This past week, Ambassador Barbara Barrett held the Tri’s first Town Hall meeting regarding the current state of the school. Thunderbird is currently seeing MBA enrollments on the decline that has been extending financial pressures on our school. Ambassador Barrett expressed to the students that Thunderbird is rising to meet these growing challenges. “Now, is a time for leadership.” Over the rest of this trimester, Thunderbird will be playing home to many distinguished guests. Some donors who volunteer their time are going to be here this coming week—Monday for Alumni, Tuesday for the Global Council, Wednesday and Thursday for the Board of Trustees. This month we will also receive a visit from Maelanne Verveer, the ambassador at large on women’s issues and chief of staff for Hilary Clinton as well as welcoming Laura Bush in January of 2013! Make sure you all take the time to introduce yourselves and get to know these distinguished individuals.
Life is what you make of it. Thunderbird is full of opportunity but it is up to its students to make of it what they will. The Thunderbird curriculum transformation team is holding focus groups to try and modify to meet the needs of our school. Throughout our university, we still have seen incredible growth. TEM Lab hours put in so far is over 13,000 hours of consulting with nine languages of thought. There were 494 students who studied abroad last year, 100,000 copies of Thunderbird cases sold, and 300 are by our distinguished professors. This school is all about you—the students. Make sure you are seeking your experiences out; they won’t come to your doorstep; you must go find them.