, and then I just sort of continued my career. And when back in 2007, I was working for that hospice as the director of marketing and the CEO said, you could be me one day. You could run your own nonprofit, but you need to go get your MBA. And I had no desire to go back to school at all. I really loved doing the marketing program here. We talk about marketers as doers. And that could not be more true in my situation. And I just love, I loved going to work every day and getting to do the marketing, going out and doing sales calls, creating the brochures, generating the website and doing all the social media. I absolutely loved it. But I also thought it might be really cool to be the CEO and run my own nonprofits. So I started looking for MBAs around San Diego and Point Loma was recommended to me, and I came here and just immediately felt like I was home. So I started the MBA in 2007, and when I finished in 2010, I immediately became the executive director of another nonprofit. So I moved on from the hospice, and then I continued my career as an executive director, overseeing everything. So volunteers, finance, operations, the whole thing. And then in 2013, I was having coffee with one of my professors in the MBA program. And at Point Loma, we always say, we're very relational, right?
That's true.
And you have to keep in touch with your professors. And I did. So I was having coffee three years after I had graduated and it was actually a finance professor. And he said, Christina, you need to come back and teach. And I thought, why is everyone trying to get me to come back to school? I have no desire. I love what I do. And now, now I made it. I'm the CEO. I'm raising tons of money. I've raised over 25 million for local nonprofits. And so I was just, I felt like I was having a lot of really good impact. But I love Point Loma, I loved this professor. And I thought, you know what, what? Why not try it? So I came back as an adjunct in 2013, and I never left because then I came on full time in 2020. And I still do. I still actually have clients and I still do everything I teach in the classroom. I actually do for clients in terms of consulting. So I feel like I have the best of both worlds. I get to bring up the next generation of marketers, but I still get to perfect my craft because in marketing, it's changing all the time, especially what I teach, which is digital marketing, content marketing. It's constantly changing. So as someone who's in the classroom, I feel like the most value I can add in the classroom to the students is by continuing to perfect my own skills so that when I teach them, I'm teaching them what's relevant, what's current. And thankfully, it's actually helped many students go and get an internship, which has then led to the job that they've gotten post-graduation. So I've been able to marry the two, my industry career, along with my teaching career, which has been an incredible blessing.
I mean, it really is incredible, because not many folks can point to a long industry experience and then also make that transition to academia, which has all kinds of different rules and education that you need, and that usually is a barrier for folks to enter into academia. But thinking back at your industry experience, and also, we may have alums or students who are listening to this. What do you point to that were key characteristics, moments, attributes, that were helpful for your success in industry? You obviously were able to balance lots of different types of folks that you manage in lead, and you had a wide skill set as well, that you probably could point back to some of it was part of your education, but then a lot you learned on the job or had to develop yourself or you went to other places to develop. So maybe talk about that a bit.
Yeah, one of the things I always tell my students that I think is incredibly important. I was actually told three times in my secular career. So when I was in industry, I didn't work for any, but anything that was faith-based. So I worked for hospice. There wasn't a lot of faith there. I worked for a science organization. We were trying to find a cure for type 1 diabetes. Scientists don't tend to be faith-based. So there are three times in my career, I was actually told that I would lose my job if I didn't stop bringing my faith to the job, to the office. And so what I learned, I think the greatest skill I learned was how to be set apart in the secular world, but show my faith in a way that was through my actions instead of being overtly in people's face, if you will. So I think what I learned is how to navigate the secular world, keeping my faith, but being set apart. So some of the things that people would say to me is you have incredible integrity, right? If my boss told me to do something I would do it regardless of whether or not they were going to come back and ask me if I had done it. So I think understanding integrity is all about what you do when nobody is looking. And for us in our faith, right, God's always with us. So knowing that I work for Him, not necessarily for the person who's writing my paycheck. So I think really building my skill and integrity and then treating people with love and kindness, regardless of what they believed or who they were or how they may have come to me. So, you know, I had to hire and I had to fire a lot of people in my industry career. And that was probably one of the worst parts of the job. And then before you fire, you have to discipline and you have performance improvement projects and all these things that you have to do. And in the great state of California, it's quite complex. And it was probably my least favorite part of the job. But what I always tried to do was how can I love through this? How can I show my faith in such a way where I'm set apart from other managers? And I would have people say to me, I'll never forget. I had one nurse that was working for me at the hospice and she'd been doing it 25 years. She was easily 15 years older than me, so I'm her manager. She's older than me. She has more experience than me. And she was stirring the pot. She was going around in the break room in the lunchroom and she was stirring the pot and that's not helpful. And all of us achieving the goal that we were there to do. And so I had to I had to sit her down and I had to talk to her about it. And I'll never forget. She said it was the first time in her career she'd ever been talked to about anything because she was an unbelievable bedside nurse. But she said, you did it with such love and kindness. You're different than any manager I've ever had. And, you know, when I got the opportunity to say, well, I'm different because of my faith, I would. But if not, I just would say, well, thank you. You know, I try to be as respectful to you as I hope that you'll be to me in what I'm asking you to do. So I think in learning how to be, how to have impeccable integrity, people can count on you even when they're not watching you and really showing love, but in tangible ways. And then I think your work ethic. I think one of the things I've noticed in the younger generation is this desire to work on their own terms. And I think that's fine. And eventually, you get to a point in your career when you have 20 plus years of experience where sometimes you do get to work on your own terms or do your own schedule. But I think when you're starting out, you really need to understand that what most people are looking for and it cannot be taught is to work hard and to have that work ethic.
Yeah, I was always taught to show up on time ready to work. And that is a big part of what sets you apart from other folks who are working into workplace. So then how do you take this industry experience in these relation relationships and then bring it into the classroom, then? How does that happen at Point Loma?
Yeah, so in the marketing major, we obviously have a lot of client work, we have a lot of projects that you'll do in various classes, and it tends to be heavy product based because that's a majority of the corporate world . However, in my classes, which is digital marketing essentials and content marketing, I bring in nonprofits as our clients. So, again, I get to marry the two. And since I have a lot of connections, and let's be real, nonprofits are always looking for help, especially in the marketing realm, because they're always looking for more people to know who they are. So that's how I bring it into the classroom. And so we build a digital marketing plan for nonprofits. And it's been incredible. My students have just knocked their socks off. In fact, almost every semester, the client that we have in the class, they will send me a note that says that the presentations of the digital marketing plan are better than the marketing firms outside in San Diego have pitched them.
That's incredible.
And they use what the students present to them. So I actually have, like, we helped the Crimestopper, San Diego Crime Stoppers, that was last academic year. They told me six months later, they implemented some of what was in the digital marketing plan and their numbers are better than they've ever been.
You're kidding me.
I'm not kidding you. And I think, too, one of the things I love to do with students is in my classes, they're much more of a working environment. I'm teaching, but we're also working together to learn the skill because again, in marketing, until you do it, you're not necessarily going to fully grasp the concept, like social media marketing, for instance. And so, I think that's one of the really special things about what I'm able to do is I bring my industry experience, which was working and doing the marketing. And I just do it with my students in the class. So I almost, again, have the best of both worlds. I get to do it, but I get to do it with them and I get to see those aha moments. It's just one of the best things on Earth.
Yeah. I mean, you've created a lab, basically.
Exactly. And it is, and we hear this from our colleagues all the time. It's like one of the joys of why we love to teach is preparing professionals to go out and make a difference in the business world, in their communities, and their church, and their families. But when you see it happen on someone's face or physically, how they react to something, it is pretty incredible.
It really is.
And to know that our clients are trusting our students, so these businesses in San Diego are trusting us with very confidential information of their business. And to see them find value in the students, I think it gives the students a lot of confidence.
Absolutely.
I can go and do this, you know? I've learned and I've prepared and Point Loma's given me what I need, and now I'm going to go out and do the work.
Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you for that. And I want to just shift gears a touch because it was just a few weeks ago that I saw you give a presentation on artificial intelligence with several of our colleagues here. Across Point Lama, and want to talk about that, because I know you've been involved in that, but maybe could you give us a brief summary of what you talked about and we can maybe dive into some of the particulars?
Yeah, so because my classes are working in nature and it's really the current relevant, immediate skills that students need to get an internship and then a job post-graduation. We were meeting with our marketing advisory board, which is made up of about 40 of top marketing professionals across the nation, not just here in San Diego. Shout out to Mike Weise for making that happen with the marketing major. So he put this marketing advisory board together, and we meet with them every semester. They get to speak into our curriculum because in our field, it's constantly evolving you know and changing. We want to make sure that we are preparing our students to go get those jobs. So we need to touch base with industry continuously in order to make sure that we really are doing the best for the students in the classroom. So we were meeting with them when ChatGPT made its big splash in fall of 2022 and they said, Christina, your classes are the ones that are the most natural to implement AI. And I thought, oh, I don't want to do this. Because I'm a writer, and I did not appreciate these tools coming on the scene and taking away from the very important skill of writing. And let's be honest, we love our students, but they need some help when it comes to writing. So I thought this was going to be a disaster. But if we're asking industry leaders to help keep us relevant so that our students will be as competitive as San Diego State students that are out there competing for those, you know, very few jobs now. I thought, I better just do this. And so I dove into it. So I immediately implemented in spring of 23 AI laps. So what I did was I compartmentalized my class and I had at home assignments where they had to do the traditionalitional work. And in the class with me, they were implementing AI. I'd give them a very specific task. I'd let them in the class with me, use AI, and then I would be able to give them real time feedback, but I was also learning what they were able to do with the tools. How successful are some of them? How are they not? We were also having these really vibrant conversations about, ooh, I don't really like this writing. This doesn't appeal to anybody. I'd rather write it myself. So we started having all these amazing conversations, and I realized that actually allowing students to use AI as a brainstorming tool, not as an end all be all tools, so it's not a tool that's going to do all of their homework for them. But letting them use it as a brainstorming tool for, let's say, a blog. That's one of the assignments in my class. Most students have never written a blog before. They have no idea where to start. What I was noticing is it was taking weeks before AI, for a student to come up with, even let's just say, a 10 word headline that you or I would actually stop and read on the Internet. It was taking weeks for them to come up with that because it can be very overwhelming when you don't know how to do something and you're learning how to do it and you've got many other classes, not just my class, right? As a college student, it can be very overwhelming. I implemented AI. They were writing blogs in 60 minutes. I went from about four weeks of having to spend so much time walking them through how you do a blog correctly, to being able to do it in 60 minutes, and then what I was able to do was, okay, now you have your blog. Now let's perfect this headline and get it so that Jim Doe's going to stop. And he's going to read this on the internet, right? And now we were having much more creative and much more critical thinking that was happening. And I was able to take many concepts in my class and I was able to apply them using several concepts instead of just focusing on one singular thing. So I've been using it ever since, and I actually surveyed my students in spring of 24 and just asked them, what do you think AI is helpful for in terms of students in higher education? And we've published that information in the Society from our Marketing Advances Conference. And it most likely it's going to be published in the Marketing Education Review Journal in 2025. So a lot of people are starting to realize that, just like me, it's okay to be hesitant, but the more we embrace AI tools that are out there for our students, the more we're actually making them employable, once they sadly leave Loma.
Yeah, and I love it. Congratulations, by the way, on the publication. That's fantastic. And that's also something that it's nice to see when teacher teaching and scholarship come together like that, as well as professionally preparing students. I mean, that's a sort of a magic. It is that's actually happening there. But then also employers want to hire folks now that have experience in AI and recent graduates have looked back, especially the most recent, that they feel a little insecure about how they're using AI, even though we've probably been using it in many ways, we just don't recognize that it's AI, whether it be the chat bots that you're talking to or if you're on social media, you're engaging. But likely also, if you've been in any customer service call or email, you're engaging with AI. So I love how you're improving writing, because once you engage with AI, you can start to see when someone doesn't edit an AI response and when it can be done very well. And then we're also just more comfortable with. There's so many tools out there, isn't it?
ChatGPT is the one that we're all familiar with. That's the one that sort of socially. But there are hundreds of them.
There are.
And what are there a lot that you're using?
Oh, yeah. So we have we have a lot of fun. We've been using, there's four different prompt types , text to text, text to videos, text to audio, and text to visual. So we create images. We create data visualizations, we create infographics. We've created videos, which that's really fun. We do a 30 second video using AI for these nonprofits, and that's been really fun. And to be honest with you, that's another one of the things that's really important to mention to our students and for people to know is that AI skills have actually leveled the playing field. A lot of nonprofits couldn't afford what say Coke could with its AI tools, right? But now because there's so many out there, it's actually leveling the playing field in business and it's allowing smaller businesses to utilize some of these free tools to actually create more marketing materials and become a lot more competitive. That's been a fun thing that students have realized. So we'll do videos. We do audio. So they'll come up with music that's copyright free using some of these tools because you have to use copyright-free music with TikTok. And since I teach social media, that's always one of the fun ones. And we do a lot of text, obviously. We do a lot of writing and marketing. And so they have to do that. And there are various tools. And the fun thing is, when I teach it now, I'll give students the top five that my previous students have used. And then they'll say, oh, wait, professor, there's this, you have you heard of this new tool? And it literally just came out like two weeks ago. And so, and they do. They'll tell us and we'll have this engaging conversation and they're teaching as much as I'm teaching. And it's been a really fun thing. I think in many ways, to level the playing field in the teacher and student relationship as well. And you'd think that I know some educators across the nation that I'm helping to implement AI in their classrooms, like I'm going to Chicago to the Northeastern Illinois University in October to launch AI and marketing for their social media marketing class. And I've been doing that in various other universities. And one of the things that they'll say is they're sort of afraid that if they don't know everything that students are going to not trust them or maybe they might feel as though they don't have as much value as an educator in the front of the room. But my experience has actually been the complete opposite. When I say that we're going to learn this together, because you were raised in the digital age, most of our students coming up right now, these tools, they're very familiar with them. That's one of the reasons why employers are looking to the younger generation to help them with technology and tools such as AI, such as Chat GPT or InVo or Pictory for some of the video AI that you can do, they're looking to the younger generation because it doesn't take them as long to figure out some of these applications because they're so used to technology and to digital applications. And so what I have found is that when I say we're going to do this together, they actually trust me more instead of less, which I think sometimes as educators, we think we have to have all the answers.
Right.
And what I did was I just said, you know what? Listen, I am an imposter. So I just immediately said, "Listen, I'm up here and I've got imposter syndrome." And so many of my students said, "I do, too. When I'm in an internship, I don't think I know what I'm doing. I am have imposter syndrome." I said, "Well, so do I, cause you guys are smarter than me, and I'm now trying to teach you about what AI is, and you already know what it is and how to use it." And so it just levels that playing field, and then instead of having that awkward relationship we just get right down to business. It gives us the ability to just cut through it all and actually come up with a really good output that some of these non profit organizations I bring into my classroom can actually use.
I love it. Well, thank you for doing that. The way you create that space for students to be comfortable and to allow that learning to happen and that exchange, which is really what the workplace is like.
I mean, it's not a top down sort of scenario. We work together, and that's true here and the way we make Point Loma run as well.
But I love that you model that for them because they're seeing that and that's all also part of the intangibles that you're teaching as well is like, what does a professional look like outside all this content that you're bringing to it? So thank you for being you. Thank you for what you do for our students and for Point Loma all together, Christina, this has been so much fun. Thanks for today.
You're welcome. I love it. I love this place. I wish I could be the mascot sometimes. I'm not going to lie.
So, if folks want to find out about journal articles or anything else about your work, where can they go?
Absolutely. You're welcome to come to me, but the Center for Teaching and Learning, we did a summer class on this as well. And Katie put an entire Canvas course together with a bunch of materials. So I'd reach out to Katie Jacobson or the Center for Teaching and Learning. You're also able to reach out to me. I'm happy to help anybody anytime.
Well, thank you, Christina.
You're welcome.