Citadel Business InFormation

It is no secret that The Citadel's mission is to build leaders of principle. But in the School of Business Administration, these leaders are meant to be members of a community of principle; one that includes teachers, students and administration.

Four years ago, the school initiated a lunch program to allow students to meet by class and interact with other students and professors.

Over four successive Wednesdays in September, the students gather with faculty in the Riverview Room for a lunch meeting.

Dr. Wes Jones, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, said that due to the set-up of the Business School, different "pieces of the puzzle" emerge each year that the school would like to reinforce.

"We thought that it might be a good idea to bring them all together at one time, in one place, and give each class the specific information for that year that is relevant for them," he said.

"Our challenge was how to talk with all 650 of our students," said Dr. Earl Walker, Dean of The Citadel School of Business Administration. "The Business Executive Leadership Team decided that the best way to do that was to meet with them over lunch, class by class. At those luncheons, we introduce all of our faculty and staff, and provide guidance on the students' progress through the business school."

Sophomores have the greatest burden because they are not yet business majors, and the school would like to remind them what they must do to enter the school during their junior year, including career visioning requirements which must be completed prior to being admitted. The juniors receive information about fine tuning their career visioning, considering internships and thinking about the interview process. Seniors are reminded that if they have not started interviewing by Thanksgiving of their senior year, they are running behind in finding a job that will begin upon graduation.

The freshmen are the most interesting piece of this, Jones said, since they must declare an intended major upon admission to the school. However, some will decide before they even enter the School of Business that it is not for them. "For those that are going to stay around, they will not see most professors for two years," Dr. Jones said. "They are probably going to hear a lot of names, but we want them to begin to put a face with a name and start feeling that sense of community and realize that it is not an us against them environment at all. We really are all involved in the same push to get them into a successful career and life when they leave The Citadel.

"Our intent in the school of business is really to go beyond the traditional student, teacher relationship," said Dr. Jones. "We want to build community. We want to build community not only between the faculty and the students, but also community among the students."  

There are other elements that have piggy-backed onto these class lunches. Several years ago, the Advisory Board suggested that the school should begin implementing some sort of method to ensure students knew what they wanted to do when they left the school. Last year, career visioning began. In this, sophomores meet five more times with professors, administrators and businesspeople to offer guidance and to prepare the students for their entrance into the School of Business and a career. This year, the school is also piloting a junior program where students will meet two additional times. The school is also working to implement a program for seniors, whereby they will meet one additional time.

While it is early to define whether these programs have been a success, Dr. Jones said the "initial, anecdotal evidence says yes, they have really responded well to this."  

"They have responded well to the meetings and to us trying to build community," he said, "because it is important to them. They want to know that they haven't spent four years here and they are just a number."  

"These undergraduate business school lunches have gone a long way to better involve the cadets in the school and in their courses," said Dean Walker.