New Sales Institute Keeps Your Marketing Education Relevant
By Katelyn Chostner
Getting a marketing degree can be tough but keeping your education relevant is exhausting. If you agree with that statement, well, you’re in luck. The University of Missouri–St. Louis has just announced a new tool to help you manage your education.
UMSL Business has launched the Marketing and Sales Leadership Institute (MSLI). MSLI is an academic body that discovers new trends and innovations in the marketing world. Under the leadership of Executive Director Dr. Perry Drake, the marketing institute plans to provide students, faculty and local businesses with amazing opportunities and advancement. “The scope of MSLI is to act as an academic body organized to identify emerging trends and best practices in marketing and sales,” said Drake.
If you’re a student in the marketing department, you’ll be able to benefit in several ways. Your curriculum will change depending on emerging marketing trends to better prepare you for graduation. You will also have a chance to do research in the marketing department. Practitioners that work in MSLI will be there to coach you for your career.
MSLI will be working with the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference for funding. These funds will be allocated to scholarships that you can apply for! On top of scholarships, you will see many local internship opportunities promoted by MSLI.
According to Drake, “[MSLI’s] purpose is to foster opportunities for students to learn the latest in marketing practices and give them the opportunity to experience things through experiential opportunities.” These are great reasons to love MSLI, but the best part is that it gives you connections that you’ll be able to use forever. What better way to start your career than with the best knowledge and experience? “[MSLI] is also geared not to help just students, but to help faculty. To help give them resources they might need to teach, that maybe our university can’t support through funding,” said Drake.
Faculty will prosper from the marketing institute by being able to perform joint grant research opportunities. MSLI will be able to accommodate space for the research. Along with this, faculty will be allocated funds from MDMC for special software and hardware. Most likely, this will create a better teaching environment for professors. One of the purposes of MSLI is to help foster funding externally in addition to university funding.
Any business who partners with MSLI will also see major benefits. The institution will also act as a place to teach businesses how to maintain current marketing practices and answer questions they have. They will also receive an annual report on current marketing trends. Another major benefit is that MSLI will also offer training for businesses who seek constant improvement.
All of these aspects of MSLI are here to help all of the students and faculty inside UMSL marketing and businesses who are looking to further themselves in the marketing world.
This year, MSLI is looking to broaden its board. Right now, it consists of Dr. Drake and Associate Professor of Marketing and Department Chair Haim Mano. They are also looking for local businesses who are interested in partnering with MSLI. Contact Dr. Drake at (914-299-4879) if you want to become involved with the new institute.