Graduation Brunch

Post by:

Lauren Abrahams
MS-MBA 2011
Public & Nonprofit Management
MBA Council, PNP Club, Net Impact

Last Friday was our Graduation Brunch and what might considered the kick-off to a month of festivities leading up to the big day. After organizing so many events over the past year as a member of Graduate Student Council, it was a welcome opportunity to have someone else throw the party and be in charge for a change! I don’t want to give too much away to current first-years and future students (there are a lot of fun surprises that the faculty and staff manage to keep from the students), but it was a lot of fun and a great opportunity to spend some quality time with our professors and classmates outside of classrooms and teamrooms. It was also a lot more emotional than I expected—I saw a lot of sniffing, a few tears, and TONS of running around and herding friends into one more precious photo. I’m looking forward to what seems like the hundreds more events over the next month, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold it together!

I’ve also been involved lately with the 2011 MBA Class Gift. As a Cohort Captain, it’s my job to encourage my fellow cohort B-ers to participate in the gift campaign by making a pledge to support the MBA Class of 2011 Alumni Relations Initiative. Earlier in the semester, the cohort captains all sat down and brainstormed about where we thought our class gift would have the most impact. It was actually a pretty easy decision to recommend to Dean Freeman that it support something related to alumni, as that is an area that both the dean and my classmates feel strongly about. While we don’t yet know exactly how the gift will be spent (since a lot depends on how much money we raise), everyone has generally seemed enthusiastic and supportive. While we’d like to raise a good amount so that we can have a real impact, it’s really about getting everyone to participate at whatever level they feel comfortable. We are working on setting a record of 90% participation—still have a long way to go, but the momentum is picking up and hopefully we’ll make it!