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Important Dates
January 3rd - New York Alumni Reception
January 5th - Boston Alumni Event
February 3rd – Client Meeting #2
February 7th – Chicago Alumni Event
February 8th – Milwaukee Alumni Event
May 4th - Client Meeting #3
May 31st – 2nd Annual Madison Investment Conference
Oct. 25th – 27th – Hawk Center Investment Conference & Reunion
Winter 2011 ASAP News and Notes
We are pleased to share some of the many exciting things going on here at the Hawk Center and at ASAP. The students are working hard on the portfolios, and as usual are learning a lot along the way. We hope all of you are finding ways to cope with current market conditions, and have used the success of our Wisconsin based football teams to take your mind off the challenges they are creating. We also want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season!
Hawk Center Fundraising Update
As of the middle of November (about one year since our reunion), the total amount of donations toward ASAP and the Hawk Center were around $270,000, representing a total of 76 gifts. We are thankful for your ongoing support in what continues to be a difficult industry environment.
Recall that at last year’s reunion we had talked about a goal of raising around $400,000 annually and having 150-200 of our alumni participate by making an annual gift. Obviously, we are not quite at that goal, and if you have not yet made a gift this year please consider us in your year-end giving plans (you can click here to go directly to the website to make a pledge).
Thank You – we could not operate without the ongoing support of you, our friends and alumni!
New ASAP and Hawk Center Websites Launched
One of the most significant internal initiatives that we (and the entire Business School staff) have been working on is a complete make-over of our website. This has been a massive project, as the goal was to improve the user experience while at the same time moving from simple HTML webpages to auto-generated pages driven by content stored in a content management database. Our Assistant Director, Elesha Belke, has put a tremendous amount of effort into this makeover, and while we realize there are still plenty of ways to improve it, we are very proud of the new site.
In fact, in keeping with the overall view of our mission that we discussed at the last reunion, we have moved from having one site to two sites – one focused on the overall work of the Hawk Center, and one focused on the Applied Security Analysis Program. Recall that in the long-run we view the Hawk Center as our umbrella brand that we will use as a home base for a growing number of new initiatives as we move forward, including providing support to our undergraduate students and providing events that benefit the investment industry (just to name a few). The goal of the Hawk Center website is to give our alumni an overall view of what the Center is doing, and we expect this site to continue to expand as we move forward with our new initiatives. Hawk Center Website
The ASAP website is focused completely on the Applied Program, and is meant to serve prospective students, prospective employers, and alumni that are interested in learning more about our nationally renowned program. ASAP Website
Get to know our students by viewing their profiles.
If you see errors or omissions in our website, or have ideas for ways to make it even better, please let us know.
Upcoming Alumni Events
Over the next two months we are going to be hosting a number of alumni events. The first two are our annual alumni receptions in New York (Jan. 3rd) and Boston (Jan. 5th). These will be great opportunities to meet our first year ASAP students and get a brief update on things from Brian and Elesha.
In February, we will be holding two new annual events in Milwaukee and Chicago that will feature our second year students. These events will start with each of our portfolio teams giving a brief update on their investment process, performance, portfolio characteristics and will also allow them to highlight a few of their best ideas. Those of you attending are encouraged to offer feedback and ask questions. Following the presentations, we will host an alumni reception.
Details on all of these events will be sent shortly – watch for future emails!
Research Conferences – Looking for more Student Opportunities
As many of our recent graduates will recall, the Hawk Center has traditionally arranged a trip to New York and Boston to for our first year students to visit firms and meet alumni over the winter semester break. This year, we are trying to create a new opportunity for our second year students to attend at least one investment conference that gives them an opportunity to interact with company management teams and other investment professionals.
I’d like to thank Jeff Holmes and Damien Conover at Morningstar for creating two slots for our students at their recent Chicago conference, as well as Chris Taggert for creating some slots at the recent CreditSights conference in New York. These opportunities were tremendous opportunities for our students and are much appreciated.
If your firm hosts a conference and you think you may be able to help us send one or two students as attendees, please give Brian a call at 608-262-9039 to discuss. We are hoping to provide all 12 of our second year students with an opportunity to attend a conference this year, and we need your help in making that happen.
Placement Likely to Be Challenging Once Again – Please Keep us in Mind!
While the environment has certainly improved compared to a few years ago, it remains a fairly challenging job market for our students. As we head into the Spring, please let us know if your firm is looking for interns or has full-time opportunities for MBA students that generally have 1-3 years of experience. We appreciate the help!
Using LinkedIn to Stay Connected to the Hawk Center
Our Assistant Director, Elesha Belke, has been slowly ramping up the Hawk Center’s presence on LinkedIn, and we encourage you to connect with us through this platform. We plan to increasingly use it to communicate employment opportunities for alumni as we become aware of them, make announcements about alumni events, and provide updates from Madison. In order to maximize your connection to us, we recommend doing the following:
- If you haven’t already, please set up an account on LinkedIn.
- Please connect directly with Brian Hellmer and Elesha Belke. You can do this by search for their names in the search bar, and then hitting the “connect” button.
- Please join our main group, Friends of the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis. This is easiest to do by changing the search bar to “groups”, and then type Hawk Center. You will then see the “Friends of Hawk Center Group” and should click the button to join.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Brian, Mark & Elesha