Businesses put young minds to work on real-world issues

By Gary Glancy
gary.glancy@shj.com
Spartanburg Herald-Journal

Published: Monday, July 13, 2009


(Students in the Institute for Professional Development program at Wofford College work with local professionals in trying to resolve real-world issues. From left, Wofford students Ben Walsh, 20, Steven Fagan, 21, Kaley Almond, 21, Fred Gibbs, president and CEO of Banc Capital & Financial Services, Edward Andrew, 20, and Jim Crawford, 21, team up to work on a business issue. Photo by Alex Hicks Jr.)

It's one thing for a college student to meet the professor on the first day of school. It's quite another to greet the head honcho of a bank then sell him on a plan to help his business.

That's what a group of students were doing Thursday -- just four days into Wofford College's inaugural Institute for Professional Development.

"This is our warm-up," said rising senior Steven Fagan, a computer science and business economics major, as he awaited the arrival of Fred Gibbs, president and CEO of Banc Capital & Financial Services in Spartanburg. "Probably the best way to develop presentation skills is just baptism by fire."

Fagan's group met with Gibbs in Wofford's board of trustees meeting room to discuss ways they can help the bank in its quest to expand and create new financial products and services. The group is one of three in the one-month summer program that is serving as consultants to various businesses in and outside of Spartanburg.

Earlier Thursday, another group met with leaders of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce to assist in that organization's comprehensive communications initiative, while other students were in Charlotte, N.C., with executives from Saebo -- which provides innovative rehabilitation products for stroke victims -- to help that company develop a business plan for achieving its goals.

The consulting projects are just one aspect of the IPD, but they encapsulate the benefits of the program as a whole.

"Planning a meeting, how to dress, how to shake hands, how you set a meeting agenda for something like this (meeting with Gibbs) -- that's not typically what you (learn) as a student, and it's definitely not what you get when you're a first-year employee," said program director Scott Cochran, who spent 20 years in corporate America before taking the job as director of career services at Wofford last year. "It takes months, if not years, to figure out all the nuances of a job. If you can get a leg up on that, it takes 18 to 24 months off the learning curve, and if you take 18 to 24 months off the learning curve, your opportunities in any organization or graduate or medical school are exponentially better."

There are 20 students in the program -- mostly from Wofford -- and majors run the gamut from philosophy to government to English. The cost is $2,900, which includes tuition, books, materials, and room and board, with students residing together at Wofford's Village apartments.

Mariel Calhoun, a rising sophomore at Furman University and 2008 Spartanburg High graduate, said she wanted to get in on the ground floor of such an "ingenious" concept, with potential growth of the program possibly hinging on her group's performances.

"This is something that can really help us before we have to be in an awkward business situation, especially if you're the youngest person in the crowd," Calhoun said. "We gain the experience to get up and talk in front of a group, so that when we actually are getting paid to do it, we can do it very well."

It's also a benefit for the businesses. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO David Cordeau and Jessica Osborne, communications director, said they were impressed with Calhoun's group and what they can offer.

"I think it's wonderful that we're going to have a fresh set of eyes come in and look at our communications strategy," Osborne said. "It's a mutual benefit for us and for them as we're gaining the insight of this budding consultant team, but at the same time able to reach out to the community and give back to education. We're giving them this opportunity to gain some real-world experience, to really help us with a real-world problem in real time, and put something wonderful on their resume that they were able to help us on this project."

In the four weeks, Calhoun's team will help provide more in-depth outreach than the chamber can perform with its current staff. The students will work to determine how the chamber can better communicate with its members, gaining feedback and developing strategies in better utilizing information sources such as the chamber's Web site, social networking sites and e-newsletters.

"They've got a pretty hefty task ahead of them," said Jennifer Dillenger, IPD's program director and student adviser for the chamber's consulting group.

Students in all three consulting groups will make formal presentations to their respective businesses the first week in August.

"There's really no faking it. It's the real world. This is a real issue for the Chamber of Commerce, and either you did the work and you come up with a great plan that they can implement or you didn't," said Monier Abusaft, a rising junior.

Abusaft is a religion major and eventually would like to attend law school.

"These are things I'm going to have to do -- sit down with other attorneys or colleagues in a room where you have to articulate yourself, show business etiquette, things we're learning every day," he said. "We're working on how to present ourselves in as professional a manner as we can and learning things that most people will have to learn on the job. We'll already be ahead."