News in Brief

McDonough School of Business Launches Alumni Mentor Program

The McDonough School of Business kicked off its Young Mentor Program in Copley Formal Lounge last Thursday with a dinner event that matched alumni mentors to current MSB students.

Initiated by the co-presidents of the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, Christopher King (MSB ’08) and Julia Damelio (MSB ’08), and alumnus James Gregoire (MSB ’04), YAMP was developed to bring young MSB alumni back to work with current MSB undergraduates in order “to prepare them for future success in the business world by providing them advice, guidance, and networking opportunities,” according to the YAMP mission statement.

“This program fulfills the need of students to receive guidance and advice on careers and the recruiting process from those alumni who have recently and successfully gone through it,” King said. “In addition, it dually fulfills the need of encouraging and soliciting alumni involvement with the school.”

Each alumni mentor was assigned four to five MSB students, whom he or she will work with for the remainder of the year, keeping in touch via e-mail and phone. Additionally, they will meet with students at least twice a semester to provide academic, professional and social advice to students.

“The type of guidance [the alumni] can provide will be immensely useful for students who have yet to determine the right academic or career interests and even for those who have,” Gregoire said. A group of predominantly young, local alumni of the undergraduate MSB program were chosen to be mentors. They come from a variety of business fields including investment banking, consulting, marketing, law and corporate finance, and they hail from well-known companies such as IBM Consulting, Merrill Lynch, Comedy Central, Oracle and the World Bank.

The program is open to sophomores and juniors with good academic standing in the MSB. Students are allowed to apply yearly and applications will be available for the fall semester.

— Avni Mehta

The article “McDonough School of Business Launches Alumni Mentor Program” (THE HOYA, Jan. 29, 2008, A5) mistakenly reported that James Gregoire (MSB ’04) graduated in 2003.