Michael E. Jackson

Michael E. Jackson - Adjunct Instructor – AEMM

Michael is surely no stranger to Columbia College. Although he grew up in London, Michael has spent the last two decades sharing his worldly knowledge with the students of Columbia.

Tell us about yourself.

I started out in Real Estate. Right away I felt like a square peg in a round hole, so I dropped out. I had always wanted to travel so when the opportunity for a position at the British Bank of the Middle East arose, I took it. This was a great job that took me all over the globe to places such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India and Germany. I stayed in banking for many years, even though I knew I wasn’t a banker.

What led you to Columbia?

After nine years with British Bank, I had a job opportunity with Continental Bank that brought me to Chicago. Shortly after arriving in Chicago, I discovered Columbia and began taking photography classes. I met Herman Conaway and he persuaded me to attend Columbia for an undergraduate degree in Arts Management. I knew I wanted my degree and Columbia gave me that opportunity. After graduation, I joined the Columbia Alumni Association where I was actually president for seven years. During that time, I began teaching at Columbia and have been teaching various classes now for almost 20 years.  

How does your time outside the classroom influence your work in the classroom?

I think the most important thing I bring to the classroom is life experience. As I tell all my students, if you have the opportunity to travel, do it! Traveling is one of the best educators. However, my time in the classroom also influences my personal work.

How so?

I have an article being published this December that actually stems from a classroom exercise. I have all my students write papers on a career in the finance field. They look at the competition and need to find ways to make themselves indispensable. I also work as a back-of-book indexer and have found, for the most part, that indexers are clueless about the economy. So I decided to write an article centering around this idea.

The article is entitled "Microeconomics of Indexing" and will be published in "The Indexer" (the international journal for back-of-book indexers). The journal is published in London and read in UK, US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, Germany and Holland.