Asper Professor Wei Wang
Estimated Read Time:
4 minutes
Wei Wang
Wei Wang
Estimated Read Time:
4 minutes
Teaching and learning

Asper School Professor Wei Wang named one of the world's top 50 undergraduate professors

It takes human-centered teaching, genuine care for students, and innovative assignments that encourage critical thinking.

By

Brett Maclaren

The first time Wei Wang tried his hand at teaching, it was at summer camp. 

More precisely, the summer camp at his parents’ house in Jingzhou, China. His parents were both teachers; his mom taught English, and his dad taught math. As a junior high student, he would tutor the young kids who needed extra help over the summer. 

Yet, he never really thought he would become a teacher. His whole life, his parents actively tried to persuade him from becoming one. 

“They felt like it was a lot of responsibility and hard work. They wanted me to do something more fun,” Wang said.

Well…Wang didn’t listen. Taking the responsibility and hard work head on, he was just named one of the world’s top 50 undergraduate professors in Poets & Quants, a huge accomplishment for Wang.

It’s also a huge accomplishment for the Asper School of Business, which continues to provide a high-quality learning experience designed to set students up for successful and meaningful business careers. 

In his role at Asper, Wang is an Assistant Professor in Business Administration, the Associates Fellow in Leadership and Ethics, and co-directs the David Dreman Behavioural Management Lab.

Trying not to become a scholar

Wang’s initial mission to not become a teacher began at Beijing International Studies University, where he completed an undergrad in business management. 

After he began flirting with the idea of becoming a scholar, again someone tried to discourage him. Catching wind of his ideation, Wang’s professor Jun Liu at Renmin University of China gave him some papers about abusive supervision to read, hoping they would sway him to a career in the management industry. 

Unfortunately for Liu, his intentions had the opposite effect. Wang hadn’t read any academic papers before, and assumed they were about numbers and abstract concepts. But then, reading these papers about abusive managers and “office politics,” the papers surprisingly hit close to home.

At the time Wang was doing an internship, and saw power abuses firsthand. 

“One time, when the manager found one of the interns was not doing what he was expecting, he was yelling at her like ‘this is something any human being in the world should have known,’” Wang said. 

He began asking questions. What is it about a workplace that possesses someone to treat another person horribly? Why do people do and say abusive things to their co-workers they would never do anywhere else?

If a scholar’s job was to answer these questions and then teach them to the next generation, he was hooked. 
 

Human-centered, innovative teaching

After completing his undergraduate, Wang went on a six-month exchange to Germany, then obtained a master’s degree from University of British Columbia, and a PhD from University of Minnesota. 

He’s a student of the world, which made him a perfect fit for the Asper School of Business when he joined in 2022. 

“These different cultural experiences shapes how I understand my students, because at Asper, we have a very, very diversified body of students,” Wang said. 

The main class he teaches is Organizational Behaviour, a required Asper School of Business course in the BComm degree. He’s eager to teach the material, which lines up with his research interests; but he acknowledges that to most students, the material is maybe… a little dry. 

For Wang, that’s a perfect challenge. How do you make dry material interesting? He starts with marshmallows. 

In the marshmallow challenge, students are put into small groups and told to collectively build the tallest freestanding structure they can, using only tape and spaghetti noodles, with the marshmallow at the top.

Not only is this a fun challenge and an icebreaker, but it also encourages students to look inward and see how their leadership behaviour and teamwork (or lack thereof) impacts the final outcomes. 

“It’s an exercise for them to develop and identify some of their leadership strengths, but also the missed opportunities for potential leadership,” Wang said.

As far as teaching philosophies go, Wang’s can is best summed up with the phrase “human centered.” With his background in psychology research, he has a deep understanding of the inner world of students, and customizes projects for their interests so they can thrive. 

Wang has no final exam in his class. Instead, longer projects emphasize experiential learning—like a consulting project where students do a deep dive on their favourite company, which can be anything from a local coffee shop or multinational corporation. Another asks students to interview 10 people in their lives to identify their own unique strengths and weaknesses. 

Wang has also fully embraced technology in the classroom, encouraging his students to use Flourish, an AI app trained by Stanford scientists. The app acts as a mental health support for students, encouraging personal growth and healthy habits. It’s an innovation which has made his classroom a distinct one where mental health really matters.

Between the focus on experiential learning and his other classroom skills which photosynthesize dry material into fun lessons, he gives a lot of credit to other influences at the Asper School. 

“I just want to express my gratitude to the school and also to my all my teaching mentors at the Asper School and in my field. And I'm also extremely grateful for my students,” he said. “I really appreciate that their curiosity, their willingness to follow the lead and also to stay actively engaged.”

Through everything it took to get to be named one of 2025 Poets & Quants top 50 undergraduate professors, though, one simple word stands out: care. It’s a value that aligns closely with the Asper School’s value of empowering students by putting connection at the centre.

“I just care about students. I really care about developing the next generation of leaders,” Wang said. 

A Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from the Asper School of Business is your ticket to a successful, meaningful future. Turn ideas into thrilling business ventures, make a difference in the world around you, and gain the business knowledge, leadership skills, and networking opportunities you need to achieve your dreams. Learn more.

To learn more about Wei Wang’s research publications and achievements at the Asper School of Business, visit his bio page.