As a designer who teaches students who often do not have a great deal of design talent, I have always looked for a text that is plainly written that can take some of the fear out of design. Having never found it, I have written an introductory text that simplifies design for both students and small business people alike. It took 15 years, but I think it offers to all levels of design students a look into what is possible.

This book embodies principles at the core of my life and scholarship: The transformative capacity of international travel on one's worldview, the generosity and kindness of ordinary people to outsiders, and the mission to understand foreign societies and cultures on their own terms and for their own intrinsic value.

This book provides a great overview of customer value and the importance of making strategic decisions with the needs of the customer in mind. Day and Moorman offer four customer value imperatives for companies to consider: Be a customer value leader. Innovate new value for customers. Capitalize on the customer as an asset. Capitalize on the brand as an asset. I routinely assign this book in my Executive MBA marketing classes and the concepts are applicable and well-received.

Purity and Danger was the book that first fascinated me, as a historian, with anthropologists' way of posing questions. In this towering classic of British social anthropology, Professor Douglas forces us completely to rethink something we really never think about at all: dirt. But trust me, once you pose the question, "what is dirt?" you can never think about filth (and its structural counterpart, purity) in the same way again.

This book helped me launch the regenerative medicine program at the University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary Medicine.

This is an important work from some of the leading Scholars in my field.

Youth Sport is one of the most participated in social experiences of American Life, yet we pay so little attention to what occurs within that space. Reading this book affirmed that the scientific study of youth sport is important and valuable. When possible, we should work to maximize the benefits of youth sport and attempt to minimize the detriments.

This book challenged me when I was an undergraduate student, helped me a lot when I was in graduate school, and is the textbook I use now for my Food Chemistry class.

Much of my teaching philosophy has been shaped by my experiences at a small, liberal arts college as an undergraduate and the fact that the majority of my students at UT are not majors and most are likely to not take another philosophy class. Thus, it is important to me that they understand the value of taking courses like mine and other general education courses. An understanding of that value and our call as teachers is laid out in Roth's book -- that we aren't here to teach students to have a particular job, but to give them the general skills to contribute to society more broadly and promote civic virtue.