First Day of Class for newest Walton MBA students

Our Walton MBA class of 2010 has officially begun. Today is the first day of class for the spring semester. This group kicked things off in grand style during Orientation last week. This is the third class in the "newly redesigned" program and I have been fortunate to have been a part of all three Orientations. We definitely get better each year. It is very important to us to improve this process each year and we listen to your feedback. Deb Williams and Marion Dunagan work hard implementing this program. Deb is the other Assistant Director for the Graduate School of Business. I work with students through the admissions process and then, once admitted, Deb takes over. Deb handles Student Services. As I have mentioned before, Marion is our Assistant Dean. Since we are a small office, we all help each other and jump in when needed.

On my last post, I reviewed MBA Orientation through Thursday, Day 4. I'll wrap it up now. Friday, Day 5 was Retail Immersion Day. We loaded up on a bus, a very nice one I should add, and took a field trip. Everyone loves field trips.

Of course we began the morning with breakfast and a brief discussion of what we would be doing during the day. We had some help with this day from our Marketing Department and some of our corporate partners.

Our first stop of the day was Fayetteville's new Sam's Club. We took a quick store tour and then students were divided up into teams and each team was given a department to "study." When we finished at Sam's, we headed to Rogers to the new Pinnacle Hills Promenade. The same teams were given store assignments and off they went. I have to confess that I did use this time to do some "retail immersion" of my own.

Our next stop was lunch. We were hosted during this time by Kimberly-Clark. During lunch we heard words of advise and wisdom from New Creature executive, Patrick Sbarra and from Kimberly-Clark's, Mark Lauderdale. After lunch, we boarded the bus again and went to a Walmart Distribution Center.

This is a very busy day but it is also a lot of fun. We were finished and back on campus by 4:00. I think our new MBA students had a great time during the week and also learned a lot. Having fun while learning is a win-win for everyone.

So, the semester is now underway and I need to get to work filling the MBA class of 2011. Early application deadline is April 1. Be sure to email with questions: gsb@walton.uark.edu.

I look forward to receiving your application!