NIU brings excitement of 'The Apprentice' to the classroom

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DeKALB - For most students, an "F" in a class means: You failed. For a select group of marketing students at Northern Illinois University this semester, however, it will stand for: "You're fired!" While "The Donald" himself will not utter those dreaded words, the class is inspired by NBC's hit television show "The Apprentice," which showcased mogul Donald Trump in his search for a young go-getter to direct part of his business empire. For those competing in The NIU Marketing Apprentice Class, the prize will be $1,000 scholarships awarded to all members of the winning team. "The Apprentice" was a hit among business students at the NIU College of Business college last spring, said Denise Schoenbachler, chair of the Marketing Department. So, when her son, Brett (a junior finance major), and his classmate Liz Siegel (a junior marketing major), suggested a class modeled on the show, the faculty quickly saw the value of the idea as a motivator. "We liked the idea, because it will provide challenges that regular classes simply can't," Schoenbachler said. "It will require students to work under pressure and, in the end, we hope that it also instills in them the notion that business can be fun." To ensure the academic integrity of the class, each of the tasks assigned to the teams will focus on an area of marketing specifically covered in the college's curriculum. "Each of the tasks will require them to apply skills that they have learned in classes. It will give them an opportunity to see how theory can be put into practice. You don't really learn something until you actually do it, and this gives them that opportunity," said marketing professor Carol DeMoranville, who is team teaching the class with marketing professor Elisa Fredericks. The class also will provide some real world experience for a group of communication majors who will film the activities of each team as it completes its projects, creating weekly videos that will be scrutinized to help determine which players will be "fired" each week. They also will create a weekly recap of the class that will be broadcast on the campus cable television channel. The first session of the class met Aug. 23, and the class will run through Oct. 4. Divided into four teams of four, competing in two divisions, students will tackle a series of tasks, each based on different aspects of marketing that they have studied in their classes. The tasks will fall into the broad categories of marketing research, fund-raising, advertising and sales. The nature of each task will remain secret until each assignment is made. Teams will be given one to two weeks to complete each task. In Week 1, the teams were charged with creating a marketing research questionnaire to assess student awareness of academic integrity, cheating and plagiarism, measure the prevalence of such activities and gauge student attitudes toward those behaviors. The winning surveys may be administered to students at the college and if found effective, will be made available to other colleges and universities. More information on each task as it is announced can be found at www.cob.niu.edu/-apprentice/update_2.asp. Students will meet formally once a week, on Monday nights, where their work will be reviewed by alums of NIU's College of Business. Those alums, in consultation with professors teaching the class, will determine the winning team in each division. The alumni will then meet with each losing team to review its performance and discuss what player team members believe should be let go. Based upon that input and the video of the week's task, the alumni will select one player from each losing team who will be "fired." Students eliminated in earlier rounds will receive lower grades than those who progress, but will continue to participate in facets of the class and will have an opportunity to raise their grades through extra-credit assignments. All students who are "fired" also will go through a debriefing with a faculty member to discuss what they could have done to improve their performance. When only eight players remain, the group will be reconfigured into two new teams of four and will compete in a final round where they will be required to complete a demanding, comprehensive marketing task. Based on those efforts, a winning team will be selected. More information on the class can be found online at www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/. THE PLAYERS The 16 students competing were selected from a pool of 30 applicants. The finalists are all upperclassmen selected by marketing faculty. 4-Grand includes Justin Mamula of Downers Grove, Justin Gress of DeKalb, Amy Koscielski of Cary and David Haas of Glen Ellyn. A-Chievers includes Michael Sterczek of Orland Park, Paula Bandy of DeKalb, Jennifer Bray Hoganson of Villa Park and Jason Flesher of Hampshire. Impression includes Emily Grobe of Ottawa, Lisa Vicicondi of Wheaton, Nicole Heyob of Kaneville and Colleen Anderson of Arlington Heights. Odyssey Corp. includes Matthew Glucksmann of St. Charles, Robert Oaf of Johnsburg, Chris Robb of Lemont and Jonathan Van Plew of Wheaton. Biographies of each student can be found at www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/players.asp. THE TRUMPS Three successful alumni of the NIU College of Business - Joe Cullinane, Dean DeBiase and Myron Siegel - have agreed to fill the role occupied by Donald Trump on the television version of "The Apprentice." Cullinane and DeBiase (who both graduated from NIU with marketing degrees in 1980) are old college friends and friendly rivals. They will oversee the early rounds of the game. Cullinane, of Geneva, is Chairman & CEO of Joe Cullinane Inc. He will oversee the Silicon Prairie Group. He is the author of the book, "21st Century Selling," and his professional accomplishments include serving as founder and CEO of the Telum Group Inc. (a Silicon Valley consulting firm), various executive positions with Diversified Software Systems Inc. and executive and sales positions with companies such as Xerox Corporation and NCR Corporation. DeBiase, of Lake Forest, will oversee the Silicon Valley team. Among his professional accomplishments are serving as CEO of the ImagiNation Network (an online gaming and messaging network) and working as a member of the executive team at AOL during the late 1990s. Later, as CEO of AutoWeb, he steered that company through an $80 million IPO. Today he directs Start-Up Partners, a growth strategy and interim leadership group. Acting as the ultimate Trump sit-in, overseeing the final round of competition, will be Myron Siegel of Bannockburn. He received his finance/accounting degree from NIU in 1974. Today he is president of Myron E. Siegel & Associates Ltd., where he negotiates the complex acquisition of non-core business operations from larger corporations, which he then sells to others or operates himself. Siegel's business dealings have taken him across the United States, Western Europe and the Far East, where he has dealt with an array of Fortune 500 companies in industries as diverse as confections, plastic packaging, fire protection and technology. Siegel also serves as a trustee on the NIU Board of Trustees and sits on the boards of many privately held companies. More information on the "Trumps" can be found online at www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/trumps.asp. THE FILM CREWS Chronicling the activities of each team will be a two-person crew of communication majors who will film their activities, creating a weekly video that will be used to help evaluate the efforts of each team. A two-person film crew is assigned to each of the four competing teams. They are considered a part of those teams and their charge is to show the team's activity in the best possible light. Like other members of the team, the film crew is required to vote on whom they believe should be removed should their team lose during a given week. While the film crews will not be competing for scholarships, the work will count toward grades, said Laura Vazquez, a professor in the Department of Communication who teaches media theory and production courses. "It's a very interesting project for our students," Vazquez said. "I think we forget how powerful this kind of video can be. I want the students to understand the power that they hold in their hands." The filming schedules will be grueling, Vazquez admits, and the turnaround times to deliver a finished product will be brief, but those are the elements of the project that provide the film students with the same sort of real-world experience the business students will receive. "I want my students to go out into the world knowing what the business is like, and in media you frequently work long and late hours, so it's OK for them to learn that here," she said. The weekly videos will be made available online. The teams' efforts also will be aired on the campus cable television station. Communication students working on the project are graduate assistants Kristie Woodin and Neal Cervone and undergraduates Jeff Berger, Adam Amidei, Chaz Wilke, Brian Rich, Axel Hazelrig, Keri Hofer, Rob Stern and Craig Cowan. The film students also will shoot the weekly "board meetings," where the performance of team members will be evaluated and one will be "fired." Those meetings will be broadcast live to a nearby classroom where friends and faculty will be watching. Biographies of the film crew members can be found at www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/videographers.asp and their work is showcased at www.cob.niu.edu/apprentice/video.asp. THE SPONSORS The scholarships that will be awarded to the winning team ($1,000 each) and the second-place team ($500 each) are made possible through the support of individuals and businesses that have agreed to sponsor the project. To date, those sponsors include Myron Siegel, Joe Cullinane, Forest Financial Group, Lower Electric and Millward Brown.