A statistics class is not usually where students expect to find their favorite professor, but for many at the University of South Alabama, Dr. Alan Chow has become exactly that. Chow, an associate professor of marketing and quantitative methods in the Mitchell College of Business, was recently voted Best Local College Professor in a readers’ poll, the first year the category has been included.
The recognition caught the attention of alumni, current students and fellow educators, many of whom pointed to Chow’s ability to make a subject widely regarded as one of the most difficult parts of a business degree feel approachable. Business statistics, the course Chow teaches most often, moves well beyond the basics of mean, median and mode into territory like interval estimates, hypothesis testing and integration analysis, concepts that trip up even strong students.
Chow said he has learned to expect resistance to the material and tries to meet it with humor and perspective rather than more formulas. He tells students to think of the coursework as applied mathematics rather than abstract math, a mental shift that he said helps many business majors who assume going in that numbers are not their strength.
“I try to take a topic that’s not most people’s favorite and make it, maybe not enjoyable, but at least endurable,” Chow said. “A lot of students ask, ‘When will I ever use this?’ And my answer is, ‘I teach this material because, at some point in your career, you’re going to need maybe 10 percent of it, but you won’t know which 10 percent until you actually get there.’”
Chow holds four academic degrees and has published research on topics including volatility measures in equity returns and alternative methods of statistical comparison. He came to academia after a career in industry and joined the University of South Alabama faculty in 2003, where he has taught statistics and analytics courses for more than fifteen years.
Teaching runs in the family. Chow is a second-generation professor whose father also taught statistics, at what is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Chow said watching his father work shaped his own approach to the classroom early on, particularly the idea that being a good professor is less about the material and more about building relationships with students and understanding what they need to succeed.
“You really have to be thinking about the students and their success, and success in my classes doesn’t always mean making an ‘A.’ For some people it’s making a ‘C’ and continuing on,” Chow said. “It’s important to realize that everybody is trying to make it through this. As long as they’re doing their share, I’m willing to do mine and work with them any way I can.”
That philosophy, students and colleagues say, has made Chow a resource well beyond his own class sessions, with former students frequently citing his willingness to work through problems one-on-one and to adjust his teaching when a concept clearly is not landing.
Chow’s father also passed down a love of sports, and it comes with a bit of an inherited conflict. His father cheered for the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, and Chow earned two of his own degrees from Louisiana State University. These days, though, Chow said his loyalties are settled squarely with the USA Jaguars, regardless of who they are playing.
“Occasionally we’ll play LSU in baseball or basketball, and people always ask me who I’m going to be pulling for,” Chow said. “I always tell them, ‘South Alabama gives me a check every month, and every year LSU asks me for one.’ That will square your allegiance up quickly.”
The Best Local College Professor honor adds to a growing list of recognitions for faculty at the University of South Alabama, and colleagues say Chow’s win reflects a broader appreciation among students for professors who invest in mentorship alongside instruction. For a subject with a reputation for being one of the hardest classes on campus, Chow’s students say his classroom has become one where a tough topic feels a little more manageable.