As they did last year, Richard Shriver, Anthony Grina and Bruce MacDonald are team teaching the ECLA Business Seminars this Spring. Each instructor leads a different phase of the thirteen-day programme, which introduces students to the business and entrepreneurial skills needed to be successful in either the not-for-profit or for-profit world. In phase I, Shriver provides students with an overview of the programme and a basic foundation in business. Grina teaches finance and business planning in phase II and MacDonald instructs students in marketing communications in phase III.
In addition to the teaching team, several guests lecturers have provided insights into the real world of business, including Andreas Krebs, managing director of Wyeth Pharma GmBH, who spoke on, ‘Challenge, Charisma, Change – Leadership makes the Difference’.
Most participants select their individual or team project long before the first seminar. Over the course of the programme, this initial idea is developed into a hypothetical but realistic business plan as students implement their classroom learning. The final presentations of business plans take place on Friday, April 7, and reflect the programme’s main theme, ‘How to Make a Profit – or – How to Make a Difference’. Ludwig Kannicht (Germany) took the business seminars because he hopes to expand his existing website development business, ‘Luline’. Maria Ituarte (PY 2006, Mexico) is discovering how one would start an NGO to promote cultural exchanges between Mexico and Germany.
The participants are mainly students currently enrolled at ECLA. In addition, the group includes one ECLA alumna, Theresa Li Han (ISU 2004, China), and five others who have had no prior association with ECLA.