The impact of the financial crisis on Wall Street has been wide-spread, but what is not as well-known is the impact the financial crisis is having on Tappan Street.

In many classrooms at the Ross School of Business, for BBA and MBA students alike, the financial crisis is serving as an educational tool to think about current issues in the business world. Some classes are specifically covering events that have occurred throughout the recession, while others are being restructured using the economic downturn as a practical guide.

Valerie Suslow, associate dean for degree programs in the Business School, explained that some courses will be updated to thoroughly study risk and others will be designed to give students leadership skills to cope with difficult economic times in the future.

"We're taking a more comprehensive approach to risk assessment in some of our finance courses,” Suslow wrote in an e-mail interview. “The Finance Department has revamped its curriculum to make sure everything fits together and addresses recent issues.”

One such class is the Macroeconomic Analysis of Capital Markets, which focuses on the causes of the economic crisis, the impact on capital markets and the public policy implications, she wrote.

Accounting Prof. William Lanen, who is also chair of the Accounting Department, said though the department doesn’t have courses that relate to the specific events of the recession, accounting courses are now taking a new approach to traditional accounting concepts.

In a Masters of Accounting class, students are introduced to specific material but also hear from alumnae guest speakers who can offer insight into the current financial situation and provide examples from their own careers in accounting, Lanen said.

Masters of Accounting students were offered a chance to travel to Washington D.C. last academic year — with support from the accounting firm Ernst and Young — to speak with those involved in financial regulations, accounting standards and economic legislation, Lanen said.

“It gives them a background beyond the technical textbook type of learning to kinds of institutional issues that arise and the kinds of pressures that the accounting profession is under,” Lanen said.

In order to teach his students about the tangible effects of the recession, Gerald Meyers, a lecturer in organizational behavior and human resource management in the Business School, brings in CEOs as guest speakers to his leadership and crisis management course.

Meyers said using the financial crisis as a teaching tool is “not only valuable, it’s necessary.”

“It colors everything that’s been going on in the business world and it’s changed our emphasis considerably,” he said.

Norman Bishara, assistant professor of business law and ethics, teaches both BBA and MBA classes dealing with ethics and law in the business world. He said he hasn’t added specific topics or readings to the courses regarding the financial crisis, but the topic presents itself because it is often of interest to students.

In his classes, which focus on law, Bishara draws on poor decisions made by financial professionals and the ensuing economic crisis as examples of ethics in business.

“You can also use it as a teaching tool in the teachable moments to talk about how problems could have been avoided and how some of them are related to simple business ethics problems that are as simple as people engaging in greed or people violating the law and committing fraud and that sort of corruption,” he said.

The financial crisis was a planned topic of discussion in Finance 300 last semester, but classes didn’t have time to cover it, though it was listed as the subject of the last lecture on the syllabus.