The 27 members of the MITP's seventh class graduated on June 18 surrounded by family and friends. MITP graduates joined graduates from McCormick's six other professional master's programs in the commencement ceremony. McCormick Dean John Birge gave the salutation, and Russell Flaum, executive vice president for industrial packaging at Illinois Tool Works, delivered the graduation address.

After the ceremony and class photo, the graduates and their families gathered for a festive banquet at the Hilton Garden Inn in Evanston. About 130 family members attended -- an average of 4.8 guests per graduate -- but 3 graduates skewed the statistics, accounting for 35 of the guests: Ed Chenet and Okey Ukachukwu with 11 each and Todd Kelly with 13.

After the meal, four representatives spoke on behalf of their classmates. Lysette Baily spoke eloquently about the importance of family; Todd Kelly took his listeners on a two-year retrospective tour of the MITP, while Kelvin Gray led them into the future; and Jim Dean presented Professor Lee with the class gift of $7,255, which will be added to the MITP Quasi Endowment Fund. (See article below.)

We wish the Class of 2004 the best in all their future endeavors and hope to welcome them back at reunions and alumni association meetings.

The MITP's Class of 2006, as in other years, is a diverse group who bring a variety of backgrounds and professional experience to the program. For the fourth year, incoming students were paired with a "buddy" from the second-year students, who made contact before school to extend a personal welcome and offer help (see lead article). The MITP board of directors, faculty, and staff wish the best to all our new students.

The Class of 2006 in a nutshell:

• 26 students (4 women, 22 men)
• working for 25 companies
• undergraduate degrees from 23 educational institutions
• 5 in engineering (electrical, civil, architectural, mechanical)
• 9 in computer science and information science
• 1 in biology
• 3 business-related (economics, marketing, and finance)
• 5 in liberal arts (sociology, East Asian studies, criminal justice, history, journalism)
• 2 in fine arts (music, industrial design)
• 1 in architecture
• average age: 34

The companies they work for include:

A program like the MITP is only as good as its curriculum, its faculty, and -- especially -- its students. This is the time of year when we are on the lookout for talented students for next year's class, individuals who would benefit from, and contribute to, the program. To find these future students, we need your help. Last year about one-third of our applicants learned about the MITP through a current or former student or through a colleague. These connections are vital to our recruiting effort, and we hope to increase that percentage in coming years.

Your effort can be direct -- sitting down with someone you know and talking about the program -- or subtle -- talking up the program whenever you have the opportunity. That kind of positive chatter raises the program's profile, which in turn causes more people to apply. And the more people who apply, the more selective we can be in choosing the best applicants to fill our slots. Those strong students will, in turn, make the program even stronger -- and the stronger the program is, the more valuable your own degree becomes. Thus the recruitment cycle benefits everyone, from potential to current to past students of the MITP.

Just as your personal recruiting efforts may be direct or indirect, our marketing approach takes two major tacks: (1) direct marketing, where we try to target groups of qualified prospective students and inform them about the program; and (2) targeting senior level staff in companies who are in a position to make recommendations and decisions about educational opportunities for their staff members. In addressing both these groups, we emphasize the value of the MITP's combination of technology and business in equipping students to make wise technology decisions that meet business goals.

We hope you will encourage your colleagues to look into the MITP. Open houses are set for January 24 (in Evanston), March 1 (in Chicago), and April 18 (in Evanston). Also, Carol Henes and Professor Haddad would be pleased to meet with the appropriate person at your company, an opportunity that you may want to join in on. Please contact Carol if you can help arrange for such a visit.

When Class of 2004 member Jim Deane first heard that each previous MITP graduating class had contributed a substantial class gift, "I was a bit perplexed," he told his fellow graduates in a speech at Commencement. "I thought to myself, 'Isn't... tuition enough of a gift? What is wrong with these people? I'm never going to do that.'" But, Dean continued, "Fast forward two years, and here I am, not only contributing to, but also helping to organize the gift from the Class of 2004" with classmates Lysette Bailey, Kelvin Gray and Todd Kelly.

Deane attributed his change of heart to two factors. First, he said that he learned over time that "every staff and faculty member associated with the MITP puts their heart and soul into sharing their knowledge and talents with us. They go above and beyond what they are required to do on a regular basis. Whether it was Dr. Lee providing his home phone number so that we could call him with questions late into the night, or George and Carol smoothing out the 'administrivia' at NU for us, the dedication of the faculty and staff is one of the key elements that make this program great."

Recognizing such dedication would have been reason enough for a class donation, but Deane further considered his own investment in the program: "[It] dawned on me... that when you invest 60 Saturdays, countless hours of study, weekly meetings with your study group, missed birthdays, missed anniversaries, missed weddings, and other valuable time away from friends and family, into achieving this degree, you begin to realize that you have a lot more than tuition dollars tied up in this experience. I learned that I was now keenly interested in the prosperity and longevity of the MITP program."

Given that logic, Deane, Bailey, Gray, and Kelly volunteered to lean on their classmates a little to contribute to MITP's quasi-endowment fund, established last year by the Class of 2003. Adding to the fund was crucial because of the terms under which the fund was established, which dictated that the fund be increased to a minimum of $25,000 within three years. The Class of 2004's gift of $7,255 will be essential in helping to realize that goal.

Once that goal has been met, funds can be drawn to support the MITP program through efforts that complement the existing curriculum. Decisions about spending are to be made by the director of the program, with input from the alumni association. "As the endowment fund grows," Deane wrote in a letter to his classmates, "more opportunities to add significant value to the program will exist, such as team building orientation events, leadership seminars, IT leadership speaking series, and others. The ability to add these types of complementing modules to the existing curriculum will result in attracting more top talent within the industry and elevate the already high value of the MITP degree."