Smith Business magazine-summer24-paperturn - Flipbook - Page 37
DEAN’S REPORT
Nourishing the Minds of
Future Business Leaders
Elite Smith program wraps up a successful second year
Smith Business Leadership
Fellows (SBLF), a 昀氀agship
program for top students,
just wrapped up its second
successful year.
Introduced in 2022,
SBLF gives fellows the
opportunity to explore bigpicture questions related
to the future of themselves,
business and society
during their freshman and
sophomore years.
“The students interact
with thought leaders—
faculty who do cutting-edge
research, business leaders
and entrepreneurs,” says
SBLF faculty co-director
Rajshree Agarwal.
Keola Evans, Class of ’26,
an international business
and marketing major, enjoys
meeting these professionals:
“It allows me to hear from
successful business people,
and see the progression of
their careers.”
rhsmith-editor@umd.edu
Fellows undertake
deep introspection to
discover their ‘why,’ even
as they look externally at
organizations for whom
they may eventually work.
“We want students
to think about what’s
important to them and to
昀椀nd an organization that
has those same values
so they can help solve
problems that are not just
meaningful to them, but
also to that business,” says
Christine Schaaf, SBLF
faculty co-director.
Marketing major
Therman Hawkins III,
Class of ’26, learned “how
leaders use empathy,
honesty and trust to propel
them to the top.” Such
purposeful leadership is
a hallmark reason for the
creation of SBLF.
The program also
promotes experiential
learning: Students work
on team-based consulting
projects to solve realworld problems and grand
challenges—a pillar in the
school’s strategic plan.
“I’ve been exposed to
topics during my 昀椀rst year
of college that I probably
would have overlooked were
it not for SBLF,” says 昀椀nance
major Margarita Salazar,
Class of ’27.
Mentorship and
community-building are
also woven into the program,
which many alumni say
they wish they’d had when
they were at Smith. SBLF
exempli昀椀es innovation and
creativity and demonstrates
how the school is reimagining education to
position our future business
leaders for success.
“It is a true honor to work
with these exceptional
students,” Agarwal says.
I’ve been
exposed to topics
during my 昀椀rst
year of college
that I probably
would have
overlooked were
it not for SBLF.
—Margarita Salazar,
Class of ’27
Finance major,
SBLF fellow