This past spring the Management Studies department and its advisory board invited alumni to a get together in Minneapolis. This allowed not only alumni to network with their peers but also for the advisory board and faculty to get industry updates and input and recommendations that may be applicable to LSBE curriculum.
This was the first gathering with the advisory board, which has 12 members, since the start of the pandemic and the first alumni social since 2019. Typically, there are two advisory board meetings and two socials for alumni, friends, family and anyone in the tech community annually.
Though the board hadn’t gathered in person over the past couple of years, they still were very involved helping the MIS program.
“The importance of having an advisory board is to mainly keep the program competitive, which in turn keeps our students competitive in the market, allowing the field to grow,” said Danny Kent, current chair of the board and product lead at Getlabs. Kent, a 2011 LSBE graduate with an MIS major, was a founder of the MIS advisory board back when he was a student.
“I love being a part of the board. I most enjoy that I get to continually see what students are creating. They are so unique. The students are outpacing what me and my colleagues are doing.”
Board members visit classrooms regularly to give students current insight into technology careers and career paths—“a day in the life of a technologist,” said Kent. The board also gives industry feedback to the faculty and helps with challenges, such as how to increase enrollment and how to increase women and people of color in the field.
Plus, each year the board tackles on one focused topic. Most recently, the board helped with the creation of Business Analytics program.
With high-caliber faculty and a hands-on advisory board, it’s no wonder that the MIS program produces graduates that are highly sought after—the program has had a 100% placement rate for the last 10 years. Additionally, graduates starting salaries are near $60,000. More information about the MIS major can be found on the LSBE website.
Photo: (left to right) Dahui Li, LSBE professor of MIS; Danny Kent, current chair of the advisory board and product lead at Getlabs; Matt Stenerson, co-founder and CEO of eMenuCHOICE; and Brandon Bica, director, software engineering at Chewy