Advisory Committee to the Mitte Business Honors Program
Meeting Notes for September 21 st Meeting
10:00 AM CST
Conference Call-In: 512-471-3099
Attendees:
Andrew Allemann
Michael Klein
Danielle Pfaffenberger
Seema Varma
Dr. Cox
Adam Ward
Judy Amis
Marcie Shelton
Via Phone:
Craig Wielansky
Crissy Perez
Robin Boesch
Ankur Ghia
Glenna Sharafeldin
Brian Landrum
Tanmay Desai
Greg Gerstenhaber
Ramesh Dhanaraj
Joe Reske
Nandu Madhava
Boris Siperstein
Connor Duffey
Lynn Utter
Rob Honts
Maria Yuan
I. Welcome new members-co-Chairs
New Members: Ankur Ghia ’00, Maria Yuan ’03, Seema Varma (HBA Pres.)’04
A. New Student Kickoff
Very successful, 8 alumni were able to attend and meet the newest members of the program which
included low ropes courses and a catered luncheon
B. Company Recruiting
In this difficult year for hiring, any efforts our AC can make with their companies to help BHP seniors in
their search would be very beneficial.
- Greg: determine what companies are coming to campus, but aren’t hiring their fare share of BHP
grads and do targeted campaign towards them
- Tanmay: the BHP office could perform resume drops for companies that are not able to come to
campus; we could package the resumes and send them along to the companies
- Current students need to be educated on alternative careers
- Inform companies on what students they have hired in the past
- Robin: Recruiting for internships becomes ever more important in these times
- After the internship season, Adam could follow up with companies reminding them of what students
they employed that summer and thanking them
- Mock phone interview- with fewer and fewer companies coming to campus, more are doing phone
interviews; alumni could be used to help conduct these
Solutions:
-the communication committee could create a PR packet
-create a recruiter packet to go out
-company sponsor packets and company visits are being done currently by Adam
C. HBA Mock Interviews
Thursday, September 26 th, all day. If any alumni are interested in helping out, they should contact
Seema Varma (svarma@mail.utexas.edu)
-Tanmay: there needs to be more of a IB/Consulting focus on the mock interviews
-HBA should host mock case interviews and mock phone interviews for students
II. Program Update and News- Dr. Cox
-Admission updates
-Mitte Foundation update
-Keeping our corporate sponsors even though they are not able to pay annual fee
III. Alumni Relations-Boris
A. Discussions with area chairs
-Boris has been hosting an on line discussion with area alumni chairs
-What value to we bring to our alumni?
-What benefit do alumni being involved with the program?
You can join the discussion at: http://webct.cc.utexas.edu/public/BUS_Honors_Program/index.html
B. Alumni Mentor Program- Greg and Adam
-our goal is to match every interested student with an alumni mentor
-500 most recent alumni were surveyed, 150 responded as interested
-any AC members should contact Adam to receive a survey
-sophomore class has been surveyed and matches are being made this week
IV. Alumni Recruiting-Crissy and Marcie
A. Fall and Spring PMC’s
-11/7/02 in Dallas sponsored by Wells Fargo
-11/21/02 in Houston sponsored by Reliant Energy
Area alumni are invited to attend, please contact Adam if interested
B. Alumni Receptions
-Alumni recruiting committee will be asked to host receptions for prospective and accepted students in the
spring
C. Prospective student calls
-alumni recruiting committee will be contacting the top 50 candidates again in the spring
V. Resources-Craig
Fundraising for the program will be following a two pronged approach. There is going to be a increased
effort put forth towards the annual fund solicitation made towards our alumni. Larger donors will be
identified for the Excellence Fund and removed from the annual fund campaign.
A. Annual fund
-annual funds provide discretionary funds to the program on an annual basis
B. Excellence Fund
-Excellence Funds are endowed funds that provide income for special needs to the program. The principle
is never spent, but rather the interest generated from the fund is received once a year. The goal for this
campaign is $100k, at which time it will receive a one time match from the dean. Currently, endowed funds
make about 4% interest annually.
1. Strategy and timeline
-donors identified by October 10 th
-solicitation made by AC members, MBHP staff, and Development Officers over the next 3-6 months
2. 3-5 large donor identification
-we are asking AC members to help us identify alumni who might be larger donors to the Excellence Fund.
Alums who might be able to make pledges of $1k or over might be considered. Younger alumni may not
be able to identify classmates from their year.
Send your identified donors to Adam October 4th.
3. 100% AC participation
-We have achieved 100% participation from the AC! Thanks to everyone for their generous gifts; this
creates a great message that we can share when we solicit from our alumni.
VI. Communication-Scott and Adam
A. National Publicity
-continual effort to get hits in national publications/ranking guides
B. PR Efforts
-can we have our own press releases? How can we go through the university to disseminate info to media
outlets?
C. Alumni communication
-more frequent updates are needed in addition to the quarterly newsletter
D. AC ideas?
-more frequent updates to AC are needed
VII. AC Focus for 2002-03
-no more projects are needed; we need to now focus on execution
VIII. Next Meeting
Saturday, November 16 th @ 9:30 AM CST.