Spring Update from Collete English Dixon, Executive Director

 

At Roosevelt University and the Marshall Bennett Institute, along with many other colleges and universities, mid-terms are coming to a close and spring break is about to begin. This half-way point in the academic semester is often met with wistfulness (how quickly the weeks have flown!) and anxiety (how much more to do before finals and graduation!), but the best part of it is that we get to take a breather for a few days before the run to the end-zone begins.

This is when we finalize the course catalog for the coming academic year and turn focused attention on course development and enrollment. At the Institute, we are working on our Graduate Certificates in Real Estate Finance & Investment and in Real Estate Development and are hopeful to announce their availability in the next few months. We are also working on a course in Real Estate Technology and Trends, and are working to establish concentrated courses in ARGUS and Excel modeling for our students. With respect to enrollment, Roosevelt has rolling admissions so students can apply to the graduate program until August 1. If you are thinking about moving forward with your graduate degree and would like to learn about some of the scholarships available, please attend our Scholarship Fair on April 1. You can RSVP to Janice Cox at jcox17@roosevelt.edu.

The next “big thing” at the Institute will be this summer’s 12-day Immersion Program in Commercial Real Estate for high school students. This program, produced by the partnership of NAIOP (national and local) and REEC (the Real Estate Executive Council) in conjunction with NEXUS, will bring 28-32 rising high school juniors and seniors to the Roosevelt University campus to immerse them in the commercial real estate industry. The intended outcome is to impress them with the wide-ranging opportunities so they consider college selections through the lens of programs that will prepare them to pursue those careers and then they enter the pipeline of talent as interns and graduates. We are very excited to host this program at Roosevelt and believe this will be an impactful way to enhance the talent pipeline for the industry and maybe secure some undergraduates for our new real estate major. If you have an interest in working with us on this program, please contact me at cenglishdixon@roosevelt.edu or 312-341-3767 or Oscar Groves (ogroves@reec.org). We hope that Chicago’s real estate community will step up to actively sponsor the programming and provide scholarships for less-advantaged students to attend.

Regards,

Collete English Dixon, Executive Director