Professor Sara Ryoo of the Larry Zicklin School of Business’s Narendra Paul Loomba Department of Management was named to Poets&Quants’ list of top 50 undergraduate business professors.

Ryoo serves as a business policy lecturer at the business school, where she has been teaching for less than a year now.

The award was given to her after numerous submissions were sent in by students and colleagues at Binghamton University, where she worked as an assistant professor of strategy in the School of Management.

The award criteria emphasize the professor’s impact on undergraduate students and their teaching talents, as well as the quality of their teaching and the research they conduct.

“It definitely makes me feel more pride in what I do,” Ryoo said. “Knowing that the students appreciate the education and knowing that the students feel like they have learned a lot from my classes and knowing that they can apply the knowledge that they have learned in my class to their jobs and real-world practice.”

The award itself is a reflection of the high-quality education that Baruch College students get.

Ryoo hopes that her contribution at Baruch, despite its small size in comparison to that of other Baruch faculty members, is recognized by the students and will help them feel proud to be Baruch students.

Ryoo admires that within the realm of strategy or business policy, there are no right or wrong answers, but they will use “more of the frameworks and concepts that provide managers with guidance and implications.”

Ryoo’s interactions with students provide her with a better understanding of the changing market requirements for future leaders. In turn, the students acquire knowledge of current business trends from guest speakers and even develop research ideas through constant feedback loops.

She believes such opportunities all lead to the improvement of her teaching skills and development of  new research ideas. She wants to ensure her students feel proud and responsible for their learning.

“In a couple years, they will no longer be my students, but they’re going to be my colleagues instead,” Ryoo said.

Ryoo holds a B.A. in economics from Ewha Womans University, an M.S. in economics from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in strategy from the University of Michigan.

Her research focuses on theoretical development of knowledge management and organizational learning in the banking and pharmaceutical industries.

Her work is published in the Journal of Economics & Business Policy and the Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies Journal.

“In the classroom, I try at my best to relate with students to understand the difficulties that they confront, which provides me with ideas on how to customize and adjust my teaching methods to help enhance the students’ learning,” Ryoo said.

In the short time that Ryoo has been at Baruch, she has enjoyed the student interaction. She loves how passionate they are about their work and looks forward to all they have to provide.

“They’re very modest, and they’re very diligent as well,” Ryoo said. “And the work experience that they bring into these classrooms, it just makes everything so much richer.”