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By Allison Chisolm
 As first-year students come up Linden Lane for the first
time, a future in business is probably the last thing on their minds. At
least, it was the last thing on the mind of the young Arthur A. Ciocca ’59
when he first arrived on campus in the fall of 1955.
As chief executive officer of The Wine Group, his commitment
to the growing Pre-Business Program through the Entrepreneurial Lecture
Series and the new Executive in Residence Program offers a way to show
Holy Cross students that business can be an option for liberal arts graduates.
“It’s hard to realize what doors there are and
how to open them,” says Provost Frank Vellaccio. “There are no
required courses for the business world.”
Particularly at a liberal arts college, “students have
a difficult time integrating the notion that you can work in business and
still make the world a better place,” says John Winters, Jr., director,
Career Planning Center. “They have an amorphous understanding of business,” he
adds. “They know it’s not education, medicine or law—so
we have to educate them about the possibilities.”
That’s where the Pre-Business Program comes in. It started
in the fall of 2000 with the appointment of Nancy Baldiga, associate professor
of economics/accounting, as the pre-business faculty advisor. Before she
came to Holy Cross in 1992, Baldiga worked as a certified public accountant
with Price Waterhouse. The program then received a critical boost through
the support of Michael and Maureen Ruettgers P’03, ’99.
The Pre-Business Program builds on many programs and resources
already available to students at Holy Cross. Like the premed and prelaw
programs, pre-business encourages students to explore options, particularly
in their first two years at the College. Components of the program include
academic advising, the Summer Internship Program (SIP), special programming
like the Career Café, and beginning next year, the Executive in
Residence Program.
Students can meet with Baldiga to obtain help in selecting
a major or to discuss their curricular plans and how those plans might
support or lead to a career plan. She also encourages students to visit
the Career Planning Center for more specific job-hunting advice. Students
can get feedback on their resumes and cover letters, attend workshops on
interviewing skills and undergo mock interviews with critiques provided
by staff members.
Those students who want a summer internship experience are
directed to Amy C. Murphy, director of the Summer Internship Program, to
learn about the application process. More than 250 applications were submitted
for the fall round, Murphy reports. Some 100-to-120 students will be accepted
from this group, making them eligible to apply for approximately 60 SIP
internships created and funded by Holy Cross alumni and parents throughout
the Northeast.
Special programming like the Career Café offers alumni
the opportunity to discuss their career decisions and the skills required
to succeed in their industry. Recent topics have included: the importance
of sales experience to any career; the process of getting into business
school; and ways to start a career in advertising. Baldiga encourages alumni
interested in sharing their stories with pre-business students to contact
her at nbaldiga@holycross.edu.
“I’m a firm believer that a liberal arts degree
can lead to any career,” says Baldiga. “Sometimes our students
just need help packaging it the right way.”
Why Pre-Business at Holy Cross?
“There’s
a long-held notion about Holy Cross that we don’t prepare students
for careers, we prepare them for life,” says Vellaccio. “Yet
we have a premed and prelaw advising program.” After graduation, Vellaccio
has found, many more Holy Cross graduates end up in business careers than
in medicine or law. It became clear, he says, “We were doing an injustice
to students interested in business by not providing a set of resources
for them.” Vellaccio had been hearing from alumni for more than 20
years that the school prepared talented writers and thinkers, but that
graduates were not prepared for the “nitty gritty” details
of the business world.
“Students weren’t ready to think about their postgraduation
plans until senior year,” Baldiga notes. And in an increasingly competitive
job market, Holy Cross students, with grades and extracurricular activities
comparable with peers at Boston College, Colgate or Middlebury, weren’t
getting interviews. The difference? Summer internships.
“We learned that internships were no longer a competitive
advantage but a prerequisite for entry-level positions for college graduates,” says
Murphy. “A good-paying summer job in construction, bartending or waitressing
to help pay for school wasn’t enough.”
In February 2000, Vellaccio, then interim president, hired
Murphy to start a summer internship program. In August, he asked Nancy
Baldiga to serve as faculty advisor to the Pre-Business Program.
To succeed, their efforts had to recognize certain constraints
at the College. “There’s a strong student culture at Holy Cross,” says
Vellaccio. “We needed the Pre-Business Program to be accepted by students
as something that’s ‘OK’ to do. It also had to have academic
legitimacy, evidenced by faculty interest and support.”
The internship director’s work complements that of the
pre-business advisor, he explains. This combination helps students obtain
the practical information about entering the work world while benefiting
from an advising system that encourages them to see internship experiences
as both an important resume builder and a good learning experience.
Alumni Support Vital
Alumni support for this effort
has been pivotal. “We approached Art Ciocca because of his interest
in entrepreneurship,” Vellaccio says. As chief executive officer of
The Wine Group, Ciocca revolutionized the wine industry with the creation
of the Franzia Wine Tap—a packaging innovation that keeps wine fresh
after it is opened; easier to store and pour than traditional
large glass bottles, it is more cost efficient and better suited to in-store
display.
Sales have reached nearly 20 million cases a year.
Ciocca agreed to support the Entrepreneurial Lecture Series
and the Executive in Residence Program—recently sharing his experiences
with students during a visit to campus when he spoke on “A Game Plan
for Tomorrow’s Leaders.” Ciocca told the group of 80 students
in attendance his motto: “Whether you’re managing a brand, a
company or your life, you need a vision, a plan, a strategy and unrelenting
execution.” He offered advice on developing leadership skills and
encouraged his audience to believe that “the business world is a noble
place where you can do a lot of good and affect a lot of lives.”
“I found that a lot of young people today are not dissimilar
to where I was some 45 years ago,” Ciocca says. “They don’t
have enough options or experience to help them decide what to do.” As
a ROTC student, Ciocca served in the Navy for three years after graduation
and attended business school at night. There he met a professor who worked
in advertising and a roommate who worked in marketing, and he found the
door he wanted to open. Ciocca worked at General Foods for several years
and then moved West, where he decided there was opportunity in the California
wine business.
“This program is a wonderful opportunity for students
to clarify what they might want to be,” Ciocca says. “It would
have been fabulous to have had a program like this when I was at Holy Cross.”
Ongoing support for the Pre-Business Program has been provided
by the Ruettgers family and the May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust.
Measuring Success
In the winter of 2000,
Murphy knew she needed to jump-start the Summer Internship
Program by tapping the alumni network. The goal: to help
future graduates succeed in finding positions with “marquee organizations.” The
Holy Cross Leadership Council of New York helped raise funds
to pay for the first 10 internships. That first summer, 13
students worked as interns at 11 sites in New York and Massachusetts.
The next summer, 49 students worked at 28 sites
in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. And in the summer
of 2002, despite a challenging economic climate, 63 interns
worked at 37 sites. Thanks to commitments from parents and
alumni, Murphy says, every internship is paid.
Baldiga sees about 50 students in her office
each semester to discuss their plans for the future. Some 35
students attend each Career Café presentation and “many” check
in with her via e-mail. She has about 350 students on her mailing
list this year.
The internship experiences have already begun
to pay off. While the results from the summer of 2002 are not
yet available, of the 40 third-year students who participated
in the SIP in 2001, five were later employed full time by their
internship sites, and 14 landed jobs with other organizations.
Five second-year students with internships in 2001 returned
to the same site last summer.
Looking just at the numbers, the program is clearly
a success. Listening to students offers another point of reference—and
the consensus is that it’s working very well, even in
what may be the toughest job market in two decades. A recent
survey published by the National Association of College and
Employers found that employers will hire 3.6 percent fewer
graduating seniors this year than they did last year. In the
Northeast, college recruiting is expected to drop 8.1 percent.
Several fourth-year students already have job
offers, however, thanks to their summer experiences. Erin Williams ’03,
who spent last summer in the business planning group of EMC’s
corporate finance division, reports that she has accepted a
job offer from General Electric. The greatest benefit from
her summer internship, she notes, was learning how to conduct
herself in an office environment—plus working “only
a few cubicles away from three Holy Cross grads, including
the chief financial officer.”
Cara Gontarz ’03 will also join the ranks
of GE’s new employees next summer as a member of its Financial
Management Program. She spent last summer in New York City
in the risk management casualty department of Marsh Inc.—the
world’s leading risk and insurance services firm and an
operating unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. While
preparing documents, charts and diagrams for client policy
renewals, Gontarz explains that she saw how to handle things
in tough markets, and how to work hard to maintain client relationships.
Her boss took her to every client meeting and served as a role
model for “great leadership,” she says.
As a political science major, Gontarz met with
Baldiga to learn more about her options in the business world.
Baldiga recommended that she take a few economics and accounting
classes. After spending a semester in Australia studying political
science at the University of Melbourne, Gontarz realized that
the economy stands behind every political decision. She also
attended talks given by visiting executives and used the resources
at the Career Planning Center. Early on, she got some valuable
advice from that office: “Treat your job search like your
fifth class.” As part of her liberal arts education, she
says, “I’ve learned how to think analytically, ask
the right questions, communicate and work as a team.” As
she has discovered, those skills are highly valued in the workplace.
While he doesn’t have a job offer yet, economics
major Michael Creeden ’03 isn’t too concerned. He
spent last summer doing a reverse commute from New York City
to Rye, N.Y., where he worked in the Global Financial Systems
department of Avon Products. While computers are not his area
of expertise, he worked on the upgrade of a financial database
system and processed computer system access requests from new
employees around the world. His co-workers patiently taught
him what he needed to know, he says.
When he first arrived at Holy Cross, Creeden
says he tried not to specialize too soon, so as not to miss
out on liberal arts courses like African-American Theater History
and Multicultural Acting. While initially interested in math,
he declared himself an economics major “at the last possible
moment” in the fall of his third year. He got very involved
with the Pre-Business Program at that point, as he explains, “I
had a limited idea of what to do with an economics major.”
“What I was exposed to last summer could
not have been taught in the classroom,” explains Maura
O’Shea ’03, who had an internship with Linden, Atschuler & Kaplan
Public Relations. As a sociology major, she says she enjoyed
the chance to use her training that has made her “socially
aware of the differences that exist in our society and culture.” O’Shea
adds that, working at the public relations firm “challenged
me to apply all the academic and religious knowledge that I
have learned here at Holy Cross to life in the business world.”
Evolving as it Grows
A new offering for
Pre-Business students will be the Executive in Residence Program,
created with the support of Ciocca. Before school begins each
August, a senior executive (and Holy Cross graduate) will spend
four days on campus to talk about his/her vision and passion;
work with selected students on case studies; and provide the
catalyst for regional alumni to return to campus for networking
and mentoring opportunities.
Much like a professional development conference,
Baldiga explains, students will attend sessions on business
fundamentals, including how to read financial statements, understand
economic models and develop a business plan. Career planning
staff will present workshops on interviewing techniques and
resume development and help students learn more about the resources
available within that office.
The executive will then return later in the academic
year to reconnect with those students and speak to others in
the Pre-Business Program—to help them explore more concretely
the business opportunities available as internships. Baldiga,
who brainstormed with Ciocca to develop the basic elements
of the new Executive in Residence Program, expects an initial
participation of 25-to-30 students. Through the program, students
will learn, in concrete ways, how to act on Ciocca’s advice: “The
liberal arts provide a wonderful education, but you have to
take control of your career.”
Allison Chisolm is a free-lance writer from Worcester.
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