CONNECTING WITH ALUMNI School of Business and Economics and other UWSP alumni are eager to participate in our many C2C Center events and we take pride in having them return to campus to offer support, guidance and networking connections to our current students. Our alumni are incredibly generous with their time and resources once we introduce them to our many exciting ongoing C2C Center programs. Of our total 256 guests in 2019-20, 56 were UWSP alumni; of those, 38 were specifically SBE graduates. Some of the programs with strong alumni participation were “Lunch with a Leader” (Smiley Professional Events), Senior Banquets and Capstone Presentations (both from Business 480—Management Capstone) as well as Practice Networking Receptions (Business 325— Organizational Behavior). We are always looking for new ways to strengthen our connections with our alumni and other community supporters. Three noteworthy examples from the past year include: • a LinkedIn panel discussion with the Portage County young professionals’ group, Ignite • the Inaugural Business and Society Lecture with journalist/author Bethany McLean which drew over 50 community attendees • a new SBE LinkedIn page to share news about our students and programs. Unfortunately, our alumni connections to date have been both happenstance (alumni reaching out to us and asking how they might be of assistance) and incomplete (UWSP alumni relations records being far from comprehensive). To deepen our connections with our alumni, we are establishing an extensive database of SBE alumni information. C2C Center interns are reaching out on LinkedIn to our 1,932 graduates from the past 10 years, encouraging our alumni to share their contact information and professional status using a condensed version of the survey distributed to graduating seniors and new alumni (see below). In future, we will do similar outreach to our alumni on a regular basis so that graduates can update their contact information and professional status as their careers evolve. The allocation of C2C Center resources towards developing a robust alumni database will pay multiple dividends going forward. Being more informed about the success of our alumni will provide important supporting evidence of the quality of our academic and career-preparation programs. The increased connections will also allow us to further engage our alumni in C2C Center and SBE events such as homecoming, guest lectures and continuing education. “I went to the networking events offered to students and ended up with an internship with Wipfli LLP. I was able to get experience and even land a full-time job before graduating.” – Beth Frazer SURVEYING GRADUATING SENIORS AND NEW ALUMNI The first step in remaining connected to our alumni is gathering data on where they are starting their careers after graduation. Until this past year, SBE relied on campus-wide data collection programs to document the placement of our graduates; unfortunately, those programs produced severely limited results due to staffing and resource constraints. To address this shortfall, C2C Center staff and resources are being deployed to establish new procedures for routinely gathering information from our graduating seniors and new alumni.
This strategic investment has already produced the first comprehensive survey of our graduating seniors in May 2020. This initial survey had an extremely high response rate (75%) with 103 responses. The detailed survey allowed SBE to gather new, previously unknown data on the placement and satisfaction of our graduates. Some highlights of the survey: • 34% of the respondents had accepted a job. The median salary of the accepted offers was in the $35,000 to $49,000 range. This finding is consistent with a less comprehensive UWSP report that found an average salary of $41,302 for SBE graduates in 2019. • 47% of the soon-to-be employed graduates reported plans to work in nearby Portage, Marathon or Wood counties, with 14.7% planning to work outside of Wisconsin. • 73% of the respondents “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that SBE had prepared them well for their career. 94% of respondents at least “somewhat agreed” that SBE had prepared them well for their careers. SBE is pleased with these baseline survey results, given that the survey was conducted in the first week of May when many students were still interviewing---not to mention the record-setting economic decline occurring at that time due to COVID-19. Nevertheless, we aim to improve these initial placement and satisfaction numbers through the interviewing, job search, networking and other career-preparation events run through the C2C Center. While the survey of graduating seniors provides us with accurate placement data as of the end of students’ time on campus, the C2C Center has also developed a broader strategy to track placement of our new alumni . We plan to reach out quarterly during the year following their graduation to all new graduates who did not report accepting a job offer before graduation in the following ways: • Via email--using permanent email addresses provided in the survey of graduating seniors We anticipate gathering a substantial amount of data on the placement of our graduates through these efforts since nearly all graduating seniors provided us with permanent email addresses and opted in to follow our SBE LinkedIn page. We will thereby develop a more comprehensive picture of the initial placement of our graduates beyond those who accepted an offer before graduation as well as offer continued assistance to those still seeking employment. 2020-21 PLANS We anticipate increased outreach activities in the coming year, including: • Maintaining and strengthening relationships with current Corporate Partners as we adapt to remote work and learning. • Extending our network by connecting with other current or potential employers of our interns or new graduates. • Supporting our local young-professionals community by co-sponsoring events with the Ignite group. • Continuing the process of surveying each new graduating class, with follow-up quarterly contacts during the first year to record initial placements. • Further developing our database of past graduates via LinkedIn outreach. • Communicating more frequently with our alumni about services and programs they may find valuable. • Via personal LinkedIn messages—from C2C Center interns • Through reminders posted on our new SBE LinkedIn page “It was a blast having the judges in our class to listen to our presentation. Their perspective provides real-world knowledge to those of us about to embark on our career journey. This information is critical to see what employers look for and what mindset employers have.” – Lance Masshardt • 53% of the respondents had either at least one full- time job offer in hand (42%) or were planning to attend graduate school (11%).
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Anderson Classroom to Career Center
Annual Report 2019-2020
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