Where some people saw problems, Mike Roberts saw opportunities:
- The opportunity for deans to meet regularly with students.
- The opportunity for students to share their perspectives with BYU Marriott’s leaders.
- The opportunity for student organizations to communicate with one another and streamline processes.
- The opportunity to develop student leaders into more than club presidents.
When Roberts, assistant dean and director of BYU Marriott’s Business Career Center (BCC), started at the center in 2013, he saw these opportunities and began to formulate what would become the school’s Professional Development Forum (PDF) in 2015. The forum comprises a group of student leaders from sixteen BYU Marriott organizations who meet monthly with the school’s deans.
“The forum is a way to help keep everyone connected,” Roberts explains.
Michael Thompson, BYU Marriott associate dean at the time, was one of the first people Roberts approached with his idea.
“I believe the creation of the Professional Development Forum was one of the most significant initiatives that’s happened in the last decade in the BYU Marriott School of Business,” Thompson says. “The forum has accelerated the development of our student leaders who serve on it. It has become an effective forum for these leaders to share best practices and to become a really good professional network with one another.”
Now in its fourth year, the PDF has created its own niche within the school and continues to evolve and prove its value in the BYU Marriott world.
Communication Opportunities: Accelerating Growth
Each hour-long PDF meeting consists of information sharing and a hearty dose of collaboration via roundtable discussions among the students and deans.
“I always walk out of those meetings thinking, ‘Wow, I didn’t think about half those things when I was their age,’” Roberts says.
Connecting with students through the PDF is refreshing for BYU Marriott administrators, who shoulder responsibilities that often take them away from the Tanner Building’s classrooms. Thompson says that the monthly meetings and follow-up conversations have brought the deans closer to the students. “As we’ve gotten to know the students better, the forum has made us more accessible to answer their questions and to collaborate and partner on problems and opportunities,” he says. “I personally feel that it has accelerated the growth of our individual student leaders.”
From the administration side, Thompson says he saw the benefits of being up-to-date and better informed about what the students are working on and upcoming events when he was attending the forum.
“The PDF creates an invaluable opportunity to hear what’s going on,” Roberts adds. “The meetings offer the chance for the deans to bounce questions off this group that represents thousands of students.”
For Marissa Johnson, a senior majoring in global supply chain management and president of BYU’s Global Supply Chain Association, participating in the PDF has been an eye-opening experience in many regards. “I’ve benefitted from observing the different leadership styles and approaches of other committee members,” she says. “Furthermore, PDF has given us an opportunity to increase collaboration with students across the business school instead of just remaining siloed in our own majors.”
Logistical Opportunities: Developing Strategies
Although the PDF meetings take time away from the students’ busy schedules, the leaders can tap into resources that help them in their roles running student organizations.
Early on, Roberts noticed that the leaders spent a lot of their time scheduling rooms and getting things approved. “The process was very logistical,” he says. “I wanted the students to be able to focus and develop on strategic priorities.”
To accomplish that aim, Roberts utilized the student staff in the BCC, who offer the organizations help with processes. Since the PDF consists of brand-new leaders each school year, having the BCC staff provide expertise in the logistical processes saves time and effort, allowing PDF members to perform more efficiently and effectively as they focus on higher priorities.
Sharing information and best practices is what Jace Whetten, who leads BYU’s Accounting Society, believes is one of the PDF’s main benefits.
“Earlier this year, the Accounting Society reached a mass subscription level of club membership that caused Google to shut down any emails coming from our account,” says Whetten, a second-year MAcc student.
She sat down with Matthew Orlandi, copresident of the BYU Finance Society and a member of the PDF. He helped her fix the issue and create a contingency plan. “Initially I was super nervous about meeting all these other fantastic leaders,” Whetten says. “But everyone I’ve been fortunate to interact with has been incredibly kind and willing to serve.”
Networking Opportunities: Continuing the Connection
Roberts also sees the PDF as a way for students to realize the other great things going on with their peers. “The PDF experience is similar to what these students are going to be doing in their careers: collaborating, leveraging, and partnering outside of their given areas,” he explains.
But the networking opportunities are not limited to just those invited to the meetings. PDF members have also been invited to meet with visiting professionals such as the late Clayton Christensen, one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth; Vanessa Quigley and Nate Quigley, cofounders of Chatbooks; and Liz Wiseman, New York Times best-selling author and CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm.
Johnson says connecting with alumni who have excelled professionally is inspiring. “Having opportunities to interact with these alumni and learn from their examples motivates me to want to develop myself personally and professionally in order to lead the way forward, just like they have,” she says.
“What we’re doing is creating greater appreciation and relationships with these individuals, the early professionals,” Roberts says. “As the young people get out in the industry, many are coming back and tapping into the organization they were leading. Seeing them continuing the connection is gratifying.”
Leadership Opportunities: Reaching Strong Solutions
Johnson says that her experience in the PDF has changed her perspective and attitude from “What can I do to help improve my individual major?” to “What can I do to help improve the BYU Marriott School of Business?”
“I have been surprised how similar the needs are of each of our associations,” she notes. “It is easy to assume we have so many differences when in reality we have so many similarities.”
Working together, Johnson says, has allowed the group to reach strong solutions because of the varied perspectives.
PDF has increased my appreciation for other majors and made me realize that we can get so much more accomplished if we all work together. Likewise, I have been impressed to see the strengths of each major and how we all complement each other.
In addition to the synergy, the group’s collaboration has led to other residual effects. For example, Thompson credits the PDF with forcing the school to clarify the role of its student council. “The student council has now moved from having a generic mission of helping undergraduates enjoy a better experience to more of a focus on the culture of BYU Marriott,” he explains. “Student council members have worked specifically on things such as diversity, inclusion, the social integration of students, and service.”
Another result of the student leaders working together is a stronger BYU Marriott brand, Roberts says. “Bringing the individual organizations together capitalizes on the value of the collective and how it supports BYU Marriott,” he says. “PDF is part of all the wonderful things the school is doing and is complementary and impactful.”
The PDF harnesses the power of BYU Marriott students, Roberts continues, and creates greater visibility for what is going on across the college. “Our programs are rock-solid,” he concludes. “But the value is in the collective pieces that fit beneath BYU Marriott. That’s the real power.”
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Written by Emily Edmonds
Photography by Nate Edwards
About the Author
Emily Edmonds is a former editor of Marriott Alumni Magazine. She now spends her days getting bossed around by her three little girls.
This feature article was originally published in BYU Marriott's 2019 Annual Report.
