As businesses around the world become increasingly sensitive to the impact their activities have on society, MBA students in the Fox School of Business are getting a first-hand lesson in corporate social responsibility.

In August, 36 full-time, first-year MBA students made the community their classroom, donning gloves and sneakers to participate in the inaugural “Give a Hoot!” day of service as part of their month-long MBA Essentials pre-term orientation program.

Fox partnered with City Year, a nonprofit service organization that employs teams of young people from across the country, in their “Give a Year” program to perform public service in schools and communities.

A total of 51 Fox participants, including first- and second-year MBA students, alumni, faculty and staff, were shuttled to the local Athletic Recreation Center on 26th and Master streets in North Philadelphia to help repaint an auditorium and stairwell, clean up outdoors and create mural panels to surround playgrounds. 

The day started with group calisthenics and cheers led by the City Year volunteers, who then assigned jobs to the Fox students.

“Our goal is to have this continue through future classes. Their decisions as CEOs, or whatever it might be, will impact their local communities,” Jason Bozzone, director of the full-time MBA and MS programs, said of Fox students. “We want to have Fox business leaders that are making ethical, moral decisions, because their decisions have an impact on the community that they’re a part of.”

After reading about how a handful of MBA programs were integrating community outreach into their required orientation programs, Bozzone approached Brittni Devereaux, a second-year MBA student, to develop a plan that combined the service-learning concept with the goals of the Fox MBA program.

Christine Kiely, assistant dean of MBA and MS programs at Fox, said the day’s events served as a foundation for future classes and casework.

“Corporate social responsibility and sustainability are very important to build into curricula today. And with this service learning component, it’s not just a one-shot deal,” she said. “What we’re having the teams do this year is create the business plan for next year’s day of service.”

Working side-by-side, the MBA students, alumni, faculty, staff, City Year volunteers and even children from the recreation center put in a full afternoon of labor to brighten up the building.

Devereaux, a graduate intern for the full-time MBA program, picked City Year as a partner for the event after hearing about the organization in Professor T.L. Hill’s social entrepreneurship class.

“I’m hoping that after being involved in a day like today, students will broaden their scope to see that it’s not just about ‘my company and my team,’ but it’s about the community we live in, and the greater good of all the people that the business can affect,” Devereaux said.

That message was echoed throughout the day, including at a panel discussion after the community service work. Fox MBA students met with executives from SEI Investments, Eagles Youth Partnership and Villa, all of which are corporate sponsors of City Year. The business leaders discussed the ways in which their companies promote youth development.

“We get this idea that kids who go into nonprofit and public service sectors, like City Year, and MBA students have values that are so diametrically opposed, that they’re complete opposites to each other,” said Andrew Martel, a first-year MBA student from New Jersey. “But business success and community success go hand-in-hand. You’re not going to succeed working in Philadelphia if Philadelphia isn’t succeeding as a city.”