The flashing multicolored lights of the electronic stock ticker suspended from a hallway ceiling announce the new College of Business Operations and Finance Center in the Providence Xavier Academic Complex.

The center simulates a Wall Street environment. Split into a classroom and a conference room, it’s loaded with state-of-the-art components: new computers with Morningstar™ software, three large, flat-screen televisions airing financial news and a data board with real-time stock and securities information. Instructors can use a Smart Board to write on while also viewing a website or PowerPoint presentation. The conference room is soundproof so meetings can be held during classes.

According to Assistant Professor Tim Howes, who teaches finance courses, “The idea is to have an interactive center for both operations and finance … recognizing the relationship between those fields of study and the necessity for having financially articulate operations students and finance students who understand business operations.”

The tech-packed center gives students a real-world setting to prepare for careers. “It brings a feel of importance and professionalism into the classroom,” said Briana Raymond ’10, who took two courses there. It is also used for speakers, events and meetings. The American Product and Inventory Control Society Providence Chapter uses it for professional training, and in return trains JWU students at no cost.

“I think it gives them [students] a real-world example of what they’re going to be dealing with day in and day out,” said David Brochu, president and founding partner of StrategicPoint Investment Advisors, in Providence. JWU trustee and member of the COB advisory committee, Brochu helped shape the center. “It is hard to understand finance until you are in it … This gives them an opportunity to get out of the theory and into the reality of it.”
email > thowes@jwu.edu

Doors Open for Civil Servants
In September 2009, the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service reported that the federal government was expected to hire nearly 273,000 new workers over the following three years. Shenise Foster ’05 is one of many employed by the federal government who has watched the number of openings rise.

She began her civil service career as an intern with the Department of the Army in the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Installation Services Directorate — Housing Division, in Washington, D.C. She helps find housing for servicemen and women and civilian staff around the world. To make her job clearer for herself and future interns, she developed a standard operating procedures manual. “From there they decided to keep me on,” Foster says. Later, she created an online presence and community outreach by developing a Facebook page and maintaining sites like militaryonesource.com  and myarmyonesource.com  that provide housing and community information on child care, libraries, schools and other pertinent topics.

“The favorite part of my job is being able to create something that hasn’t been created before,” says Foster. She appreciates the government’s practice of allowing employees to work in areas of personal interest and providing cross training.
email > sheniseleigh@hotmail.com

Image top: Students listen to a roundtable discussion on the current economy led by David Mitchell, PhD, left, in the new College of Business Operations and Finance Center in Xavier Hall on the Providence Campus.

Image bottom: Shenise Foster ’05 takes in the scenery at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii