Call family donates to business school
Students enrolled in the Huntsman School of Business will see a revamping of their current advising and career services offices due to a $1.75 million gift given to the school by the Call Family Foundation.
This gift will also create several $5,000 scholarships, 10 per year, for students with high GPAs. The total sum of the gift going toward scholarships is $750,000, which will allow the scholarship to continue for the next 15 years, said Dave Patel, assistant dean of career and student services in the Huntsman School of Business.
The Call Family Foundation gave the same gift to the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. This foundation was established through FJ Management, Inc., joint-owner of national truck stop chain Pilot Flying J.
“I just want to give those who may have had to work full time the opportunity to work part time, so they will have a better experience at school,” said Crystal Maggelet, chief executive officer of FJ Management.
All USU students may apply for one of the 10 annual scholarships, but preference will be given to applicants majoring in business or engineering. The scholarships also give preference to students who are, or have been, employed by Flying J, including students with family members who are, or have been, employed by the company. Patel said the scholarship application will be available online, separate from other business school scholarships.
All facets of the business school’s career services will now fall under the same umbrella, Patel said. The $1 million is going toward strengthening these services by putting career accelerators and advisers in the same location. Currently, there are eight academic advisers and seven career accelerators.
“(Career accelerators) are there to help students with everything from interview preparation to sitting down with you and doing one-on-one mentoring, depending what your interests are, to determine what career may be best fit for you and job opportunities for that,” Patel said.
Maggelet is a USU alumna and serves on the business school advisory board. She introduced her idea to improve the school’s career services summer 2011.
“I’ve been very impressed with what has taken place and the emphasis that has been put on bettering the school,” Maggelet said. “Giving the gift to the career center had to do with the importance of businesses working close with universities and making sure we are on the same page.”
Students, like Shaun Allred, already feel they have benefited from career services. Allred, a senior majoring in operations management, said he sees business students having more opportunities because the school’s career services program now has the resources to expand.
“Through the career accelerator program I got an internship with one of my dream jobs,” Allred said. “I grew up on a farm and always wanted to work with agriculture manufacturing. The internship is with AGCO, and Ron Godfrey, who is one of the career accelerators … encouraged me to interview with this job place.”
The main goal of the center is to help students transition smoothly from coursework to internships to job placement, Allred said.
A senior majoring in human resource management and international business, Becky Kelley, said she owes her most recent job offer from Management and Training Corporation to the help she received from career accelerators. More students will have the opportunity for internship and job placement with the growth of the business school’s career services, she added.
“It will be especially good for students looking for a one-stop (place for help),” Kelley said. “It will create less confusion and be good for all those people working in the same office together.”
Usually, constructing new programs takes years from the initial idea to execution, Patel said, so this idea to create a better career development center is happening rather quickly.
Patel said the integration of services in the career center will give students a more personalized experience.
“The student can see the process between meeting with an academic adviser about what classes to take (and) a meeting with a career coach,” Patel said. “We are essentially building a relationship with that student, so we know that person as an individual. The end goal is truly for that student to feel like they have mentors at the school.”
– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu