One of the best parts of writing my book Back to the Futures has been discovering the unexpected ways it has been used in and out of the classroom. With that in mind, meet Dr. Maria Boerngen, Professor of Agribusiness at Illinois State University — and one of my department’s own PhD graduates from about 20 years ago. I had the pleasure of teaching Maria one of her first graduate courses when she started our program here at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has become a pillar of the undergraduate agribusiness program at Illinois State, teaching and advising hundreds of students every year.
After Back to the Futures was published in 2023, she decided to adopt it as the required text for her advanced commodity futures and options course (AGR 324). But she didn’t just assign the book — she built an innovative “book club” structure around it, with rotating small-group discussions, individual written reflections, and synchronized reading schedules throughout the semester. Her students loved it, and word spread about the course. It has had over 30 students enrolled each of the last two years. For a course built around a heavy dose of reading and discussion, this is a real testament to what Maria has created.
As part of the first offering of the course three years ago, Maria invited me over for a “Meet the Author” day at the end of the semester. I’ll be honest — I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turned out that the students were so well-prepared that we couldn’t get through all their questions in the class period. I’ve now done this three times, and it is genuinely one of the most fun things I do each year.
To mark the occasion this year — and to celebrate what Maria has accomplished— I gave her a framed print of the Back to the Futures cover alongside our recent article describing the whole experience. That article, “Futures & Options Book Club: An Innovative Way to Bring Class Material to Life” (co-authored with Maria), was just published in Applied Economics Teaching Resources. It documents the book club structure, the student feedback, and the pedagogical case for using trade books in college economics and finance courses.
I’m proud of the research, but honestly I’m most proud of Maria. This is teaching innovation by a master teacher at its finest — a former PhD student taking something she cared about and making it better for her students, one chapter at a time.
If you teach a course where Back to the Futures might fit, reach out. Maria has shown it can work beautifully.
Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign