we're not just here to learn how to make money!

MBA students from Xavier University will be headed to Guatemala Tuesday to help reduce that nation’s severe illiteracy rate.

Guatemala has the worst literacy record in Latin American. Seventy-five percent of the people who live in the countryside are illiterate, and most girls receive less than two years of education.

Our class came up with the idea to go to Guatemala as part of a series of three courses offered this summer by Xavier’s Williams College of Business. The courses topics include how to manage, market and raise funds for non-profit organizations. Xavier is, proudly, the only business school in Greater Cincinnati offering business courses focusing entirely on non-profits. This summer, our class of 5 (plus 3 professors) acted as consultants for Cincinnati non-profit organizations: Churches Active in Northside (CAIN); Healthy Visions; and STOP AIDS.

On this trip, we teamed up with Cooperative for Education, a Hyde Park-based non-profit organization that strives to improve literacy and education in Guatemala. Jeremy, who you will meet later, works for them and the founders are also Xavier grads so we knew we had an "in".

We hope this trip inspires future Xavier MBA students to strive to make a difference in by reaching out to non profits and make good use of their business savvy to impact communities around the world!

Professor Chris Manolis, chair of the marketing department, said the courses and trip are consistent with Xavier’s Jesuit tradition. “People think of business students only wanting to learn how to make money,” he said. “But we have a lot of students who have a social conscience. They believe in and want to live the Xavier mission.”