Fall 2010: The Undergrad Issue

The Millennials, or Generation Y, are the most connected generation in history, thanks to technology. They are globally aware, socially conscious, entrepreneurial and driven individuals. They want an interactive educational experience, not just textbook instruction. And they are our students.

In this issue of the Baylor Business Review, we focus on the very reason the Hankamer School of Business exists: our undergraduate students.

You will be introduced to a few of these students and read about unique programs, student organizations and outstanding learning environments: the Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center, the Curb Learning Lab for Music & Entertainment Marketing, and the CNL Real Estate Learning Lab. This fall, we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of Hankamer’s Center for Professional Selling, which was the first university-based professional sales center in the nation and continues to be a pioneer in sales education.

You will read about experiential learning opportunities, such as Uproar Records, our student-run record label. Some of our Management Information Systems students visited with American investment icon Warren Buffett in Nebraska and Accounting students traveled to Uganda for their second annual departmental mission trip.

So, from the outside looking in, we hope you gain an understanding of and appreciation for our current undergraduate students and the culture of Hankamer, which remains a distinguishing factor in the education of our future business leaders.

Terry S. Maness
Dean, Hankamer School of Business

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010

The Hankamer School of Business Undergraduate Experience

by Eric Krell

When Terry Maness, dean of the Hankamer School of Business, describes Baylor University’s latest active-learning offering – an alliance with SAP that familiarizes students with one of the business world’s most prevalent enterprise software systems – he uses a phrase that captures the value of the entire undergraduate Hankamer experience.

“We’re interested in giving students real-world applications,” Maness emphasizes, “rather than strictly having them learn from textbooks.”

A diverse collection of hands-on learning opportunities – which include managing a $4.6 million investment fund, operating a record label, running a call center, weighing early-stage investment opportunities with angel investors, researching eco-businesses in the Dominican Republic, collaborating with Tsinghua University students, parsing current ethical issues with U.S. regulators at Baylor’s annual ethics conference and much more – support Maness’ claim that Hankamer distinguishes itself on the basis of a deep commitment to active, or engaged, learning.

Yet, the word “application” also points to a deeper quality, the underlying cultural software on which Hankamer operates. The School is coded to create a valuable output: professionals equipped with real-world experience and the moral fiber to make immediate positive contributions to the organizations they join upon graduation. Faculty attention and the student body’s character represent the killer apps in Hankamer’s system.

“The faculty really cares about our students,” Maness asserts, “and that’s something we prioritize when we recruit and hire professors.”

The investment in attention produces impressive returns, according to current students and recent graduates.

Todd Pollack, who was among the first Sports Sponsorship and Sales (S3) majors to graduate from Hankamer in 2006, currently serves as the San Francisco 49ers’ manager of ticketing and suites. He credits the S3 program’s pioneers, professors Kirk Wakefield and Darryl Lehnus, with “always being willing to take students’ advice while maintaining a firm sense of direction.”

The S3 program, Pollack adds, “does not work in theory, but in real-world situations – from role-playing to cold-calling to the internship [component]. It is everything employers look for. I am grateful for everything the program offered, and it was the launching point for what I expect to be a long, successful career.”

Majoring in Active Learning 

“We have such a broad offering of programs,” reports Mark Dunn, Hankamer’s associate dean for undergraduate programs and professor of Marketing, while discussing the school’s 24 business majors. “And that’s one of the qualities that makes the undergraduate experience so exciting.”

In addition to formal programs, Hankamer also attracts a high number of guest speakers, some of whom make a lasting impression, according to Jesus Rios, a 2010 graduate who majored in Accounting and Finance.

Rios met Ernst & Young LLP principal Steve Napier, who works in the firm’s valuation services division, at an accounting honor society banquet. “I was fascinated by what his work consisted of and knew that was the career I wanted to pursue,” Rios recalls. “He also talked about certain characteristics and habits that are necessary to be successful. Mr. Napier is currently my mentor and has given me guidance in preparing for my career.”

The following Hankamer programs, which feature prominently among a more comprehensive rundown of the School’s offerings(www.baylor.edu/business/undergraduate), support Dunn’s point.

Baylor Entrepreneurship Program

Launched in 1977, Baylor’s Entrepreneurship Program is one of the longest-running and most comprehensive (with 20 different undergraduate courses offerings) in the United States. The program was ranked 4th nationally by Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review in 2009.

“We provide a very broad set of skills as well as many specialized courses in areas such as family business, social entrepreneurship, technology entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurship and more,” notes professor Kendall Artz, who serves as director of the program and department chair of Management and Entrepreneurship.

The global component includes four international programs: Europe, Africa, China, and Latin America. In May, for example, students in the program traveled to Costa Rica for two weeks to analyze the impact of recent trade agreements on the Latin American country through discussions with business and political leaders and visits to factories and other businesses.

The program also features the Baylor Angel Network (BAN), an organization that enables students to collaborate with investors in scrutinizing quality seed and early-stage investment opportunities. Additionally, an Entrepreneurship Living-Learning Center provides an opportunity for entrepreneurially-minded students from all fields of study to live together (in facilities that include dedicated space and tools to develop student-led start-ups) and interact outside the classroom on a daily basis.

McBride Center for International Business

Established in 1992 to provide coordination and support for all of Baylor’s global activities, the McBride Center for International Business offers what its director, Herman Brown Professor of Economics Steve Gardner, describes as a “full spectrum of international immersion.”

These programs range from week-long international trips with Baylor classmates and professors to the United Kingdom to much more immersive semester-long abroad programs (taught in local languages) at universities in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and throughout the Western hemisphere.

In addition to overseeing the international programs and curriculum, and operating a range of study abroad programs, the McBride Center also provides global experiences on campus in Waco, through exchange relationships with leading universities around the world (including China’s Tsinghua University in Beijing) and through the Global Business Forum, an international conference held each spring semester.

BEST and Business Fellows

The Business Excellence and Scholarship Team (BEST) program and Baylor Business Fellows major provide high achievers with unique and flexible learning experiences.

The two-semester BEST experience, which accepts 25 to 30 students each year, resembles a strategic management honors program that includes consulting projects with private companies, other field case work and an international trip.

The Fellows major began in 2007 and serves as a polymath-friendly experience for bachelor’s of business administration (BBA) students who are drawn to flexibility in course selection inside and outside of the business school.

“This major is predicated on the notion that students who are individually motivated and/or who have a superior academic background thrive with greater flexibility,” notes Allen Seward, director of Baylor Business Fellows, department chair and associate professor of Finance and Insurance. “It allows students to pursue multiple majors and multiple minors.”

Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) and Music & Entertainment Marketing (M&E)

Both of these singular programs operate on a simple and valuable principle, according to their director, Marketing professor Kirk Wakefield: since generating revenue is the engine that runs music, entertainment and sports business, why not equip students with sales skills and real-world experience before they enter these businesses as professionals?

Students enrolled in the S3 program work for professional sports teams through internships and gain sales skills through an on-campus call center before they graduate. The program’s advisory board counts more than 25 executives from professional sports teams and sponsor companies around the country as members. Similarly, Music & Entertainment Marketing majors gain the chance to scout real musical talent, produce real CDs and conduct real marketing campaigns for their artists through Uproar Records, a record label run entirely by Hankamer students. Just ask Jillian Edwards, a Baylor student produced by Uproar who was subsequently signed by a prominent record label in Nashville.

The M&E program also features an advisory board brimming with entertainment companies (EMI, Word Records, Disney Studios, South by Southwest, and Live Nation to name only a few) that provide Hankamer students internships.

“We will get you in the door because of our advisory board members,” Wakefield notes. “And we will provide you with the experience and training you need to get a job.”

Investing in Faculty Attention

Pollack says he began his career, through an internship for the Los Angeles Kings, “purely based on the networking that Dr. Wakefield had conducted.” One month into the internship, a full-time sales position opened and Pollack received his first full-time job as a sports-marketing professional.

Similar accounts of faculty attention crop up regularly in conversations with current Hankamer students. Victoria Sanchez, the 2009-2010 Hankamer Student Organization president who will graduate with an Accounting major in 2011, describes her relationships with professors as the most fulfilling aspect of her educational experience.

As a freshman in an Introduction to Accounting course, senior lecturer Becky Jones spotted Sanchez’s passion for the discipline and nominated her for a KPMG internship program. “I never would have known about the program if she did not encourage me to apply for it,” says Sanchez, who expects to complete her third internship with KPMG next spring. “She also wrote my recommendation.”

As Maness emphasizes, hiring professors who place a priority on classroom teaching, interaction and mentorship represents a long-term administrative priority. By balancing that emphasis with providing faculty ample time to flex and sharpen their research skills, Hankamer boasts a very high faculty retention rate. “When we hire professors who are 35,” Maness notes, “we hope they will be here another 30 years.”

Treating Character as a Killer App

Faculty attention is part and parcel of what Dunn describes as Hankamer’s (and Baylor’s) “values-based” approach to education. In this sense, the faculty seeks to help foster a quality residence within the student body.

“Most students make a significant transition in their faith during their time as Baylor undergraduates,” Seward notes. “They take personal responsibility for their own faith. They’re also taking responsibility for their own lives, while learning how to balance complex schedules so that they are involved academically and also involved in responsible organizations off-campus. Giving back to their community is a priority for our students, and I think we do a pretty good job of providing those opportunities.”

Amy Wofford, who will graduate in 2011 with a double major in Entrepreneurship and Marketing, originally selected Baylor in part because of its Christian environment and wide range of extracurricular offerings. Since enrolling, Wofford has volunteered her time participating in backyard Bible clubs for at-risk children in Waco.

“Our students tend to be well-grounded,” Artz observes. “They have a relatively clear picture of how their lives fit in with the larger scope of the world in which they live. They make choices about their careers not just based on potential financial rewards but also based on their desire to make a positive difference in the world overall…I think that probably stems from their Christian heritage.”

Artz has also witnessed a growing interest in social entrepreneurship in the past decade. “There’s a greater philanthropic focus among students today compared to students of 10 to 15 years ago,” he reports. “And I think that may be a nationwide trend.”

Looking Ahead

Indeed, many current Hankamer students mention social entrepreneurship before they mention social media, which may strike some older readers as surprising. Asked to describe their use of social media, Rios and Wofford sound more like business veterans – “smart second movers” as opposed to over-eager early adopters.

“Although I love technology, I do not feel that social media is a big part of my life as a student,” notes Wofford, who maintains a Facebook account mainly to keep in touch with friends and family. “If I see in the next year or so that the current social media used is not a fad, then I will most certainly join in and use it for my own marketing and business purposes.”

For his part, Rios credits the Internet as his most valuable research engine yet he also mentions a much more personal form of social media that provided value: the visiting public speakers he listened to as an undergraduate. Rios says that the public speakers, extracurricular and international experiences, classmates, challenging classroom experiences and, above all, professors, combined to “set the foundation for me to succeed and fulfill all of my aspirations.”

“Professors did more than just prepare me for the next exam,” Rios said. “They ensured that I was prepared for the real work after graduation. They supported their teachings in class by exposing me to real, hands-on experience in business situations. I also learned to be a person of integrity.”

And integrity may be the most valuable and longest-lasting lesson Hankamer can impart.

Hankamer at a Glance

In 2009, the Hankamer School of Business celebrated 50 years of maintaining accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). AACSB International accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. Institutions that earn accreditation confirm their commitment to quality and continuous improvement through a rigorous and comprehensive peer review.

Students: 2,670
Male Students: 1,609
Female Students: 1,061
Majors: 24
Average GPA: 3.089
Average SAT: 1194

Top 10 Most Common Majors
1. Accounting
2. Marketing
3. Finance
4. Management
5. Baylor Business Fellows
6. Computer Information Systems
7. Entrepreneurship
8. Real Estate
9. Economics
10. International Business

Hankamer Student Organizations:
Alpha Kappa Psi; Advertising Club of Baylor; American Marketing Association; Association of Information Technology Professionals; Association of Logistics, Procurement and Supply Chain Students; Baylor Association for Human Resource Management; Baylor Business Women; BU Investments Society; Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Organization; Delta Sigma Pi; Financial Management Association; Future Healthcare Executives; Gamma Iota Sigma; Hankamer Student Organization; Pi Sigma Epsilon; Sports Sponsorship & Sales Club; Uproar/The Industry

Hankamer Honor Societies:
Beta Alpha Psi, Beta Gamma Sigma, Financial Management Association National Honor Society, Omnicron Delta Epsilon

www.baylor.edu/business

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010

by Kristin Todd Stires

Just who are the students studying at Hankamer these days? The students profiled here are a small representation of the diverse student body that will impact the world in a variety of ways as they become future business leaders with integrity.

Derek Epperson

Haylee Abbe

Oludamilola “Dami” Adekoya

Joseph Walter

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010

by Becca Broaddus

The Internet is the fastest-growing communications tool in history. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, television took 13 years, but the Internet took only four years.

Technology has changed the way we work, socialize and learn. The Hankamer School of Business has adapted to this technological revolution with the advent of three interactive learning classrooms: the Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center, the Curb Learning Lab for Music & Entertainment Marketing, and the CNL Real Estate Learning Lab.

These environments foster learning without the limitations of a typical classroom setting and prepare students with career-specific skills.

“A more interactive learning environment allows students to learn, not only from the professor, but also from the other students in the classroom and the technology in the classroom,” said Cayla Wright, a senior Finance, Economics and Baylor Business Fellows major. “These types of skills can’t be taught from a textbook.”

The facilities support the Baylor 2012 imperatives, a 10-year development plan Baylor University established in 2002, by creating “facilities that will enable learning, research and teaching.”

“A normal classroom would put me at a disadvantage because normal classrooms do not depict a modern business environment,” said Jordan Zier, a senior Sports Sponsorship & Sales (S3) and Economics major. “The Curb Lab gives me an accurate feeling of what real-world business environments feel like.”

The Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center is a boardroom-type classroom that students use to conduct financial research, thanks to a generous donation from Don and Ruth Buchholz.

The facility, which includes a videoconferencing suite, serves as the classroom for the Practicum in Portfolio Management course for the student-managed Philip M. Dorr Alumni and Friends Endowed Investment Fund, valued at $4.6 million. The course gives students hands-on experience in securities research, valuation of risky assets, and asset allocation by managing an investment fund of real dollars.

“The Center demands the respect of the students,” said Taylor Tomasini, a senior Finance, Economics and Baylor Business Fellows major. “Classes in the room seem like more of a privilege than a right.”

The room features a custom designed and built, horseshoe-shaped conference table. Each seat features a microphone, computer and wireless network access. It also comes equipped with programs vital to a career in finance, including Bloomberg Professional Services and Microsoft Excel.

“I am able to use Bloomberg for stock research and quotes, I know my way around Excel, and I can make presentations in a boardroom-type setting,” Wright said.

Other undergraduate classes focus on theory, but the Center allows students to have practical application of concepts.

“The experience needed for a finance career comes not only from theory, but also from practical investing and technology know-how,” Wright said. “Future employers are looking for things that set students apart, and experience in an interactive learning facility is almost comparable to having prior work experience.”

The interactive facilities appeal not only to potential employers, but to potential students as well.

“The Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center definitely improved the quality of my education,” Wright said. “It’s one of the reasons I came to Baylor.”

The Curb Learning Lab for Music & Entertainment Marketing, developed in 2006 thanks to a donation from Mike Curb, founder and producer of Curb Records, is supplied with nine flat-screen monitors and state-of-the-art computer-integrated CISCO phone systems in the 24-seat AT&T call center.

The Curb Lab has three learning areas: a 32-seat mobile furniture classroom designed for small group interaction, a sound-proof role-play conference room, and the call center.

“If you have a class in the Curb Lab you go in with the mindset that it is going to be a more hands-on class,” said Taylor Ashcraft, a junior Music & Entertainment Marketing major. “It makes what we are learning in the classroom more applicable to real life.”

It is the only classroom of its kind within an academic program in the nation. Students involved in the Music & Entertainment Marketing and the S3 programs gain experience in the Curb Lab by working actively with clients.

“I can actually go into an interview and say I have helped plan a Nashville showcase,” Ashcraft said. “I haven’t just talked about how to market an artist or put on a CD release party, but I have physically gone out and done those things.”

Ashcraft commented that the Curb Lab “feels like the offices of a real record label,” which is exactly where Music & Entertainment Marketing majors plan on working. S3 students benefit from the call center and conference room, where students can perform role-play sales calls in a professional setting.

 

“In sales, interaction is of the utmost importance,” Zier said. “The call center helped me with my phone skills, and the conference room helped me with sponsorship skills. Both sets of skills will benefit me tremendously if I choose to enter the sports industry.”

The CNL Real Estate Learning Lab, donated by Baylor supporter Robert Bourne, complements the Southwest Securities Financial Markets Center and the Curb Learning Lab for Music & Entertainment Marketing. The room is equipped with a document camera and a ceiling-mounted LCD projector, Vision software, and 44 student computers.

The classroom, used for real estate investment classes and some management information systems classes, allows students to learn computer programs in the classroom setting. Real estate agents use ARGUS software and Microsoft Excel, so in the CNL Lab, students gain the skills before entering the workforce.

“The classes in the CNL Lab provide the opportunity for students to participate in more of a hands-on learning style,” said Ashley Thompson, a Real Estate and Management major. “It’s an advantage to be able to point out that you have had experience with the ARGUS program and know how to use it.”

Undergraduate students agree that the experiential learning of interactive classrooms is an invaluable resource for entering the job market.

“It’s important for Baylor to utilize these classrooms because they have an appeal to students, both prospective and current,” Wright said. “I think students are looking for a way to get an edge as future job candidates, and I think an interactive classroom is a great way to do that.”

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010

by Scott McLain

It has been my experience that nothing goes according to plan. For example, I never planned to attend Baylor University. While it pains me to admit it, I planned to attend Texas A&M. I only ended up at Baylor after visiting a friend who was a student.

I had planned on being a physician and enrolled with Chemistry as my major. After a few classes, however, my plan went awry as it quickly became apparent that the only chemistry I was learning was with my future wife, Dana Tinkle, BA ’84. I met her by happenstance during Baylor’s Welcome Week.

I never planned to be a business major. I never planned on getting an MBA. I never planned on working for Price Waterhouse. I never planned on working for a bank that failed. The list could go on and on. The plan that seemed most inconceivable at the time has ironically become my current reality. I am a Texan living in Oklahoma and working in the fast food industry. But, despite the fact that it was never part of any plan, it could not have worked out any better.

My career at Sonic began in 1996 after I turned down their first offer to become treasurer. It just wasn’t part of the plan. No self-respecting Texan ever considers moving to Oklahoma. Moreover, I had no desire to tell my friends that I was selling burgers, tater tots and limeades for a living. Most of them were successful investment bankers, lawyers, accountants, and consultants. Thankfully, Sonic was persistent. As my wife and I continued to pray about the opportunity, it became clear that it was the right place for us.

When I joined Sonic, the company operated fewer than 1,500 drive-ins in 27 states producing approximately $880 million in system-wide sales. Today, we are a truly national brand with system-wide sales approaching $4 billion and more than 3,500 drive-ins operating in 42 states. My wife and I have found Oklahoma to be a terrific place to live and raise our family. Oklahomans have a can-do spirit and an authenticity that’s hard to match. It now comes as no surprise to me that Oklahoma was the birthplace of Sonic Drive-Ins.

Most people think the secret to our success at Sonic is largely about cherry limeades, tater tots, extra-long cheese coneys, and skating carhops. There is no doubt that pursuing strategies that focus on differentiating our products and the way they are served has fueled our success. Yet, in my view, the fundamental reason for Sonic’s success is a culture that champions opportunity and entrepreneurship.

From the beginning in 1953, we have been dedicated to a simple but powerful philosophy. Sonic will succeed as a company by allowing the management of individual drive-ins the chance to pursue their dreams and the opportunity for unlimited financial rewards. Most Sonic Drive-Ins have some form of “partnership” arrangement whereby the manager has a direct interest in the financial performance of the drive-in with no limit to the amount of income they can earn.

Our founder, Troy Smith, built Sonic on this simple and powerful principle. He believed that an owner would take better care of customers and the facilities than an employee. So, we work hard to create an “ownership” mentality. Today, Sonic managers refer to their store as “my Drive-In.” We want our partners to be involved in the community. We want our customers to think of Sonic as a local business with local “ownership” instead of thinking of us as a national chain.

We want our managers to earn compensation well above the industry average. In fact, one of our most successful franchisees has a goal for his store-level partners to earn $100,000 per year. That is double the industry average. The good news is he has almost achieved this goal. And the more successful his partners are, the more successful he is as well.

Our largest franchisee doesn’t think he is even in the fast food business. Instead, his belief is that his business is to find good, hard-working people and give them the opportunity to succeed. That philosophy helps attract talented people who are motivated to succeed, and in turn, help others succeed. It also provides a deeper sense of purpose that transcends the profit motive and creates deep engagement with the business. Our brand is full of folks that started as carhops or grill people who today find themselves as store managers with an ownership position. They did it through old-fashioned hard work mixed with a healthy dose of common sense. It is the American dream personified and it is a joy to see it play out every day across all our drive-ins.

Our ownership mentality also feeds another core value at Sonic – an entrepreneurial spirit. That notion manifests itself in many places, even with our customers. They can create their own drinks from over 168,000 different possibilities. We want our customers to be in control and to have the ability to have distinctive food and beverages the way they want it. They have a say each time they drive in to their Sonic. And listening to what they have to say is the key to great customer service.

Listening is also the key to great leadership. As I was given the opportunity to assume greater responsibilities at Sonic, I felt increasing personal responsibility to find the next engine for growth and then create a master strategic plan that would pave the way to greatness. I thought my two greatest management assets were my brain (to conceive the plan) and my mouth (to articulate the plan).

Over time, I learned through trial and error that my conception of management and leadership was totally wrong-headed. My two greatest assets were not my Baylor-trained brain and my mouth but instead the two things on the side of my head known as ears. Most, if not all, of the great ideas that have propelled the Sonic brand forward have not come from our corporate office. They have come from our drive-in operators. Two great examples were adding ice cream to our menu and our half price drink initiative known as “Happy Hour.” What I have learned is that it is the everyday insights of those folks closest to the customer that will tell us much more about what will work than all the expensive consumer research and data analysis that we also do.

Leading in an entrepreneurial culture is much easier and very liberating in my view. Rather than driving a grand plan for success from corporate headquarters, we know that someone at a Sonic Drive-In is already doing something new that is resonating with our customers. Our job as leaders is to make sure we listen to the field, cull the best ideas out there and then marshal our collective resources behind the best ones. Then we help bring them to life so that everyone can benefit. In my view, good leaders quickly realize that they do not have a monopoly on the truth and that those closest to the customer generally have the best ideas.

My journey as a leader and our journey as a company has been full of unexpected twists and turns – many successes but also failures. We do create both short-term and long-term plans for our business but nothing ever goes exactly according to plan. Economic and consumer forces are notoriously difficult to predict. Instead our success, both as a company and as individuals, is largely a result of what we do when the plan doesn’t work. How quickly we adapt and take advantage of changing conditions is the real recipe for success.

In Sonic parlance, we like to think of it as turning lemons into a lemon-berry slush.

Scott McLain is president of Sonic Corp., parent company of the nation’s largest chain of drive-in restaurants. McLain joined Sonic in April 1996 as treasurer and was named chief financial officer in August 1997. He was promoted to executive vice president in January 2004; named president of Sonic Industries, the company’s franchising subsidiary, in November 2004; and began his current position in May 2008.

McLain earned a BBA in Accounting and Marketing from Baylor, earned an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, and is a certified public accountant.

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010

by Chad Shanks and Ryan Pierce

Drew Greenway sits in a building in the middle of the woods.

Amidst this isolation, a flurry of red and green lights blink as he adjusts levels on a five-foot long soundboard, turning his head toward the speakers suspended from the guitar-lined walls.

He puts the finishing touches on “Drifting,” a song about his wife’s search for purpose, satisfied in the knowledge that it will soon be available on iTunes.

Greenway, a 26-year-old George W. Truett Theological Seminary student, is an artist on Uproar Records, Baylor University’s student-run record label. He came to Waco to further his career as a worship pastor, but after auditioning on a whim, he is now on the cusp of having his music commercially available to the world.

Greenway is one of five Uproar artists to take the 30-minute drive north of Waco to Back at the Ranch Recording Studio, built from the ground up on McLennan Community College professor Brian Konzelman’s wooded riverside property. Konzelman not only lends his studio but his talents as well, by producing Uproar’s albums with the students. Although the studio’s exterior is rustic, its state-of-the-art interior is producing music that is bringing Baylor national recognition.

The Genesis of Uproar

Uproar Records grew out of the Baylor Recording Artist Network (BRAN), a Student Activities-sponsored organization that released CDs of Baylor artists. BRAN sought marketing advice from professor Kirk Wakefield, director of Baylor’s Music & Entertainment Marketing (M&E) program. Wakefield then recruited professor Charles Fifield, a former financial consultant for EMI Records, and students Ben Rodgers and Ryan Weaver. Their combined vision became Uproar Records, a partnership between the M&E program and Student Activities.

The M&E track for Marketing majors is a highly selective degree program in the Hankamer School of Business. Originating in 2005 with an emphasis on theater, the major began as a collaboration with Baylor’s theater department and the business school, but broadened when Wakefield cultivated major contacts in the music world.

Any student can participate in Uproar through the Uproar Music & Entertainment Marketing Club, but Uproar’s officers are all M&E majors – students serious about careers in the music industry.

Growth and Expansion

Garrett Burnett spent his senior year as Uproar’s label president and project manager. He and the other seniors on Uproar’s 2009-2010 leadership team have been part of the label from its inception.

Burnett, who interned at a Nashville record label, wants Uproar to provide students a realistic experience, and he structured the Uproar leadership team so each member handles a specific aspect of the label’s business, from production and distribution to finances and public relations.

“There’s no other way for Baylor students to get more hands-on experience,” Burnett said. “This is not something you can learn in a textbook.”

At the start of the fall 2009 semester, Burnett and the Uproar team held auditions for new artists. Out of 48 hopefuls, five were signed to one-year contracts and began writing and recording for the label’s second compilation CD, unveiled last April at a release party at Waco’s University Baptist Church.

“Our first compilation CD featured 12 artists doing one song each. For the second CD, we only used five so we could be more detailed and hands-on with our artists,” Burnett said.

Though the label is based at a Christian university, it is not strictly a Christian music label, Burnett said. Last year’s artists represented a variety of musical styles and genres, from singer-songwriters like Michelle Piland and the harmonious duo of Brian Beaver and Jacob Hooter, to the melodic pop of rock quartet, Zoo Studio.

Two weeks after the release party, Uproar hosted the first Uproar Records Music Festival at Diadeloso, the university-wide holiday known for its live music. In years past, Student Activities brought in outside artists for the campus event, but last spring, the Uproar team took on the responsibility. Each Uproar artist performed at the festival, and the officers planned the entire show, including booking the other bands, such as 2010 Austin Music Awards’ “best new band,” Speak, and the headliner, pop star Colbie Caillat.

“It was great getting to bring musicians to campus,” Burnett said. “We got experience booking and running a festival and gave our artists a chance to interact with established artists.”

In addition, Uproar officers and artists went to Nashville in May to play for record executives, such as CEO of EMI Christian Music Group, Bill Hearn, and Dusty Wells of Word Entertainment (both are members of Uproar’s board of directors, a group comprised of music, theater and film executives). While the trip was primarily a networking opportunity, attending students also received class credit for the two-week trip, which featured class sessions taught by record label executives.

“The relationships we’re building are essential,” Burnett said. “Baylor students are known in Nashville as being hard workers with more of a business foundation [than other schools]. Baylor has a good name in Nashville.”

Finding Success

Though Uproar Records is in its infancy, its officers, artists and faculty sponsors have worked tirelessly to solidify the label’s reputation. In its short existence, the label has produced its fair share of success stories.

Label co-founder Ben Rodgers credits the Uproar experience with preparing him for his current career as an artist manager at Centricity Music in Nashville.

“From artists, to business school students, to engineers and professors, you had the whole gamut of people to deal with and each of them has totally different personality styles,” Rodgers said. “I learned how to read people and talk to them in a way that communicated clearly and addressed their needs directly.”

Uproar’s previous public relations officer, Natalie Reese, monitored the artists’ MySpace and Facebook pages, crafted publicity materials and cultivated relationships in Nashville. Her experience with social networking at Uproar propelled her to an internship at Nashville’s Vector Management, where her bosses were impressed with the quality of her work and subsequently offered her a job.

Singer-songwriter Jillian Edwards appeared on Uproar’s first compilation CD and was slated to appear on their second before leaving to tour with the Robbie Seay Band, a popular Christian rock group. She has also been featured on the soundtrack for the Christian film To Save a Life and her first solo album, Galaxies and Such, is available on iTunes and Amazon. Edwards credits her Uproar experience with helping boost her burgeoning career.

“Uproar has connected me with other musicians at Baylor, and in doing so has expanded my network of people who love, play and write music,” Edwards said “Through Uproar’s program, I have recorded songs I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to otherwise.”

In addition, current Uproar artists are getting opportunities to play before large audiences. David Dulcie, for instance, recently opened for country band High Valley.

Facing the Future

Though Uproar Records has experienced some moderate success, Burnett wants to build nationwide credibility and see it become self-sustaining and profitable. Currently, it receives financial assistance from Student Activities. Any money generated from compilation CDs and live shows so far have only recouped costs.

“Even though we’re not profit-driven, [Uproar] is still a realistic experience,” Burnett said. “It’s been a unique advantage to be creative on such a small budget, and I hope that Uproar can become self-sustaining, but for now we’re focused more on creating a learning environment.”

But a profitable student-run record label is possible, Burnett said. The label has new revenue streams from digital downloads on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, and Lala, and its artists just finished a summer tour. They are also considering producing individual artist EPs to accompany the annual compilation.

With the start of the fall 2010 semester, three months after Burnett’s graduation, Uproar’s presidency transfers to Houston senior Taylor Ashcraft, who spent the previous academic year planning the Uproar Records Music Festival and the summer interning at Columbia Records’ marketing department.

She credits her experience planning Uproar’s Diadeloso festival as securing the highly competitive internship.

“In internship interviews, they want to know what hands-on experience you have,” Ashcraft said. “After working with Uproar, I was able to tell them I’ve helped directly market artists and plan a music festival.”

Ashcraft accompanied the artists to Nashville in May and presented her plans for the year to Uproar’s board of directors – plans that include acquiring new revenue via grants and fundraisers and training artists in every aspect of the music business.

Ashcraft will also oversee the auditioning and signing of new Uproar artists to join their returning artists, who must audition again to earn a spot on the roster.

“My main goal is to position our artists to have the tools to get a record deal when they graduate,” Ashcraft said.

Uproar’s Ultimate Effect

Drew Greenway reviews the arrangement to the song he recorded the previous night – a self-described “catchy love song” titled “City Lights.”

He mixes the instruments played by musicians recruited from his church and balances the backing vocals of his wife, Paige.

His year as an Uproar artist has brought him a long way from his Arkansas home, where he spent hours in his room as a 12-year-old trying to play Smashing Pumpkins songs. He now has several gigs under his belt and once sang the National Anthem at a Baylor basketball game.

“I used to think getting started in music was more organic – that if the music is good, you’ll get picked up – but Uproar has helped spur me on, encouraged me and introduced me to people in the industry,” Greenway said. “It’s given me exposure I’d never get otherwise.”

www.uproarrecords.com

www.ranchstudio.com

 

 

Baylor Business Review, Fall 2010