- March 28, 2024
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Robert Beatty hasn't been the dean of the Lutgert College of Business at Florida Gulf Coast University for long, but he's hitting the rubber chicken circuit hard.
Most recently, Beatty promoted the virtues of the business school at a breakfast meeting of the Institute of Management Accountants in Fort Myers.
In particular, Beatty says the college is expanding its internship program so students have a better chance to land a job at a company in the Fort Myers-Naples area. That's in part because parents (he calls them “ROI parents”) are demanding results for paying tuition for their little darlings. “Internships are becoming critical to what we do,” Beatty says.
Part of that means hiring faculty with real-world business experience. “Hiring faculty like that is very difficult,” says Beatty, who became dean of the school last summer. “They had to have been there, done that.”
The combination of faculty with business experience and boosting internship opportunities for students should appeal to employers who seek immediate help. “Employers don't have two years to train people,” Beatty notes.