Radford’s first Biz Expo infuses enjoyable into monetary training

Consider a current pupil enterprise discussion board, Radford’s inaugural Biz Expo 2025.

It was held on the early afternoon of a late-summer Thursday when the solar was shiny,
the sky clear and the temperature a bucolic 75 levels; for some first-year college students,
it was even a compulsory assembly.

But earlier than you image a captive viewers on an instructional pressured march, know this related
facet: The occasion was constructed round free ice cream and, in actuality, whereas extremely informative,
it felt extra like an indoor block occasion than a lecture.

Regardless of whether or not it was the frosty treats being supplied or the course credit score
and expertise college students acquired for attending, some 210 Highlanders turned out for
the 2025 Biz Expo.

The discussion board was introduced Sept. 11 at Kyle Hall by the Davis College of Business and
Economics and, on Instagram, was deemed “the sweetest networking event of the semester.”

It was onerous to overlook, too. Local service provider The Ice Cream King’s truck was parked outdoors
Kyle for a number of hours throughout the occasion, broadcasting cheerful 8-bit tunes as all
method of frozen confections had been handed out.

“We’ve been thinking for a while now, ‘How can we make business more fun?’” defined
Melanie Butler, Davis College’s director of educational assist, engagement and retention.
“We’re attempting to encourage them to have interaction extra and be extra lively in faculty and hopefully
resolve to double main and minor.”

Student members had been requested to contemplate 4 questions on operating and constructing
a hypothetical ice cream franchise. As they addressed these points, they needed to contemplate
their enterprise with respect to the enterprise disciplines Radford gives, together with
finance, accounting, advertising and marketing, administration, human sources and economics.
That required them to go to tables run by representatives of every division and gather
stamps to earn precise ice cream.

“We wished them to consider these questions as they go to every of the majors. As
they’re speaking, they study how that main pertains to every query,” Butler
added that day, as throughout her, college students bustled right here and there to finish the
assignments.

“They’re interacting with the entire disciplines to attempt to resolve: Should I purchase one other
truck? Should I’m going dairy free?” Donna McCloskey, dean of Davis College, stated. “Instead
of telling them the distinction between accounting and finance, we’re giving them these
issues and having them discuss to the disciplines, so that they’ll have a greater understanding
of what our majors and minors are.”

The college representatives devised inventive methods to deliver levity to the method.
There had been balloons, prizes, and many video games, together with “Scooponomics” Jeopardy,
a faux-game present run by Associate Professor of Economics Can Dogan, who acquired the chance
to quiz considered one of his college students, Kellian Babbage, on the fundamentals of provide and demand.

“We discussed this in class today, so you should know this,” Dogan informed Babbage as
he chosen a query card from the problem board, then learn: “If sprinkles go
on sale, how may that have an effect on ice cream demand?”

Babbage thought for only a second and replied, “Demand should go up.”

“Yes,” Dogan informed him. “Demand will go up because the price will be lower.”

Later, Babbage, a freshman advertising and marketing main, defined that he’s in Dogan’s microeconomics
class: “Supply and demand was a part of right this moment’s lesson. And now I solely want yet one more
stamp.”

Another of the occasion’s points of interest was a makeshift recording studio organized by the
advertising and marketing professors. Students had been in a position to sit in comfortable chairs earlier than a pair of microphones
and chat collectively as a part of an impromptu podcast that was being live-streamed on
a monitor in Kyle’s entrance hallway. Among the podcast’s viewers had been President Bret
Danilowicz and members of Radford’s Board of Visitors, who stopped by for a go to
following the primary day of their September assembly.

Bryson Hilton, assistant professor of selling, described the streamed exercise as
each enjoyable and academic.

“We’re displaying them not solely behind the scenes of a manufacturing, but in addition how they
can take part and truly podcast themselves,” Hilton stated.

He and Assistant Professor of Marketing Alexis Yim additionally handed out squeezable black-and-white
noticed foam rubber bovines.

“They’re ‘cash cows,’” Hilton defined. “Good luck charms.”

Freshman administration main Nora Lester, from Fairlawn, Virginia, acquired some mic time
within the podcast studio and already has plans for a number of the classes she took from
the expo.“

“My purpose sooner or later is to personal my very own salon, by way of cosmetology,” Lester stated. “I already
have my license, so it’s actually nearly getting a head begin earlier than I start.

“I do know that I’m going to make use of plenty of the monetary information when formulating my
personal enterprise, so I really feel like studying extra about economics could be very helpful.”

Out in entrance of Kyle, beside the ice cream truck, first-year accounting main Allie
Vogel of Woodbridge, Virginia, was completed along with her necessities and sitting fortunately
within the solar, having fun with the fruits of her work: a frozen chocolate éclair.

“I got here right here to study extra concerning the different majors and to search out out what I can do with
my very own main,” Vogel stated, including that she’s sticking with accounting.

“But it was nonetheless good to listen to about what I might do in enterprise if I modified my thoughts
in some unspecified time in the future.”