Organizational Management -- A Community Experience
By Christie Anderson
Director, Organizational Management

On a recent Tuesday night the Whitworth Continuing Studies staff got together with the organizational management program's Cohort 15 to celebrate the completion of their classes. We do this every six months: have dinner and listen to the students share memories of the just-completed year-and-a-half of intense study. We also get to hear their exciting plans for the future. This is always a bittersweet time for me because, although the rest of the staff and I have been inspired by the amazing intellectual growth we have witnessed, and though we're humbled by being a part of this phenomenon of transformation, we are never ready for it to be over. And yet (surprisingly, to me) these students are giddy with the new opportunities available to them that don't seem to include us. Once more we wished a group farewell and began watching our mailboxes for news from them. And the news trickles in -- of new jobs, promotions, life changes, and sadly, even deaths. We remain a community that reaches far beyond the classroom, and we share in the rejoicing and mourning that accompany these bits of information that return to us.

Organizational management students have more opportunities than ever before to gain management skills through several new business electives offered by Whitworth in the Evening. One popular course is Project Management, which supplements the curriculum of organizational management with the specific tools to supervise special projects. This spring, several students are registered for four courses in human-resource management, designed to prepare them for careers in all areas of the field. The variety of business courses available to evening students continues to expand to offer a broader exposure to management theory and application.

A group of our students is organizing a golf tournament this spring in memory of Terry Brousseau. Terry was a member of Cohort 14. I liked to call him the "Mayor of Continuing Studies" because he touched so many lives in Cohort 14 and in every other course he took here. He held student-leadership positions at Spokane Community College and volunteered his time for the City of Spokane as chair of the Human Services Advisory Board. Terry died suddenly last fall, and his friends have begun to work together to put on this event, with the goal of raising money to honor Terry's commitment to adult education with scholarships for evening students. This proves yet again that the students, faculty and staff of Whitworth in the Evening truly do form a community that extends far beyond the walls of Hawthorne Hall. Please watch for an opportunity to participate in our golf tournament and in our community.

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