How can undergraduate business students help a nonprofit foundation find creative and innovative ways to connect police with residents to help create a safe, thriving community for all? That is the question The Hear Foundation (THF) asks Pitt Business to help it solve.
This foundation was founded in 2022 by Leon Ford, a victim of mistaken gunshots by police, and former Pittsburgh Police Chief Scott Schubert. The students in the “Workplace Communications” course have worked with THF since the foundation started.
Connecting students with nonprofits that can benefit from their research and insights supports the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration’s purpose of preparing and inspiring leaders to shape a better future through business.
Teams Address Community Challenges
To use their newly learned writing and presentation skills, all 400 students in the “Workplace Communications” class research a Pittsburgh neighborhood and one of the following assigned topics: gun violence reduction, trauma, workforce development, housing, drug addiction, or return from incarceration. They work in teams, to provide data-based recommendations in a written report and presentation. This final project is worth almost 50% of each student’s final grade.
In 2022 and 2023, students provided recommendations that ranged from requiring training to own a firearm, to creating a mentor system with community members and those returning from incarceration, to creating neighborhood watch programs.
This coursework helps THF, improves students’ writing and presentation skills, and exposes them to important social challenges.
“Learning about social issues such as trauma and gun violence in a business class is very eye-opening,” says Julia McAlonis (BSBA ‘26) a current workplace communications student. “This class allows us to apply our knowledge and research on these issues in a way that benefits the local neighborhoods home to many of my classmates.”
THF representatives Kamal Nigam, former executive director, Ford, co-founder and director of external affairs, and Cynthia Haines, president and CEO, recently held a two-hour question and answer session to help students start the Spring 2024 semester’s collaboration.
During this session, Haines encouraged the students to realize these issues impact their lives as well since “we are all responsible for public safety.”
Over 20 Years of Helping Nonprofits
A student’s experience at Pitt Business is designed so they can develop strong academic skills plus establish 10 competencies employers have identified as being desirable through the Outside the Classroom Curriculum (OCC). A few of these extracurricular experiences include global and cultural engagement, civic and social engagement, and networking and relationship management.
In the early 2000s, the Organizational Behavior class, taught by Mark Burdsall, assistant vice chancellor of consulting services, and Deb Good, associate dean for undergraduate business education, had students research a nonprofit of their choice.
The unique aspect of the workplace communications course is the number of students involved.
Good was joined by Bob Butter, adjunct faculty member, Chris McCarrick, part-time instructor, and Tim Ziaukas, adjunct faculty member, for a presentation on this project at the Association for Business Stimulation and Experiential Learning Conference, held on Pitt’s campus in 2023.
“The coordination between the instructors and the assignments within the class leading to the final project was really of great interest to the professors in attendance,” says Good. “The fact that 400 students have the same experience during the semester is not common. The literature suggests that we may be one of a handful of schools doing a project like this with this many students.”
Nonprofits are Businesses
In addition to hearing specific answers to their questions for the project, the students also learned about the business side of the nonprofit world from the THF representatives. Nigam served as the senior engineering director and Pittsburgh site lead for Google — the office grew from two people to 750 under his tenure — before helping THF get off the ground. He explained the similarities between starting a business and starting a nonprofit; both involve building a network, creating a business plan, raising money, and telling your story.
Haines reminded the students, “Business schools create CEOs, CFOs, and CIOs,” and encouraged the students to consider working for a nonprofit.
“I learned how important the work of non-profits is and how beneficial their work is to so many people. It is not an easy job, but it is a very rewarding and necessary one,” says Joseph Hasenstab, (BSBA, BA ’25). “I gained a lot of respect for the hard work these non-profits do.”
According to Nigam, the research the students do for this class will help them in their future careers: “This gives you an opportunity to look at the social issues that you, as a future leader, will encounter.”
