What professors hope you’ll take with you when you graduate

What do UNC Kenan-Flagler professors want every student to leave with when they graduate? We asked management and corporate communication professor Tim Flood and Jim Spaeth, executive director of the Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Studies. Here’s what they had to say.

What do we want students to leave UNC Kenan-Flagler with?

Tim Flood coaching a team of MBAs.

We want you to leave UNC Kenan-Flagler with a sense that you belong to a community of people who have, during the course of your MBA studies, cared about you, invested in you, instilled in you all the knowledge, experience and expertise that we can, supported you in your endeavors and helped you find new paths to follow – and that our community will carry on with you infinitely after graduation.

One of our greatest joys is to hear from former students – even years and years after graduation – who reach out with questions or to reconnect. They reach out as friends and equals, not with any formality or stiffness, because they remember that we’re all one big family and know we’ll remember them.

We want you to leave with an appreciation for why we work extraordinarily hard to fundamentally engage students in the material – so that as graduates you have a deep appreciation for application, not just theory.

Jim Spaeth with MBA Real Estate students

We want our students to have the skills and knowledge to do a great job and positively impact the world in some way – all fueled by the assurance that you’ve grown as leaders and, through heightened self-awareness, are capable of developing far beyond your initial expectations.

We’ve never doubted the heft and rigor of our academics, but most every day we revel in the whole-person leadership development we focus on here at UNC Kenan-Flagler. Will you be full of new knowledge when you leave here? Certainly. Will you leave more informed and with an enlightened sense of who you are as a colleague, leader and agent for amazing change? That’s equally assured.

The success of our School – and our graduates – depends on all of us doing our best and giving the most we can, both inside and way beyond the classroom. And just as the benefits of your UNC Kenan-Flagler MBA don’t end at graduation, neither do your responsibilities. We want you – empowered and emboldened by your experience in Chapel Hill – to lead and contribute in whatever communities you go off to. But we also want you to give back to our community, too. Keep in touch, support the students who come after you, keep the feedback coming and involve yourself however you can. Be a guest speaker for a class, participate on a panel at an event, volunteer as a career mentor – there’s a long list of ways to stay involved.

Represent and celebrate the Carolina brand as part of who you are, and let who you are help us shape the way ahead. Know that our Tar Heel spirit depends on you for its continued awesomeness. So far, our story has been wonderfully rich, vibrant, complex and real – because of the people who’ve come before you. Know that each class continues and builds upon that long and auspicious tradition in all sorts of ways. Rest assured that together, we can continue to build on The Carolina Way to have an even more incredible future unfold ahead.

One last thought:  If you want a short answer, don’t ask a real estate guru and a communication professor! ?