Thanks to a grant from the University of Delaware’s Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL), UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics hosted two new events designed to help undergraduates learn more about opportunities at Lerner. These included a Lerner Registered Students Organization Fair and a Lerner Major Fair.

Julia Bayuk, professor of marketing and business administration, said that her goal in orchestrating these events was to “get students more involved in Lerner.”

The RSO Fair, for example, allowed undergraduates to learn about the RSOs available at Lerner by meeting current members of Lerner’s clubs.

One such student at the event was Morgan Bush, a senior marketing and international business studies double major and a member of Lerner’s Women in Business RSO. The club’s goal, she said, is to empower women in business fields.

“We set them up with networking events, we teach them how to dress for internships, we create sessions for girls to study with one another,” Bush said. “We’re helping women get into the business field and feel comfortable, because it’s a very male-dominated area.

Also at the fair was Adam Blenckstone, a junior in sports management who is also the promotions and fundraising chair of Lerner’s Future Professionals of the Sports Management Industry RSO.

Blenckstone said, “We try to get ourselves involved in the sports world as much as possible, whether that’s going on field trips, touring facilities, stadiums and arenas,” or through hands-on sessions with speakers and webinars that allow them to “hear from various people throughout the field, get advice from them and hear about their experiences.”

Business management major Tiffany Canjura is the president of UD’s chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals for America (ALPHA).

“ALPHA is an organization that strives to help Latino students and other minorities get internships and leadership, workshop and development skills so they can be better suited for the business world and get opportunities that better fit them,” Canjura said.

Among the RSO Fair’s attendees was freshman Casey Jacot, who said that she enjoyed learning about groups like Women in Business.

“I want to be a CEO one day, so ‘Women in Business’ is my thing,” Jacot said. Of the event, she added, “It’s got everything you need, all different types of business.”

Major Fair

Taking place later in the month, the Major Fair featured upperclass students from the many Lerner majors. The fair was open to Lerner undergraduates as well as high school students who have already been accepted to a Lerner major for the upcoming fall.

“The idea is to encourage the students to explore the majors that we have at Lerner,” Bayuk said. “We have advisers on hand as well, and we have upperclassmen to talk about double majors or minors and internships.”

Senior marketing major Mary Grace Rapolla represented her major at the fair, where she said she spoke to numerous students.

“They have a lot of great questions, and they seem really interested in learning what it’s about and what they can do with it in the future,” Rapolla said. “I think it would have been helpful to hear from seniors and juniors themselves when I was choosing my major.”

Avery Butler, a senior financial planning major, said the event helped younger students understand what the major entails, since it is a relatively new program.

“This event is so interesting and I wish I did have that [as an underclassmen],” Butler said.