 
SUNY-Westchester Community College Professor Phyllis Fein with some of her marketing studentsÂ
Just before the start of winter semester, marketing professor Phyllis Fein realized her students could help businesses beat the recession.
“I was driving down Central Avenue over winter break, and I remember seeing all these stores closing,” said Fein, who teaches at SUNY-Westchester Community College. “As I was preparing my syllabus, I thought, we”™re a community college, and we really should help businesses. I thought my students could go out and take elements of marketing and apply it to a real-world setting.”
This semester, more than 60 of Fein”™s students contacted a business struggling because of the economic downturn. They then offered themselves as free marketing consultants and spent the entire semester working closely with the businesses to offer them advice on areas of marketing from customer segmentation to pricing to distribution.
The students chose businesses ranges from traditional restaurants, architecture firms, beauty salons and even a head shop.
Each week, students applied what they learned in class the previous week to help their chosen businesses grow.
Matt Oustatcher, general manager of Route 22 American Restaurant and Bar in Armonk, was “all for it” when student Emily Hobbs offered her assistance.
“I thought it was an interesting assignment, and a good way for college students interested in business to learn,” Oustatcher said. “It”™s more than what you can get out of a textbook. Emily came down to the restaurant six or seven times, and we discussed what our goals were for the company,” Oustatcher said.
Some of Hobb”™s suggestions, such as gearing the restaurant”™s happy hour specials to employees of businesses IBM and Swiss Re, both of which are headquartered nearby.
Hobbs found the collaboration equally rewarding.
“I though Professor Fein was very brave when coming up with this new idea for her marketing class,” Emily Hobbs said. “She, instead of making us read the text and take quizzes on vocab, thought outside the box and gave us a new way to learn the material. I have never enjoyed a class more in my life. I enjoyed working with Matt on the assignments and he was completely open to my new and fresh ideas. I am very grateful to have been a part of the Route 22 team and extremely glad I could help a business during these hard times.”
At first, student Navin Bhatia thought the class would be easy because there is no final exam requirement for students who pass the class, “but little did I know that every assignment was an exam.”
Bhatia chose American Pool Management. His final presentation to the class included a video he made implementing his suggestions, including interacting with the community by offering free lifeguard training. He also suggested the owners cut costs by buying and delivering chemicals and other materials to the pool themselves rather than hire someone else to do it.
Amanda De Marco, an assistant at Paulo”™s Atelier Hair Salon in Bedford Hills, works full time during the summer and part time during the school year. She chose the upscale salon as her project and recommended more community outreach, such as a fundraiser for breast cancer survivors who are losing their hair.
Many of the students chose to help their current employers, Fein said.
“In the end, they really have to make a difference, and they have to make a difference in their grade and how they applied marketing, but also in the business owner,” Fein said.
