Smith Team MBA Cleans Up Elementary School

Orientation for first-year MBA students ended Friday, Sep. 5, 2008, with a service project at Takoma Educational Center, part of the Washington, D.C., public school system. Over 100 MBA students from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business traded their business attire for “TeamMBA” t-shirts and jeans and volunteered their time for tasks ranging from cleaning out storage rooms to leading story time for elementary students.

Takoma Educational Center, built in 1976, teaches approximately 315 students in grades preK-8. When TeamMBA arrived, they immediately split up into groups to help with the various projects the school requested. Some went to the library; others worked as classroom aides; but most worked on a daunting challenge: the school’s storage rooms.

“This is a seventies school,” said Renee Watson, business manager at the school. “There was stuff in storage here from the 70s, 80s and 90s.” Groups of MBA students took on the project of organizing and reclaiming storage spaces that had become too cluttered to use effectively. One of these rooms included the music closet. “That’s the room that’s been junky for 10 years,” Watson added, “and we’ve never wanted to tackle it. They came in and in one hour they had it organized. That place is unbelievable now: it’s so neat, you could do a cartwheel in it.”

The school’s upper gym was in a similar plight. It had been used as a storage space for as long as anyone could remember, including security officer Ken Harris, who has worked at the school for 13 years. A group of MBA students worked to restore order to the space. School principal, Rikki Hunt Taylor, was thrilled with the results: “It’s a huge space, it’s wonderful, but we’ve just been using it as storage, and the storage has just become a junk house, but now it’s organized, and we appreciate that.” The school now plans to use the upper gym as a classroom and a venue for dances and other social activities.

A larger group of students was directed to a room full of assorted computer equipment. During summer renovations, all of the school’s computers had been placed together, dissembled, into one large room, and they were still in that state when TeamMBA arrived. They immediately set to work, sorting and testing the equipment. Watson beamed as she described what the MBA students did next: “They moved it to the classroom, and they connected it. How awesome is that? It was so exciting. The teachers were ecstatic.” Without any dedicated staff members for IT, Watson said it would have taken her weeks or months to get all the classrooms outfitted with computers. With Team MBA’s help, it was done in a few hours.

“It’s a real example of economies of scale,” explained Tim Lewis, a first-year MBA student. “Well-meaning individuals can do a lot of good in a community, but a group like this, working together, can accomplish more and do it more efficiently.”

MBA students worldwide participate in local community service and humanitarian projects, and TeamMBA, an initiative of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), exists to encourage and herald their efforts.

The Smith TeamMBA caught this spirit of giving back to the local community. Ross Dodd, a first-year student, commented, “Everyone seemed to band together and accomplish their set tasks in a timely fashion, all while getting to know the students, faculty, and each other. I think everyone saw it as a great experience to grow in an atmosphere previously unfamiliar to them.”

Renee Watson concluded, “It was heaven-sent to have this army to help us. We took them to the front line. I can’t wait for them to come back.” In fact, some of them will be going back next month—as volunteer chaperones for the school’s field trip to the pumpkin patch.

For more information, visit: www.k12.dc.us and www.gmac.com/teammba.