A few weeks ago I graduated from Weatherhead’s MBA program. With that, my term as a Fowler Family Fellow comes to an end. (I also did my undergraduate studies at CWRU, so this is the first time in quite a while that I am not a CWRU student). I want to thank Chuck and Char Fowler for their support of the Center, which has made my work possible. I also want to thank Katherine Gullett and Chris Laszlo, (both of whom have also since left the center) for hiring me to work here, and the rest of the Fowler Center team, past and present, for the pleasure of working together.
These past couple of years, I’ve had the chance to do a few things to advance our mission of business as an agent of world benefit. Last year, I got to co-write the Weatherhead School of Management’s most recent PRME SIP Report. PRME, which is the acronym for Principles of Responsible Management Education, is a United Nations initiative to promote sustainability in schools of management. The Sharing Information on Progress (SIP) reports are prepared semi-annually.
Another thing I was thrilled to do was to help expand our program to move the Weatherhead school in the direction of being “0 waste to landfill.” In 2018, with the support of the Graduate Student Council and Office for Sustainability, and working with the Graduate Student Business Association, we were able to make the school’s annual Weatherheadless Halloween party Zero Waste. This spring, the school’s Casino Night was also 0 Waste, thanks to our venue, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. We hope in the future, all events will be. I also got to help the Center expand the K-Cup recycling program launched by my predecessor, Alec Simon.
After writing about, and editing other students’ articles about, business as an agent of world benefit for the past two years, I am excited now to actually practice it. Right now I am raising funds for a startup that is preparing a process that will make clean energy cheaper and more widely available by cutting the cost and installation time for large solar photovoltaic arrays.
This is my goodbye letter, but it isn’t really goodbye, at least I hope not. I hope to continue working to promote sustainability with the University and the Weatherhead School as an alum.