January 2007

Welcome

Welcome to the January edition of the Michigan Campus alumni e-newsletter   We are entering a busy time of the year for the alumni department.  We just held our annual reception at the Detroit Auto Show at which over 100 alumni & friends were in attendance.  We are also holding alumni & friend receptions at the NADA Convention and the Chicago and Cleveland Auto Shows; these are coming up soon so be sure to review the Alumni Events Calendar for detailed information. 

Just added to the Northwood University homepage are Northwood e-cards and wallpaper.   The e-cards are a great way to send an old classmate a quick hello and the wallpaper is the perfect way to display what a proud alumni you are.  Check them out at www.northwood.edu.      

I have met a countless number of alumni in my almost 4 months here as the Director of Alumni Relations for the Michigan Campus.  Meeting all of you reaffirms the reason why I am so excited to be in this position working with my fellow alumni.  You are truly passionate about your Northwood education and excited to get back involved with the university.  I look forward to meeting and working with more of you every day!

Julie Felske
Class of ‘01
Director of Alumni Relations
Felske@northwood.edu

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What's New on the Michigan Campus

Please click on the links below for the most recent press releases.              

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Did you know?

Northwood’s Hometown, Midland, named “100 Best Communities for Young People”

It was announced in January that Northwood University’s hometown of Midland, Michigan, is a winner of a national competition to identify the 100 Best Communities for Young People.  The announcement was made by America’s Promise – the Alliance for Youth.  In partnership with Capital One, the 100 Best competition honors communities ranging from small towns to urban neighborhoods across America for their commitment to provide healthy, safe, and caring environments for young people. 

 The taped testimonial of Northwood junior and Midland native, Christopher Deming also helped Midland to win the award.  During his interview Chris noted that he was born, raised and schooled and Midland and now attends college here.  He said, “This gives me a different perspective…Midland has a number of foundations and organizations that constantly and actively involve high school and college-age students, elementary students, anyone they can get their hands on.  They work with community leaders, administrators, and elected officials – any number of people to get things off the ground.  Northwood University is a great mode of involvement for people because the students at Northwood comprise a huge number of people in the community. 

America’s Promise Founding Chairman General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.) said, “Nothing is more important than seeing that our children and youth have the resources and support systems they need to thrive and succeed.”  He continued, “When a community provides all that its young people need to be healthy and secure, they deserve to be honored and showcased as an outstanding example of what it takes to successfully nurture this nation’s young people.”

Pease click on the link below for the complete press release and video clips:
http://www.northwood.edu/promisBack to Top

What's New in Student Services

First of all, student services would like to thank the following Alumni for judging in our Annual Coming Home Competition the week of January 22, 2007.

  • Rodrigo and Roberta Barassi
  • Bridgette Bridget
  • Michelle Gricar
  • Marylynn Forgash

January was a fun month with our Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, Coming Home 2007, our first ever Sibling Weekend and many volunteer opportunities such as blood drives and reading to elementary students about Martin Luther King Jr.  Don’t forget we are in the midst of housing sign up and getting ready for freshmen orientation!  As always, please let us know if you are interested in getting involved and volunteering at any of our student events, we have something going on every week here at NU!   

CAREER ASSISTANCE CENTER

S.E. Michigan Career Expo
As a graduate or current student of Northwood University, you are cordially invited to attend our S.E. Michigan Career Expo.  This event is sponsored by the Career Assistance Center.
DATE:        Tuesday, April 17, 2007
TIME:         3:00 – 7:00 PM
PLACE:      City of Troy Community Center
                    3179 Livernois
                    Troy, MI 48083

Alumni
If you are looking for a job or a new career opportunity, please join us.  For the most up-to-date listing of employers scheduled to visit us please follow this link: http://www.northwood.edu/apps/careers/list.asp?fair=21 and click on the Registered Companies List.  This list is updated daily, so please check back often.

Employers
If you are looking to add quality employees to your staff, we would love to have you!  The S.E. Michigan Career Expo is FREE OF CHARGE to employers!  We will provide a table and a tablecloth at your request.  Electricity is available on a limited basis.  Please follow this link to register today: https://www.northwood.edu/apps/careers/addcompany.aspx?fair=21

If you have any questions regarding the Career Expo or any of our other services please contact us.  Best wishes from your Michigan Campus Career Assistance Center!

Kim, Chris, Jenny and Tiffany
Career Services
NORTHWOOD UNIVERSITY
989.837.4320 - Direct
989.837.4499 - Fax
kinne@northwood.edu

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What's New in Athletics

Both Northwood basketball teams competing for a chance to reach the GLIAC Tournament highlight the athletic department’s news.  The women’s team is currently 9-10 overall and one game out of the last spot in the tournament.  Senior guard Sara Bilunes recently reached the 1,000 point mark for her career.  The men’s team has eight wins on the season and is two games behind for a position in the tournament field.  Sophomore guard Aaron Simpson currently ranks fifth in the GLIAC in scoring at 16.6 points per game.  Also in action are the Northwood track and field teams, who have set a total of five school records in their first two indoor events of the season.  In tennis news, freshman Ashley Neumann will compete at the Dow Corning Tennis Classic in Midland.  She is the second Northwood player in program history to compete in this professional event (Carina Kaempfer).

Northwood Basketball Alumni Event a Success
On, Saturday, January 27, 2007, 30 NU basketball alumni arrived on campus to attend the 1st annual Northwood University Basketball Alumni Game.  After the conclusion of the Men’s and Women’s games on Saturday, 12 of the alumni played a 1/2 hour game, Light Blue vs. Navy Blue.  After the games everyone headed to a catered reception at Oscar’s in downtown Midland where many additional friends and family joined us for food, drink and fellowship.

Please contact the basketball office at 989.837.4384 of via email at Hargraves@northwood.edu for information on next year’s event.

Basketball Photo

Listen to Northwood Basketball LIVE on the internet
http://www.northwood.edu/mi/athletics/

Northwood Athletic Hall of Fame Nomination Forms Available
 Nominations for the Hall of Fame are now being accepted.  Send in your completed forms or fax them to the Northwood University Athletic Office at (989) 837-4484.

Hall of Fame (PDF)

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What's New in Academics

You are Invited to the Family Business Forum

You are invited to attend the Family Business Forum on February 17, 2007, presented by the highly successful Northwood University Entrepreneurship Society!  We are proud to welcome our keynote speaker, Sandy Crowley Schwartz, CEO of Lyle Industries in Beaverton, Michigan. 

Please join us for a few hours of intellectual discussion.  The topics include:
Best Family Business Practices
New Technologies
Succession Planning
Next Generation as Agents of Change  
Roles of Non-Family Managers
CEO Spouses and Parents

We are currently seeking Family business managers to join our students in their workshops!

If you have any questions, or would like to RSVP please contact department chair Joe Rousseau at  rousseau@northwood.edu

Fashion Marketing and Management

Preparation for our bi-annual trip to Europe is currently taking place. Visits through London, Paris and an extensive study at the LDT fashion school in Nagold, Germany make for a well rounded perspective of the fashion capitals in Europe. Trips to New York in the fall and the MAGIC Tradeshow in spring of ’08 also help to strengthen the experiential learning opportunities for our students.

Students have also been able to express themselves creatively through Mannequin Modeling Night as well as reach out to the community through the Riverside Project, the American Business Women’s Association and The Rock Youth Center. All of these opportunities give students experience in community service while being able to exercise their expertise in the apparel industry.

As we continue to grow and develop this program, connections with the alumni become more and more critical. With enrollment growing to over 100 students, new curriculum changes, a strong advisory board and improved placement for both internships and employment, the FMM program has truly made strides to becoming one of the best fashion programs in the state. With your support this program will continue to make great improvements for our current and future students. Please do not hesitate to contact the department with feedback about the program and your experiences as a FMM alum. Together we can make this program better than ever before.

Jill L. Ouellette
Chair, Fashion Marketing and Management
ouellette@northwood.edu

Advertising
The Advertising curriculum has been growing by leaps and bounds; we are nearing 200 students in our major! Our chapter of the American Advertising Federation has also grown immensely in the past few years, and this year’s case study is Coca-Cola Classic. The annual National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) will be held April 20th   at the Westin Hotel in Southfield, MI.

Mr. Cleary has taken groups of students to Paris and London twice in the last year! This has really given our Advertising students an amazing opportunity to learn about the cultural differences between American and European advertising. We owe many thanks to Steve Madincea for this opportunity. Mr. Madincea, a Northwood Alumni, set up presentations at many prestigious agencies in Paris and London for both trips.

Mr. Cleary will be taking students on a similar mini down to tour the Detroit agencies from March 5th – 9th .On March 8th  Mr. Cleary is planning to schedule a semi-reunion for students and any alumni. It will be set up as a meet and greet event at 8:30 in Birmingham at Dick O’Dows. This will be a great networking event for Northwood students and Alumni, hope to see you all there!  Please contact Julie Felske for more information at Felske@northwood.edu.

Banking and Finance Curriculum
“How can our Banking & Finance students develop an ‘unfair competitive advantage’?”

That’s the focus we have in trying to help our students become more successful.  We want students ours are competing against to see that our B&F students are better prepared than the competition, and ready to add more value to their employers.

One of the ways we have started to do this is by developing a Banking & Finance Department Mission statement, emphasizing the goals we have for our B&F students:

  • Skilled at, and having the initiative in:
    •   finding and fixing problems    
    •   by influencing decision making processes
    •   with full understanding and appreciation of financial ramifications
  • Possess strong financial logic, reasoning, and critical thinking skills
  • Ability to listen attentively and effectively communicate their understanding in oral, written, and presentation formats
  • Prepared for certification programs
    • E.g., CFP®, CFA, Securities (Series 7, +) exams
  • Possess practical application skills of financial concepts, techniques, and tools, including state-of-the-art technology tools

We look to our faculty, full-time and adjunct alike to possess certain skills/traits as well:

  • We want to attract and retain faculty (adjunct and full-time) that are:
    • Inspired and inspirational
    • Technologically up-to-date
    • Grounded in practical experience and application
    • Focused on teaching rather than research
    • Comfortable with tangential/related disciplines
      • Accounting
      • Economics
      • Strategy
      • Other

Our program is probably not for everyone…. Maybe just those students who want that “unfair competitive advantage”!!!
“ We always like to hear from our alumni and would thoroughly enjoy hearing how YOU think we can add more value to our student’ learning experiences…”

Mark J. Minbiole
Chair: Department of Banking & finance
Northwood University
mjminbio@northwood.edu

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Eye on Business

The purpose of the Eye on Business section is to provide you with interesting websites to add to your “favorites” on your computers, as well as to provide you with key economic data at a glance.

CEOExpress : http://www.ceoexpress.com
Detroit Economic Club : http://www.econclub.org

  Present – January 30, 2007  Previous Year – January 30, 2006 
Dow Jones Industrial Average 12,523.31 10,899.92
NASDAQ 2,448.64 2,306.78
Price of Crude Oil ($ per barrel) 56.73 58.06
Price of Gold 652.3 503.4
Prime Interest Rate 8.25 6.75
Average Home Mortgage Rate 6.25 6.15
Value of U.S. $ relative to Euro 0.7710 0.8324
Value of U.S. $ relative to Yen 121.66 115.71
U.S. Budget Deficit 248 Billion 319 Billion
Quarterly GDP 13,308.3 billion 12,573.5 billion

 

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Save the Date!

Upcoming Events

February 3 – Alumni Reception at NADA Convention in Las Vegas
February 4 – Dealer Education Awards Breakfast at NADA
February 8 – Northwood Night at Midland Tennis Center
February 9 – Alumni Reception at Chicago Auto Show
February 13 – Euchre Tournament (on campus at NADA Center)
February 24 – Northwood Night at Saginaw Spirit Game

Save the Date - Upcoming Events Calendar

Please click here for upcoming events: Alumni Events Calendar

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Feedback

Your suggestions and feedback are vital in our planning of this newsletter and our alumni events and services.  Please complete the online feedback form by clicking on the following link: 

Online Feedback form

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Northwood University
Alumni Office
4000 Whiting Drive
Midland, Michigan 48640
Toll free: 800.622.1007
alumni@northwood.edu