The Ivy College of Business will host a variety of events this week in order to give back to students and build a sense of community.

Suzanne Lyndon, an event planner for the Ivy College of Business and co-chair of the Business Week committee, said the Ivy College throws Business Week to show off what the college has to offer and give students the opportunity to network with professionals. Additionally, it looks to give back to the community and show appreciation for students.

“Business Week is something that, as faculty and staff, we certainly look forward to throughout the year,” Lyndon said. “When we have the free lunch on campus for Ivy students, faculty and staff, we get lots of faculty and staff who like to come to that barbecue and see their students outside of the normal classroom setting.”

Events include the Business Week Kickoff Barbeque on Monday, a t-shirt giveaway on Tuesday, a Meals for the Heartland service project Wednesday, the Ivy student organization competition on Thursday and free coffee and muffins on Friday. This year’s Business Week also features new events such as the Business Career Services Super Day on Tuesday and on Friday, a prize drawing sponsored by John Deere.

Friday’s Business Week prize drawing is a raffle students can enter by attending events throughout the week. At the week’s events, students can scan a QR code to gain admission to the raffle; for every QR code students scan, they get an additional entry into the drawing.

“So the more events they attend, the more opportunity they have to enter the drawing,” Lyndon said. “We’re going to be giving away $1,000 in prizes from John Deere. And they’re going to be some really nice sizes, like five $100 gift cards and 10 $50 gift cards.”

The College is also holding the Business Career Services Super Day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m Tuesday. There, students can talk with Ivy Career Coordinators and get tips on building resumes, attending the career fair and networking with potential employers.

“Students can just drop in all day long and have walk-in appointments with a career coordinator and get those last-minute concerns and nerves and things worked through before the career fairs,” Lyndon said. “They can get somebody to review their resume and talk through how they’re gonna approach an employer at the career fair and get advice about the career fair.”

This year marks Ivy College’s 21st annual Business Week. Every year, the Ivy College holds a variety of events with business sponsors who send in representatives to interact and network with students.

“Companies agreed to sponsor the event, and then they also have the opportunity to send a representative from the company to be there and participate in the event,” Lyndon said. “On Monday for the Business Week Kickoff Barbecue Lunch, Collins Aerospace, based in Cedar Rapids, sponsor that event, so they’ll send five people to come to the event to mingle with students to have lunch with students.”

The Ivy College will also hold a service project with Meals For The Heartland for the sixth year in a row. Every year the Ivy College packages 20,000 meals during Business Week. Having packaged their 100,000th meal in 2021, Lyndon said the college looks forward to beginning their next 100,000 meals with the 20,000 on Wednesday.

“It’s nice because, at the service projects, you get students and faculty and staff and sometimes employers all working together on the line packaging meals, and it’s just kind of fun to see when everybody’s got a project to do and working together,” Lyndon said. “There’s some really nice conversation and community that comes out of that.”

All around, Business Week offers students, faculty and staff of the Ivy College of Business the opportunity to interact with peers and professors outside of the typical setting. Lyndon said a large portion of the appeal for Business Week is the strengthening of the community within the College of Business.

“I think it’s a way to just kind of strengthen the sense of community that we have within the College of Business, and really show students that we value that connection with them both inside and outside of the classroom,” Lyndon said. “So whether we’re having lunch with them or volunteering with them at the service project. It’s always to sort of help Ivy students feel like they’re part of a community that really values their belonging.”

More information about the Business Week Schedule can be found on the Ivy College of Business website.