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BizBuzz
Global Leadership and Service Projects keep getting better. Did students who went on the first Global Leadership and Service Project (GLSP), three years ago think it would be an interesting experience? Sure.
Did members of the International Business Honor Society (IBHS), which organized the trip, think it would be a good way to prepare future business leaders to better understand their ethical commitment to improve the lives of those less fortunate? They hoped so. Did anyone involved think that the GLSP would become a major force within the College of Business Administration and far, far beyond it? Probably not. Yet that’s exactly what has happened. As the third trip approaches, the evolution in the concept has been staggering, touching all the key words: global, leadership, and service.
“This spring, the college will have GLSP’s highlighted at two major conferences—the AACSB Annual International Dean’s Conference and the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education’s (CUIBE) annual meeting,” he said. Organizers in IBHS build on prior experiences. The GLSP takes students to Thailand, where they work at multiple sites under the guidance of a student site leader. This year, Veronique Mettetal has been appointed site leader at Children's Creativity Foundation (CCF), a community pre-school that was added in 2006. Andres Franco will lead at the second, to a Bangkok center for mentally challenged children. “Timing this year eliminated our Klong Toey site because children are still in school,” The work will take place in collaboration with service clubs from Thai universities, primarily from Chandrakasem Rajabaht University. Fundraising remains essential. Leading up to the trip, students actively raise funds, most of which are used for activities planned for the sites. However, a portion can be used to help underwrite the cost of the excursion. Among the fundraisers this year: a textbook raffle, a Valentine’s Day sale with flowers and baked goods, car washes, and contests at sports events. “Our members also seek corporate sponsors,” said Polanco, who now holds a full-time position in sales and marketing at Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company, after a fall internship there. “We have a PowerPoint presentation that we make as well as letters of solicitation and pledge forms.” Sponsors from the business community have been generous donors. For example, last year, the Wal-Mart in Kendall matched the funds from the Valentine’s Day sale. “We put their logo on our web site and on shirts as a way to give them free advertising,” she said. Concept of program spreads as students from other schools earn scholarships. For the second year, a travel grant was offered to community-service minded students at other universities so they could take the concept back to their schools and extend its reach. The college defrays the airfare and transportation costs for the awardees. Applicants underwent a rigorous evaluation requiring letters of recommendation from their dean and a phone interview with IBHS members.
Suresh Mudragada, an international business major at Auburn University, was this year’s scholarship/grant recipient. “I went to South Korea in an exchange that included students from the United States, Canada, and Japan,” said Mudragada, who is special projects coordinator of his university’s program council, through which he participates in panels and raises money. “We were shown the best of South Korea—very upscale. I am drawn to the GLSP because I hope to gain a new perspective, since I am not going to Thailand to visit tourist sites but to help out. I am also very interested in the health education orientation of the curriculum that’s planned.” Even though he doesn’t yet know anyone else on the trip, he’s very excited. “I was the only student from the United States on the trip to Korea and made friends very quickly,” he said. “I think my shared interest in service projects will help me make friends from the college, too.” Auburn does not yet have an honors business association, but Mudragada has begun the process by talking to his advisor about the possibility. The inclusion of students from other schools points to another advance in the GLSPs: The two students who attended from other schools last year met the college group at the airport, en route to Bangkok. Polanco wanted to change all that, and has. “I wanted to integrate him earlier,” she said. “I stay in touch with him a few times each week, send him the minutes from our weekly GLSP meetings, and am trying to set up NetMeetings so everyone can communicate. We also share ideas for fundraisers.” Group gets in-depth leadership training. Also new this year: the opportunity to learn a wide range of proven leadership skills through the university’s Center for Leadership and Service, which offers a certification program called the Academy of Leaders (AOL). Most of the students in the fifteen-person cadre slated to go on the trip attended the weekend event, held at Riverside Retreat, a camp in La Belle, two hours from campus. “We start the teambuilding activities on the bus ride up,” said Beverly Dalrymple, director of the center. “Once we arrive, we work on activities so participants can understand themselves. Using a psychological assessment, they come to see how they operate and make decisions. They learn that you have to step out of your preferred style to reach others.” Among a number of components, the program includes group activities related to a five-part leadership model, then sends the teams out into the woods to put into practice what they’ve learned and prepare them for their future experiences. They also have a chance to give feedback to each other and to reflect. FIU Online joins the picture. Still another campus group has gotten involved.
In the spring, 2008, FIU Online will start to offer a fully online course titled Community Service Program Management (MAN 4028) that will mirror the kinds of experiences that the GLSPs offer. To help build the course, Aydin Bonabi (BBA ’05), a co-founder and former president of the IBHS, is participating in the GLSP. Currently a student in the college’s Master of Science in Finance (MSF) program and a program specialist in FIU Online, he has been attending the meetings and helping with fundraising. Once in Thailand, he will be both observer and participant. “I will be an ‘outsider,’ but I also want to engage in the experience as fully as possible,” he said. “To have a vision for the course and help enhance it, I want to feel what the students feel and then use that to give students in MAN 4028 the best possible experience.” The course will run from January through March, with a GLSP embedded in it that will take place in March—abroad but in a location closer than Thailand. Students also will write papers and complete other assignments in this for-credit class. Hogner will develop the content, having taught the course before—though never online—and Bonabi will work with him on the technology side. As with the involvement of the leadership center, the entry of FIU Online shows the value of collaboration across disciplines and delivery platforms. “If we all hold hands and work together, the end product will be better,” Bonabi said. “At this university, we always have had a vision of creating global business leaders. The future is about technology and through this course, we can have people from all over the world taking it, then unite them in one place for a GLSP that will give them an experience they will never forget.” If you are interested in knowing more about the course, contact online@fiu.edu and reference MAN 4028. For information about IBHS, visit its web site at www.ibhsonline.com. You’ll also find many heartwarming pictures of the previous GLSPs to Thailand on the site. |
“I couldn’t have imagined how the GLSP has evolved into both community assistance and business enterprise organizations,” said Robert Hogner, associate professor, Department of Management and International Business, coordinator of the college's Civic Engagement Initiative, and development director for undergraduate international business programs, who serves as the faculty advisor to the college’s IBHS chapter. “From partnerships with service clubs in Thailand to students developing a business plan for one of the first sites at which we worked—the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women (APSW)—the GLSP is an example of business experiential learning and leadership that has jelled, especially this year.” 
According to him, the GLPS model also is gaining the university national and international recognition. 
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