"Metro needs to continue to enhance its reputation and improve people's knowledge about our programs," explains Interim Dean John Cochran. "We need to develop partnerships to maintain our resources and keep our students current. Plus these relationships can help employ graduates and provide student scholarships."

In October, the School of Business hosted two daylong conferences on cyber security and financial controls for Metro alumni and community business professionals. The conferences featured experts in industry, government and business— including Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and State Treasurer Mike Coffman—and honored outstanding Metro State alumni Milroy Alexander ('74), executive director of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, President of UMB Bank Colorado Jon Robinson ('90), and Juan Solano III ('79), co-founder and president of Berger & Co.

Ray Moroye, a faculty member in the Department of Management, just finished teaching the first in a series of free entrepreneurship seminars he's offering through the local minority chambers of commerce, including the Asian Chamber of Commerce, the Colorado Women's Chamber of Commerce, the Rocky Mountain Indian Chamber of Commerce, and the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Moroye is also working with the Office of Advocacy for the Small Business Association (SBA) to develop cooperative programming between Metro State and the SBA.

Becoming more connected community-wide, Moroye says, can give faculty insight into what business owners want to see from graduates of Metro State. "We can be a resource to help people" realize their entrepreneurial goals.

Since 1995, the Department of Finance has offered a personal financial planning certificate, which enables students to sit for the Certified Financial Planning licensure exam. Because the program offers a condensed format called Fast Track, it attracts students nationwide; about 170 students participate in the program annually. Metro State has also delivered this program on site at companies such as Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch and TIAA-CREF.

Come tax season, Metro accounting students prepare hundreds of tax returns free for low-income families through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. Accounting professors, too, serve on several community boards including the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, the Friends of Auraria Library, the Colorado AIDS Project and the Colorado Society of CPAs. For example, accounting Professor Rick Crosser is serving as a trustee of the Colorado Society of CPAs Educational Foundation, helping to spearhead a $1 million scholarship campaign for accounting students in Colorado.

Since 2002 economics Professor Alex Padilla has hosted a monthly student/community discussion club called "The Auraria Campus Austrian Economics Discussion Group."

In the Marketing Department, students gain hands-on experience in classes creating advertising campaigns for area businesses or marketing products they sell to help fund a scholarship. In marketing Professor Mick Jackowski's marketing and management seminar, students are selling computer "flash" drives on campus for $20. While in department Chair Clay Daughtrey's sports marketing class, students are getting to know people in the Denver Nuggets organization by selling discount Nuggets tickets where a portion of the proceeds will also go toward a scholarship. Plus other marketing professors like Nancy Frontczak make it a point to ensure students get real-world credentials by having them do promotional campaigns for local businesses and organizations such as Denver Botanic Gardens and Larimer Arts Association.

"A lot of students when they graduate don't have experience," explains Daughtrey. "These are ways for students to get some actual marketing experience for their resumes and make contacts with companies."