As we kick off a new calendar year and begin the spring semester, I wanted to highlight some of the accomplishments of the first semester and inform you about what we have planned for the remainder of the academic year. In late September we completed the mentor parings for over 25 students participating in the Executive Mentoring Program. We held a breakfast meeting to make the initial introductions and we will be sponsoring another meeting between Business Council Members and the students on Feb 28th during the final home game of the men’s basketball season. Also, since September, we inducted 4 new members to the Business Council bringing our active membership to 43, higher than at any time in recent history. In addition, we made tremendous progress on the Business Academic Societal Impact Collaboration (BASIC) program, completing the pilot of the program with two faculty/student teams delivering project results to their customers. A full report of the pilot results has been delivered to Monmouth University leadership and was well received.
Looking ahead to this semester, we have a packed schedule engaging with both students and faculty. Applications for student awards have been sent, and soon the Student Engagement Committee will begin judging the applicants and making award decisions for presentation in mid-April. In the next few weeks, the application forms for faculty Summer Research Grants will be sent and in April the Faculty Support Committee with spend the morning evaluating and allocating the budgets for faculty research proposals. Also, several members of the Business Council are part of the Dean’s task force to reimagine the graduate business program which held its kickoff meeting in late January. Lastly, we have funded several student club events which are due to occur this semester and we look forward to hearing the details of those endeavors.
