Cultivating connection: Marketing students design events that bring together current students and alumni

Last fall, WWU College of Business and Economics students in an experiential marketing class planned and participated in a handful of networking-style events designed to connect Western alumni with current Finance and Marketing students.

“We’re trying to create a situation that gives the students a real-life experience that will help them gain confidence,” said Senior Instructor of Marketing Dan Purdy, who taught the event marketing class.

On the planning side, students in the class got to work with clients, vendors and other stakeholders, mostly internally to the college — a simulation, but with real stakeholders and real consequences. At the same time, the events helped to create meaningful alumni-student-faculty connections. 

Not your usual marketing class

Purdy teaches an agile project management process that breaks projects down into increments and encourages iteration. 

“The core of ‘agile’ is that we don’t know what the right answer is at the beginning,” said Purdy. “We have to be willing to adapt. We have to be willing to fail. Fail fast, fail forward. Stop waiting for it to be perfect and learn from the process.”

The five students in Purdy’s class got to develop, plan and manage five events. Each student took on the role of event manager to plan and direct every detail of one event and helped coordinate the others.

Pulling off an event with impact involves a lot of work behind the scenes.  

Purdy and the event marketing students had promotional support from students in another of Purdy’s marketing classes, and they had a handful of college faculty and staff to lean on, and be accountable to, throughout the quarter.

“It was incredible to see how much of this work our students were capable of doing on their own, with just a little nurturing and guidance,” said Merriman Financial Literacy Program Specialist Peter Wagner, who acted as one of the “clients” the students reported to. “I felt like we had true partners in these endeavors."

The other clients were Finance and Marketing Department Manager Molly Baumann, Marketing Department Chair and Professor of Marketing Ed Love, and Professor of Finance Nick Wonder. The class itself wouldn’t have been possible without backing from the Finance and Marketing Department and Dean Deanna Kennedy.

“This was the first time this class had been done, so going in I had no clue what we would be doing other than it being ‘events marketing,’” said Tyler Noonan, who is from Vancouver, Wash., and graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration with a marketing concentration last December. He managed the Marketing Career Launch at New Engen, a digital marketing agency in Seattle. “When we were first told that we’d have to plan five events, I thought there was no way we could pull it off.”  

But they did. The tight-knit group worked together, and they supported and learned from each other.

“My biggest takeaway was the importance of communication and collaboration,” said Noonan. “Working as a group allowed us to play to each other’s strengths to make each event the best it could be.”

The students found out quickly that this wasn’t like a traditional class.

“Instead of giving us a list of assignments, we had to brainstorm what we needed to complete in order to successfully plan the event,” said Ethan Gallagher, a senior marketing student from Snohomish who was the event manager for the Finance Career Launch at U.S. Bank in Seattle. “When I get a professional job after graduation, I won’t really have a list of assignments, so this gave me a feel for what that will be like.”

In all, the five events impacted hundreds of students, alumni, faculty and staff. 

Extra credit: Life lessons

Purdy says that, for him, marketing, and especially the marketing he teaches in his experiential courses, is really a conduit for something much larger.  

“At the beginning of the quarter, the students were looking at me like, you’ve got to be crazy, the client is saying they want 60 people to be at the AI panel,” said Purdy. “The students were like, we’re not even sure we can get six people to be there.”

This is when the real lesson begins.

“That’s when I say, look, even if their objectives are unreasonable, let’s work towards them step by step and see what happens,” said Purdy. “And you know what, we had 60 people at the first event. And after that first success, it got easier. It didn’t get easy, but it got easier because all of a sudden, they knew they could do it.”

In the five years that he’s been teaching experiential marketing classes, he’s seen what students are capable of, and it’s a lot more than they think.  

“It was very much a learn to swim by diving into the deep end style of learning,” said Quinton McClannan, a senior marketing student from Boulder, Colo., who managed the first event of the quarter — just one month into the quarter — a Marketing Advisory Board AI Panel on campus. “However, I achieved things I never would have thought possible and learned many important skills, such as time management and adaptation, that I would have lacked in a different environment.”

Purdy says that’s all part of the process.  

“Invariably, as the quarter draws on and we solve the technical and logistical issues, the real blocks become psychological, motivation, and self-doubt,” said Purdy. “I think that’s what the students learn — that we can succeed despite circumstances.”

“What we’re really talking about is how to build a successful life,” he said. “Learning how to work with others. Learning how to break big things down into little things. Learning to not be afraid of failure. Learning that you can survive despite all evidence to the contrary.”

“I teach marketing, but really marketing is just the talking point,” said Purdy. “When we’re done, a lot of students tell me that they learned a lot about life.” 

Creating Connections

Rob Batchelor, who received a bachelor’s degree in Finance from WWU in 2005 and is now Senior Vice President of Commercial Real Estate at U.S. Bank in Seattle, hosted the Finance Career Launch, a day focused on coaching and networking. He and another alum led a workshop on first impressions, during which students developed elevator pitches.  

“While it was initially challenging and nerve-wracking for some students, it was incredible to see their confidence and delivery improve after brief feedback and a second attempt,” said Batchelor. “The growth in just a few minutes was inspiring.”  

“I was fortunate to have professors who went above and beyond to prepare me for the professional world,” said Batchelor. “Their extra efforts left a lasting impression and inspired me to help today’s students succeed.”  

Batchelor would like to see more opportunities to bring alumni and students together. Purdy said that’s what the college wants, too.  

“If we help students, good things will happen,” said Purdy. “Those students will turn into alumni who benefited and will want to come back and help more students.” 

Learn more about WWU’s Finance and Marketing Programs in the College of Business and Economics.

Jennifer Nerad covers Western's College of Business and Economics and College of the Environment for the Office of University Communications. Have a great story idea? Reach out to her at neradj@wwu.edu.