Ursula Olender, director of Amherst’s Career Center, hopes the Starwood case study will be the first of many similar efforts between the college and alumni.
“I think we could replicate this model in other fields,” she says, from health care, to the arts, to science and technology, to education, to law. She imagines, for example, students doing research for an alumni-headed nonprofit in cooperation with the college’s Center for Community Engagement.
“I hope this story motivates other alums to think big about how to get involved with our students,” Olender says.
In turn, Starwood CEO Frits van Paasschen ’83 views the case study as just the beginning of his relationship with the Career Center. His company is already thinking about possible case study topics for next year.