Editor's Note: The Daily Texan sent a reporter and photographer to spend 13 hours over two days with the Class of 2013. We will be updating it with stories and pictures from graduation ceremonies every hour. At the end of both days, we will combine all the reports into one story. 

6 p.m. — "Leave, but don't totally leave"

Graduates from the McCombs School of Business were told not to completely leave UT after graduation and were encouraged to give their time and talent back to the school.

Commencement speaker Jeffrey Swope, managing partner of real estate firm Champion Partners Ltd., graduated from the business school in 1973. But Swope never really left. Since he graduated, he has served on the board of various groups at McCombs and UT, including serving as chairman of the University Development Board and trustee of the McCombs Business School Foundation. 

Relationships are important, he told the 600 students receiving a business administration masters degree. Almost every relationship needs to be a good one, and good relationships happen in helping others, Swope said.

"Don't get me wrong, the McCombs community wants you to go out into the world and leave your mark, that's what you're here for," Swope said. "But I would submit that your relationship with UT would submit you to give back a small amount of your valuable time, a small piece of your immense talent." 

5 p.m. feed — Graduation is not just for family

Graduation is not just a family event, but also an event for friends, friends of friends and the relative you haven't spoken to in a long time. 

Mary Blocker left San Antonio at 4 p.m. Friday to make it to her soon-to-be stepson's graduation from the McCombs School of Business at Gregory Grym. It is the first graduation she's ever been to. 

Blocker said being at a graduation is exciting and seeing her stepson graduate makes her eager to see her daughter graduate from Texas State University in a few years. 

4 p.m. — Wait times lasting up to 45 min at Martin Luther King Jr Blvd

People leaving UT graduation ceremonies at the Frank Erwin Center Friday waited up to 45 min to get picked up because of the amount of traffic, Austin Police Department officials said. 

APD officer Rick Zapata said traffic on Martin Luther King Jr Blvd has been up and down all day, typically increasing as it got closer to ceremony time. Zapata said people were complaining about a lack of parking and how much they had to walk to get to the center. 

I feel and hear their frustration, Zapata said. He said there was a fair amount of elderly people making the trek in the heat. 

"I can't tell you how many ladies walked by with shoes in their hands," Zapata said. "Nicely dressed and sweaty."

Four ceremonies were scheduled at the center, including the communication, liberal arts and business convocations. 

3 p.m. — "Luck does not exist"

College of Communication commencement speaker Stan Richards does not believe in luck. He believes people get what they earn. 

The founder of the Richards Group, one of the largest independent advertising groups nationwide, addressed thousands at the college's commencement ceremony Friday. Richards urged graduating students to recognize the value in graduating from UT. Eighteen current Richards Group employees are UT alumni, he said.

Many students who come to UT are at the top of the class, he said. But once they get to University, which Richards called the "land of the ten percenters," they find they are probably just like the Average Joe. 

Once students realize this, that's when they must focus on doing their best.

"I can't say whether I was greatest creative talent at Pratt, but I’m sure nobody at the school worked harder," Richards said. "I was hungry, I still am, I still work hard all day."

2 p.m. — "Remember the library"

People walking in with a sweat-drenched wardrobe was a common sight at the Perry-Castaneda Library during Friday's graduation ceremonies. 

"Water," said a graduate, who walked in with her hair pulled up and her white College of Liberal Arts graduation sash around her shoulders. 

The Perry-Castaneda Library offered free cake, lemonade, water and a photo booth for graduates and their families in their first annual graduation celebration. UT Libraries spokeswoman Travis Willmann said staff wanted to give students a place to relax and remember the role the library played during their time at UT.

Willman said staff also set up the event as an outreach effort. Libraries don't have alumni like colleges and schools do and PCL needs student support, he said. 

"We hope that they take away that this place helped them get through college and make it to this point," Willman said. 

A couple hundred people visited the library today. Library staff said visitors included parents from California, Virginia and even Monterrey, Mexico. 

1 p.m. — "Three hundred dozen roses expected to be sold at graduation"

Sean Weicks got to UT at 4 a.m. Friday. His task: set up the three flower stands on campus that are estimated to sell about three hundred dozen roses for Friday and Saturday's commencement ceremonies.  

Weicks works for Commencement Flowers, a local business that sells flowers exclusively for graduation, and was stationed at Bass Concert Hall selling roses and UT commencement t-shirts Friday. Commencement Flowers will donate a portion of profits to UT to support University programs. 

Roses from Commencement Flowers cost $30 a dozen and UT commencement t-shirts cost $20. 

Weicks said it's funny to see his friends post pictures of themselves on Facebook with roses because it means he probably met their parents.

"I don't know what their parents look like, but I probably sold them those roses," Weicks said. 

12 p.m. — Sen. Kel Seliger's Ten Commandments: College Edition

State Senator Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, rewrote the Ten Commandments in modern times on stage in front of a thousands during his UT commencement address at the Frank Erwin Center. 

Seliger delivered the commencement speech for UT's College of Liberal Arts joint ceremony despite a busy schedule at the Texas Legislature. He kept his speech light and peppered it with jokes, drawing laughter from the crowd throughout his time on stage.

High-profile speakers at college commencements across the country included President Obama at Ohio State University and Oprah Winfrey at Harvard University.

"You have me," Seliger said. 

The highlight of his speech was when he delivered the Ten Commandments and rewrote them to apply to college life. Some of Seliger's commandments are below:

-     The last supper would be pizza and cola the next morning.

-     There would be a new edition of the Ten Commandments every two years to limit reselling. 

-      The forbidden fruit would be eaten completely as long as it did not come from the Jester cafeteria. 

-      The end of the world would be known not as armageddon, but as finals. 

-     There would be no mules or sheep or goats, just mountain bikes. 

-      Moses and the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 days because they didn't want to answer directions and look like freshman. 

-     Creation was not done in six days. People would wait until the last day, pull an all-nighter and be done by 8:15 a.m. 

Seliger kept the crowd laughing throughout his speech, opening with brief excerpts from his college experience. Seliger graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

"My college education meant a tremendous amount to my family. It stopped my mother from ragging on me," Seliger said. 

11 a.m. — Schmoozing with government graduates

Government senior Victoria Soto left Gregory Gym with a sparkle in her eye.

Soto was surrounded by family and friends as soon as she left Gregory Gym, where 314 students graduated from the College of Liberal Arts Thursday morning. 

A crowd of about 500 students, their friends and family gathered outside to talk and take pictures after the ceremony. Soto said she was feeling overwhelmed and a little scared after walking the stage.

"I don't want to leave," Soto said.

While she is leaving UT, Soto said she is planning to stay in Austin for two years before she applies to law school. 

Tiffany Williams also graduated with a government degree Thursday. Williams was accepted to the Cornell University Law School in New York and plans to attend in the fall. 

"It's kind of just starting to set in that I won't be here next year and I'm moving on," Williams said. 

Williams said she is in the process of finding a summer part-time job. She said she felt attending a school with a diverse student population has prepared her to live anywhere. 

She had a few parting words for her fellow graduates: "We did it, so go apply it." 

10 a.m. — "Celebrate good times, come on"

About 314 students left Gregory Gym with government degrees after the first College of Liberal Arts commencement ceremony Friday morning. 

Matthew Haynes, a senior academic advisor for the college, said he will remember the Class of 2013 as the independent class. Haynes said this group of students went beyond just going to classes, taking internships and other opportunities.

"Don't stop continuing to find your own opportunities," Haynes said. "Don't wait around for them to be handed to you - make your own." 

The ceremony ended with "Celebration," a song by Kool and The Gang. 

Contact Jody Serrano at jserrano@utexas.edu, or tweet her @jodyserrano 

The McCombs School of Business Foundation has established revenue-generating enterprises to benefit the business school, while also attracting thousands of dollars in private gifts each year.

As an independent nonprofit, the foundation benefits the McCombs School of Business and provides close to $5 million in contributions to the school and more than $600,000 in scholarships each year. The foundation also supplements business school dean Thomas Gilligan’s salary with an extra $100,000 and doubles the salaries of some lecturers and professors through compensation for their work with a training program for professionals.

Joe Holt, CEO of the Austin region of JP Morgan Chase and chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees, said the foundation’s leadership is aware of the weight transparency has on its credibility with donors. 

“There is no transfer of funds unless they are approved by trustees,” Holt said. “That level of transparency created credibility with donors and alumni. In all the things that are swirling around right now, the most important thing we can do is make sure that the intent is right and the actions are transparent.”

According to the most recent IRS records available, donors contributed more than $97,000 in 2011. But the foundation’s primary source of revenue is from the Executive Education Program, a training program for professionals. 

Five business faculty members provide training at conferences for corporations and state agencies and are compensated by the foundation in amounts ranging from about $300,000 for senior management lecturer Gaylen Paulson to almost $570,000 for John Daly, communication studies and management professor. This compensation is in addition to their University salaries. Other professors occasionally provide training through the program, but their compensations are not listed individually on tax records.

The program brought in about $7.4 million in revenue during the 2011 fiscal year. The foundation uses the money toward regular philanthropic operations, Holt said.

Like other external foundations, the business school foundation has allowed donors to establish enterprises benefitting the University that would face legal constraints if carried out by the University itself.

Dallas attorney Del Williams, former chairman of the foundation’s board, said former business school dean George Kozmetsky initially set up the foundation so that private gifts could be invested in stocks — something state laws prohibited at the time. 

Kozmetsky laid the groundwork for the MBA Investment Fund, LLC, which was created in 2001 as the first private investment company managed by students, Williams said.

Business school spokesman David Wenger said the fund operates under a management agreement with the foundation.

“The MBA Investment Fund manager has full discretion to manage the fund while giving quarterly accountability reports to the foundation,” Wenger said. “While every attempt is made to increase the value of the fund, its primary purpose is to serve as a real-world educational experience for the student portfolio managers.”

In addition to establishing the investment fund, the foundation has also helped the business school with property acquisition. In 2011, the foundation purchased the property where Players Restaurant sits on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard for $3 million. The University then bought the property from the foundation for $1.5 million as part of a deal to obtain the property below its appraised value of $2.5 million. State law prohibits the University from purchasing property at more than the appraised value. 

The University plans to use the property to expand the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center and construct a graduate business school building. The owners of Players can continue to operate on the property for up to 10 years.

Related Headlines

Changes could be on the horizon for UT fundraising foundations

University External Foundations Profiles

McCombs School of Business Foundation (Active)

LBJ Foundation contributes to school, library

Communication foundation inactive after years of not turning profit

Foundation to transfer full ownership of Suida-Manning collection

New investigations of UT Law School Foundation and forgivable loans begin

Printed on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 as: McCombs Foundation profits from enterprises 

After being admitted into the McCombs School of Business, finance senior Brittany Maki received a scholarship endowed by well known alumnus Joe Jamail. Years later, Maki is a student employee at UT’s call center, which is part of the Annual Giving program that collects small gifts from alumni, parents of current students and friends of the University.

Annual Giving, which employs more than 100 students as part-time employees, is part of a three-pronged structure of development at the University. The other two parts are a central University infrastructure and individual college-level efforts, which together field a team of about 300 full-time employees. Through the three fundraising channels, the development team has helped raise $2.08 billion in private support for the University in the last six years.

“I saw the impact of what previous callers had done here,” Maki said during one of her shifts at the call center. “My dad was adamant about me staying home in Houston. The scholarship was enough to come here. Now, I see it every single day with my classmates who have also received scholarships.”

These broad fundraising efforts, from Maki’s scholarship to alumni returning as development officers, are typically headed by a vice president for development — a position that has been vacant at the University for the past four years following the departure of Richard B. Eason. Currently, Julie Hooper, associate vice president for development, has taken the reins of the office. The UT System recently implemented a pay incentive plan for President William Powers Jr. that would give him a still-undertermined bonus on top of his $624,350 base salary if he hires a vice president for development, among other goals.

Unlike some other universities, UT staffs its development efforts with state employees. Meanwhile, fellow Big 12 institutions including the University of Oklahoma and West Virginia University raise private gifts through large external foundations. The UT System has a similar foundation, the University of Texas Foundation, which operates alongside the internal fundraising efforts. 

Central development is made up by 129 employees while the others make up the individual development offices of each college, school and unit that work with central development and Annual Giving to meet specific fundraising goals.

“We are what I call a hybrid so we’re both centralized and decentralized,” Hooper said. “All of the 33 college, school and unit development offices have a relationship with our office, and I meet with them regularly on either a quarterly [or] monthly basis.”

Powers credits former UT President Peter Flawn for establishing the philanthropic philosophy the University follows today. Flawn oversaw the 1983 Centennial Commission, which recommended financing the University’s operations through private gifts. In 1983, state appropriations made up 45 percent of UT’s operating budget and private gifts made up 6 percent. Today, state appropriations make up 13 percent of the budget and private gifts make up 9 percent.

Today, the University has 100 frontline fundraisers who actively develop relationships with prospective donors and are assisted by administrative and research support staff, Hooper said.

Typically, the older the college or school, the larger the endowment. The one exception is the Jackson School of Geosciences, which is a much newer school but has the largest endowment.

The Cockrell School of Engineering, which has the second-largest endowment with $407 million, is one of the oldest colleges on campus and has thousands of alumni. 

But even with a large alumni base, the Cockrell School does not receive all of engineering alumni’s donations to the University. Nearly 12 percent of engineering alumni give to various programs across the University, but only 5 percent of engineering alumni give back to the Cockrell School, according to engineering development figures.

Development officers and UT’s call center share a database of potential donors coordinated by central development. 

“We try really hard to be what I call donor-centered so that we’re thinking about the donor first and foremost and that we’re treating our donors with respect and trying very hard to have what I call a coordinated approach,” Hooper said.

The database has proved essential to colleges and schools with smaller endowments or alumni bases, such as the School of Social Work, which has a $13 million endowment.

Laura Wells, development director for the school, said 75 percent of the School of Social Work’s most recent endowments were created by alumni, former employees or individuals who were impacted by social work, but that this is not enough to reach the school’s fundraising goal.

“To reach our big goal, we have had to reach outside our current donor base,” Wells said. “[Including] people who are University alumni but are not primarily School of Social Work alumni.”

In the last six years, 84 percent of gifts to the University have been for less than $1,000. Beyond small gifts, the University’s president is easily identified as development’s most prominent employee with a calendar continuously filled with fundraising responsibilities, as well as a salary structure that rewards him a bonus for hitting certain fundraising goals.

Powers, who acknowledges he is the face of University fundraising, takes the lead role in larger fundraising efforts and said he believes it is important to raise money for efforts that fall in line with strategic goals of the University, including new programs and buildings.

Powers said he works to keep alumni who may be prospective donors involved in University life by traveling across the state, around the country and internationally to meet with former Longhorns and friends of the University.

“There is a whole ecosystem that does that — deans and development officers,” Powers said. “One thing I’m very proud of is that the process works on a much more cooperative way.”

I read with interest the article ‘Gates CS building sets high standard’ published in the Daily Texan on March 27. I am a fourth year PhD student studying operations management at McCombs School of Business. I have not studied architecture but I do know that utility is just one aspect of architecture. The other important aspect is aesthetic appeal, and one way to think about aesthetic appeal is to observe how well a building relates to its surroundings. The interior of the CS building is very impressive but I cannot help but feel that the exterior is somehow not in harmony with the other buildings around it, which are more subdued, a characteristic shared by most of the buildings on campus. Further, the eight tall columns at the entrance to CS building not only break the consistent pattern followed by other buildings on Speedway but also obscure the pedestrian’s view to the building’s magnificent central atrium. I am wondering whether there are others who have felt the same way about the building.

Vivek Vasudeva

Graduate Student, McCombs School of Business

A $25 million donation is going to give business graduate students another place to study and everyone else a new place to park.

Dallas businessman and UT alumnus Robert B. Rowling and his family donated $25 million to construct a graduate school building for the McCombs School of Business, UT President William Powers Jr. announced Thursday. The University is naming the building Rowling Hall and will build it at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Guadalupe Street.

“Texas is the best place in the country to do business, and we hope this gift will encourage the best and the brightest to come to Austin to get their MBAs and be part of the phenomenon that is Texas,” Rowling said in a statement.

Set to open in 2017, the 458,000-square-foot building will cost about $155 million to construct, of which $58.25 million will come from private gifts including Rowlings’ $25 million, which kicks off the fundraising campaign. 

Along with housing the business school’s graduate programs, the new building will also expand the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center’s ability to hosts conferences. 

Business school Dean Thomas Gilligan said Rowling Hall will help students by providing more space that is innovative and up-to-date.

“With respects to our peer groups, they all have buildings that are much newer than ours,” Gilligan said. “So it helps us compete for students.”

Gilligan said the current facilities UT has are nice, but they were built several decades ago. He said the spaces a university has to offer does play into applicants’ decision to choose one program over another.

“Graduate students spend a lot of time in these buildings,” Gilligan said. “They just don’t go to class and then go home.” 

The new building will also supply more parking at UT. Rowling Hall will come with a parking garage, expected to add 525 parking spaces. UT’s Parking and Transportation Services is paying the $15.5 million construction cost for the parking garage. 

Jeri Baker, assistant director of Parking and Transportation Services, said this is how parking garages at UT are normally paid for. Baker said the planning process is still early and many details are not available, but she said she is excited about the project.

“Any spaces that we can add to our inventory will definitely assist those that desire to come to campus,” Baker said.

UT acquired some of the land for the project from Players restaurant in April 2012 in a transaction through the McCombs School of Business Foundation. The foundation purchased the land for $3 million cash and a lease valued at $1 million and sold it to the University for about $2.5 million.

By law, the University cannot purchase property above the appraised value.

In addition to the $58.2 million from private donations, the building will be funded by tuition-backed bonds from the UT System, Parking and Transportation Services and the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, Gilligan said.

Prospective and current UT students will soon be able to view the interior of the McCombs School of Business building without having to physically step inside it. 

A virtual tour featuring pictures and videos of the business school will be available in March for students to access. Finance juniors Nicole Logan and Sunny Das helped push the virtual tour initiative as business school representatives in UT’s Student Government. 

Logan said the virtual tour will be available on the McCombs School website and the business admissions website as soon as the videos are edited. 

“These videos are going to serve as an online tour for prospective students who do not have the ability to travel to see McCombs or for students to look at the different resources when they are comparing different schools,” Logan said.

Das, who is an out-of-state student from Rochester, N.Y., said he intends for the virtual tour to enable students to view facilities available to them. 

Logan said the virtual tour evolved from an initiative she began working on last semester that was originally a series of videos which featured current UT students describing areas around the McCombs School of Business. 

“My platform when running for business representative was to increase freshmen involvement, so that was the main intent of these videos,” Logan said. 

Freshmen business students offered their own perspectives on the benefits of the virtual tour. 

“I think it’s pretty cool because the business school has lots to offer, but it gets confusing,” business honors freshman Hoai Truong said.

Business freshman Alex Nam said virtual depictions could aid students, particularly freshmen, in navigating the business school. 

“I think it will give a good idea about what the place looks like,” Nam said.  

Das said that he intends on expanding the virtual tour to include more areas around campus. He said the process of taking pictures and videos around the business school took only a day, and the process would be repeatable around the rest of campus. 

“I think these videos are going to be a great thing for McCombs,” Logan said. ”They show all of the great things McCombs has to offer and will really help draw students to our school. This is an initiative I am so excited about.”

Printed on Tuesday, February 2, 2013 as: Students create virtual tour of business school

Students and faculty tested their international knowledge at World Trivia Night, hosted by the McCombs School of Business on Wednesday.

Eight teams participated in the event, which took place on the third day of celebrations on campus this week for International Education Week. Other events included Brazilian and Japanese film screenings Monday and Tuesday.

The five-member teams were mostly students, although each team was allowed one faculty member. Teams who dressed in costume earned five bonus points to their total score.

The teams were quizzed on information from eight categories, including current events and pop culture. Questions included the name of Mexico’s newly elected president and what Canadian city was home to the largest Michael Jackson tribute flash mob.

Jennifer Akune, an educational administration graduate student, coordinated the event and said she had competed in and judged the trivia event in the past. This is the fourth year McCombs hosted the event.

“Every year we’ve done it, it’s been really fun, and we just want students to have a good time and encourage international education,” Akune said.

Accounting junior Erika Gaffney’s group dressed in black with monocles and top hats. Gaffney said her team learned new facts during the trivia event about other countries and had fun participating.

“We work in the undergraduate program office where study abroad is located in McCombs, and so we’re around it every day,” Gaffney said. “We were looking forward to dressing up and are having a blast.”

Sabine Wimmer, McCombs program coordinator, said she was asked to moderate the event because of her international background and Austrian accent. She said the event gathered people interested in international topics.

“I think the people who come here are motivated to know this kind of trivia, and it brings together people who are like-minded,” Wimmer said. “It gives visibility to people of different countries.”

Khyrria Tekbali, a global policy studies graduate student, said although she wasn’t part of a team, the information covered was interesting because of her area of study.

“As a global policy master’s student, all of this is really relevant to what we do every day, so it’s fun,” Tekbali said. “I wish I could have participated, and maybe I’ll participate next year.”

International Education Week will continue with events on campus Thursday and Friday. The full schedule is available at utiew.wordpress.com.

Donning a black Stetson cowboy hat presented to him by the Undergraduate Business Council and holding up a Hook ‘Em Horns sign, BP executive Ellis Armstrong concluded his discussion chronicling his journey up the corporate ladder as part of the McCombs VIP Distinguished Speaker Series.

Armstrong, Chief Financial Officer of Exploration and Production at BP, participated in a discussion Wednesday evening with David Platt, associate dean for undergraduate programs at the McCombs School of Business, followed by a Q-and-A session where he offered advice on everything from family life to natural gas price speculation. The Undergraduate Business Council organized the event as part of the McCombs VIP Distinguished Speaker Series. The event was free to all UT students.

As he recounted his professional successes and mistakes, Armstrong drew on his personal experiences to offer advice to college students.

“The thing I would have told myself in college is don’t get too stressed about making the right choice because some people know all their life they want to do a certain thing,” Armstrong said. “At least in my life, I didn’t know, so the thing I would have told myself is give yourself the most options and pick one that you are going to like doing.”

BP, a name that has become inextricably and infamously linked with the Deepwater Horizon explosion that resulted in nearly five millions barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, has worked to correct the damage since the spill in April 2010, Armstrong said.

“Obviously the events of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico were a tragic accident and everybody wishes it did not happen. But the thing that is interesting though, is that the response to that accident did actually, in a deep way, reveal the values of the company,” Armstrong said.

Finance and computer science student, Jay Shah, who serves as chair of the VIP Distinguished Speaker Series, said BP’s global standing and prominence on the UT campus motivated the Undergraduate Business Council to invite Armstrong to speak.

“BP is a company that has a strong presence at UT, both in the business school and outside,” Shah said. “We know how many students are recruited by BP and we know how big of a role they play in energy throughout the world.”

Business freshman, Liam Woolley-MacMath, said being able to see and hear from Armstrong and the other speakers the series brings to campus is extremely beneficial to undergraduate students.

“That’s basically all of our dream jobs,” Wooley-MacMath said. “Just to see somebody in that position is kind of inspiring.”

Printed on Thursday, September 6th, 2012 as: Distinguished Speaker Series features BP CFO Armstrong

A new survey by the McCombs School of Business has identified specific challenges faced by Hispanic business owners in Texas.

The study was performed by mail-in survey to Hispanic businesses in Texas between July 2011 and August 2012. The survey was done to benefit the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce and was presented to them Aug. 17 at a conference in San Antonio.

Renee Hopkins, a spokeswoman for the McCombs School of Business, said the ultimate goal of the study was to identify how to help expand the employment opportunities Hispanic businesses offer.

“The reason we did the study is because Hispanic-owned businesses play such a large part in the Texas economy, and to help that demographic create more employment in the state we had to understand it’s challenges,” Hopkins said.

One of the main challenges the study identified was that while many of these business owners have education beyond high school, their employees do not have sufficient training to perform their duties. 24 percent of respondents indicated a need for team leadership training, and 16 percent indicated a need for business or customer relations training.

Matt Montes, an accounting and sports management senior, said he wasn’t surprised to hear Hispanic businesses face challenges that others don’t.

“Hispanics face obstacles throughout their lives. It makes accomplishing specific goals that much more exciting,” Montes said.

The survey showed that if improvements were made to get rid of these obstacles, the Texas economy would see sustained growth along with lower unemployment for Hispanic employees, which supports census results that show business owners tend to hire more employees in their own ethnic groups.

Perhaps I’m being greedy. Perhaps there are more important issues, such as sweatshop labor, rising tuition costs and expensive student loans. But right now, the issues facing the University have finally hit home. This week, the McCombs School of Business decided that the Millennium Lab, one of the most frequently used resources in the business school, is to be shut down. Quite frankly, this the one of the worst decisions the business school could have made for its students.

Anyone who takes a look into the Millennium Lab — affectionately called the Mil Lab — will immediately understand its importance. It is packed with students all day. It serves as a place to collaborate and work with groups, a place to use hard-to-find and impossible-to-buy software and a place to get printing done quickly, easily and without cost. Removing it would affect hundreds, if not thousands, of students every day.

Business majors pay more in tuition than any other undergraduate at the University. With that, students expect all that extra money to benefit them in more ways than the occasional free meal at networking events. The Mil Lab helps students increase their productivity, collaborate and complete assignments. It is both more useful and more used than any other resource in the entire building. If the business school truly cared about its students, it would be building a second Mil Lab and doubling the study rooms in the Reliant Productivity Center.

And the Mil Lab does more than just help business students. It helps offload the already extensive demand for computers at the Perry-Castañeda Library. Without it, the waitlist for PCL computers would be that much worse. Business and non-business students alike would suffer as a result.

Look McCombs, we get it. You’re running a business. In fact, business is what you teach, so it should come as no surprise that profit is the only thing driving these types of decisions. But you’re also here to educate students, and part of that responsibility involves providing for them and giving them the resources to maximize their productivity. The Mil Lab does exactly that.

If McCombs were to eliminate the Mil Lab, students would have to download all of the multi-thousand dollar Excel add-ons and other MIS, accounting or statistics software to their own machines, which would probably cost the school even more. If McCombs needs to cut spending, there are far more effective places to do so. Free brownies in the Business Honors Program office, I’m looking at you.

But this article will accomplish nothing if it falls on deaf ears. Students must make their opinion very clear to David Burns, head of computer services, as well as Dean Thomas Gilligan. Most of all, students must pressure their professors and respective department heads. Professors, especially those teaching technical majors such as MIS, will not want their students crippled by the business school’s greed, and their input has far more impact than that of a student.

If all else fails, business students should band together and learn from the one group that most of them despise: the Occupiers. If anything can be learned from that rowdy lot of professional protesters, it is that a great amount of attention and annoyance can be generated from standing in one spot, shouting obnoxiously and refusing to leave. Perhaps staking a permanent presence in the Mil Lab will help the administration see that students take their resources seriously. McCombs take note: If the future targets of the Occupy movement are willing to occupy themselves to prove a point, you know you have a problem.

McGarvey is a business honors freshman.