George Bernard Shaw, the famed Irish playwright, is widely credited with crafting some variation of that notoriously contemptuous phrase (OK, it's clever on a certain level) more than 100 years ago. Isn't it ironic, then, that George Bernard Dantzig — the "Father of Linear Programming," an almost mythical O.R. researcher and educator and a man who literally changed the way the "real world" runs its business through his research and his legacy of students — was named after Shaw?

In this, our annual "Back to School" special issue, we celebrate once again the notion that those with the passion and skill to pass along their hard-earned knowledge of the O.R. profession, can and do — in the classroom, in incredibly innovative ways. All of our invited contributors are sought-after consultants, four of them have won the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice, and one of them returned to the academic environment after first successfully launching and growing a high-tech start-up. Take that, GBS.

Along with the contributors' strong ties to the real world, what distinguishes this back-to-school issue is the highly personal nature of the articles. All of the authors eagerly answered the bell when we came calling with an editorial proposal, as if they had been thinking about the particular topic for many years and were just waiting for the opportunity to tell their story.

Rick Rosenthal leads off with an inside look at the Naval Postgraduate School, perhaps one of the nation's best-kept academic secrets ("It's More Than a Job or an Adventure," page 22). However, with its unique mission and highly motivated students, NPS is no secret inside the cozy confines of the O.R. community, and Rick makes no secret of his passion for his school and his profession — teaching.

The same could be said of Peter Bell ("Marketing the Profession — to Our Students," page 30) and Jeff Camm ("O.R. in the Classroom — Get Real!," page 34). Like Rosenthal, Bell and Camm have received the INFORMS Teaching Prize, and after reading their stories, it's easy to see why. Bell always seems to be thinking of ways to improve the way O.R. is packaged and presented inside the classroom and applied outside. This time he comes up with eight ideas to effectively "sell" O.R. to MBAs. Camm, a devout "Woolseyian," explains how he puts his extensive consulting experience to good use in the classroom.

What's a subject like operations research doing in a nice, liberal arts school like Le Moyne College? That's what we wanted to know when we invited Salwa Ammar ("O.R. in the Jesuit Tradition," page 38) to contribute to this special issue. The answer may surprise you. Speaking of personal stories, Vijay Mehrotra describes his journey from start-up entrepreneur to college faculty member in "Teaching vs. the Real World" (page 42). The journey is far from complete, and Mehrotra readily admits that the road has been rocky at times — full of unexpected twists and turns, unintended consequences and uncertainty — but not without its rewards.

Hmmm. Sounds a lot like the real world. Wherever they are, the late, great GBS and GBD are no doubt both smiling.

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