Welcome Walton MBA Class of 2011

This has been an incredibly crazy week. Classes for the spring semester begin on Monday. This week (the 4th through the 8th) was supposed to be Orientation for the new MBA class. Well, things haven't gone exactly as planned. The University was closed on Monday. All of Monday's activities were moved to Tuesday and the overnight retreat that was supposed to occur on Monday was cancelled. Tuesday went very well and it was wonderful to have all of our new students here and to be able to meet the ones I haven't met previously.

Tuesday night we had a social event at Jose's, a local favorite here in Fayetteville. An alumni panel was available to discuss the program with the new students. We had alumni from 2002, 2008, 2009 and also current MBA students who are serving as mentors. Stacy Carty talks in detail about the mentoring on her blog. Check it out. Our new class was able to get the dirt from our vets. This really helps them to understand the program more and to get the inside scoop.

Yesterday the students worked in teams on a case competition. The competition was supposed to occur today but all of the area schools are closed again so we decided to postpone it until Monday afternoon.

Tomorrow is retail immersion day. We will load up on a tour bus in the morning and go to a Walmart distribution center. This is such an amazing experience. We then have lunch at Kimberly-Clark and will spend some time in the afternoon at a Walmart store.

Classes will begin on Monday. Fayetteville is currently experiencing record low temperatures. The weather has been crazy and has been making things interesting for us. I am including some pictures of the first 2 days of orientation.


Day 1





Social and Alumni panel



Day 2




And here is a photo of Zoey in her cast. She is hiding behind her stuffed animal.

Come back on Monday to see how Retail Immersion day went.