Act of Defiance Leads to Academia

Teaching started as an act of defiance more than a career choice for Rajshree Agarwal, the Rudolph P. Lamone Chair and Professor in Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “I grew up in a traditional Indian family,” Agarwal says. “Along with the promise of an arranged marriage came the expectation that I would never work outside the home.”

Instead of earning her own money, Agarwal relied on an allowance in her youth. But the dependency left her feeling stifled, and she eventually accepted a position tutoring high school students in math and science while attending the University of Mumbai.

“Taking this job represented a breakthrough for me in my development as an independent woman,” she says.

Initially, the type of work did not matter. Agarwal cared more about achieving a degree of self-reliance while going as far as she could in school. “My brain was my ticket to a new life,” she says. “Once I finished my baccalaureate degree, I continued to graduate school as a ploy to delay marriage.”

Agarwal later enrolled in a U.S. doctoral program to get a student visa. Her parents disapproved of the foreign study and issued an ultimatum, but Agarwal persevered. “In the end I forfeited my inheritance and crossed an ocean, leaving behind everyone I loved and everything I owned that could not fit inside two suitcases,” says Agarwal, a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Along the way, Agarwal discovered her twin passions for teaching and research. UMD’s Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, presented to Agarwal in 2017, recognizes career achievement in both areas.

“Teaching was my first love,” Agarwal says. “Working as a tutor taught me how much I enjoy teaching and explaining difficult concepts.”

Her passion for research came later. “I learned to love research the more I realized I was good at it,” she says. “And the more I realized I was good at it, the more I loved it. So it was a virtuous spiral that lifted my self-esteem.”

Her position at the Maryland Smith, where she directs the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets, allows her to work closely with students and collaborate with some on research. “All of them become my teachers, too,” she says. “I am always learning and growing because of them.”

As a scholar, Agarwal’s work has focused on upward mobility and understanding the drivers of innovation in society. Many people believe business leaders succeed by destroying the competition, but Agarwal’s body of research shows the importance of collaboration.

“High-performing individuals succeed not because of their own ability, per se, but because they are able to convince other high performers to join them,” Agarwal says. “And that is what matters in terms of their ability.”