Across the suburban marketplace, a plethora of colleges and universities are bustling to serve businesses. There’s online education, classes at the workplace, and business networking breakfasts. Community businesses have become a cash cow for many in higher education, not only for tuition dollars, but for subsequent sponsorships, donations and other corporate giving that can result from the college-business relationship.

But in west suburban Aurora, one university is taking a different approach. Aurora University is looking at serving area businesses with its traditional students in mind.

A throwback to earlier ways of business partnering, Aurora is looking to build its viability with the suburban marketplace through student driven initiatives, like expanding internship opportunities, community business projects in the classroom, and student-provided tax assistance to small, family–run businesses in the area.

It’s a strategic decision that Dunham Business School director Shawn Green says was developed over time, as Aurora looked at how best to define itself and serve the needs of its students.

“We wanted to better serve the students we have, not necessarily just go out and find other groups,” Green said. That’s not to say they have excluded the business community for the university’s focus. AU offers a human resources institute breakfast series of monthly networking and lectures. There is a free Sales Institute newsletter distributed weekly via email to 2000 area professionals. And the school’s distinguished speaker series has featured such management and leadership gurus as Peter Senge and Stephen Covey.

“We see our role as partners with the local business community,” said Donna DeSpain, dean of adult and graduate studies at Aurora. “Our faculty and administrators serve on many boards of local business organizations. In turn, many local business professionals are invited to serve on an advisory board for the Dunham School of Business.”

However, Green is quick to add that there has to be balance. “There’s a logic that it’s hard to be all things to all people. We want to serve this community as best we can, and we believe that’s by focusing our efforts on our students.”

To that end, the University’s Dunham School of Business remains focused on helping traditional students succeed, and Green believes that model helps contribute to the area business climate.

“We see our role as developing future leaders for business and education,” said DeSpain.

There are a multitude of project-based courses, where students analyze a local business and develop parts of its business plan. Marketing plans, promotional plans, and student run market research are some of the most common projects completed for companies in the surrounding area. Other projects have included solving operational problems and HR issues. Also, seniors in the business school offer voluntary income tax assistance to small, family run businesses, a service also tied in to coursework.

“It’s all student-driven,” Green said. “We work primarily with smaller businesses. Some come to us, some our students identify.”

Also, business leaders are invited to come and speak to students in the classroom, said Green, which furthers the one-on-one relationship between area business leaders and Aurora students.

Green is currently working on an expansive internship program which he hopes will be the highlight of the business school at AU. Green’s goals are for the program to entail about 100 internships each year for his students, most at nearby companies and organizations. With a current enrollment of 400 in the business school, such an expansion could mean an internship for every fourth year business student at AU. Those goals mean the school will establish a point person as internship coordinator to act as a liaison between the school and the business community, help to recruit new businesses to the internship program, and assist in matching AU student to those opportunities.

“We want to present our students to organizations in a way that helps,” Green said. “Internships allow a company to make a modest investment in training, and receive in return a person who is educated, nearly done with school, and eager to get started.” It also gives the organization a chance to preview a potential employee before making a full-blown commitment to hiring.

“There’s a real win there for businesses.” he said.

Green said that while other area schools have invested a great deal of time and money in such business services as on-site education, consultation and exclusive certificate programs for corporations, he is confident that Aurora has found its niche.

“Other schools, like Waubonsee, do a lot of training and on-site development. They do it well and that’s great,” he said. “But we needed to define ourselves as something different, and we really wanted to stay true to ourselves.

“It’s a different kind of benefit to businesses than you might see from some of the other schools in the area,” he said, “but a way for a solid business school to make as contribution.”

To subscribe to the weekly Sales Institute newsletter, email Shawn Green, director of the Dunham School of Business at sgreen@aurora.edu

For information on the HR Institute, a schedule of monthly meetings and topics, Contact Vince Pellettiere, 630-844-4894 or e-mail vpellett@aurora.edu.

September 17, 2007- lecture by Barbara Ehrenreich— “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America,” provides comments and context from her career as an observer of society and its impact on the American worker.