I constantly try to come up with innovative ideas to promote Bergen Community College with engaging ideas to get students involved the way the four year colleges get their students involved. The courtyard by the main building was just finished being renovated and it is a really nice place for students to gather. There are a lots of places to sit and for people to talk. We have been using it for smaller events when the weather is nice but not in the way to get the whole college involved. I was thinking of ideas of how to get my Introduction to Business students engaged this semester and I had a big group of students (32) to get motivated. Things have changed since COVID started.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
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In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
I came up with “Springfest” when I was looking for names of college events and it sounded like a fun name. I thought back to “Dragon Days” at Cornell and how much fun the students had during that week. At Michigan State, we did not have too many of these campus wide when I was there and we created our own when I lived at Wilson Hall. Welcome Week, Winter Carnival, State is Great Week, and Spring Fling were on their way to becoming traditions at our hall.
At Bergen Community College, we don’t have any big traditional events like these since we are commuter campus. I wanted to change that and I challenged the students to come up with ideas that would involve the whole college. In the past semesters we have created an Student Ambassador Program, Welcome Week for new students, Homecoming for students and Alumni and Springfest would be another big student/alumni event. It would be a series of concerts, dinners, a pep rally and an alumni breakfast that students could join in. It would also be a community event and introduce new students to campus.
Springfest would bridge that gap and a way to show off the campus and all its attributes. I also challenged the students to write a school song. This is the third time that I have done this and the students always do a different take on it. I like the different versions of the song that come from each group.
Like my other two classes, my Marketing class was creating “It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ-Be a Tourist in your own Town” and my other Introduction to Business class was creating “Caribe Cafe-A Taste of the Caribbean”, I used the Hierarchy system and created an Executive Team with a President, SVP of Operations, Vice-Presidents, Team Leaders and Team Members. Like my other classes, I had a lot of drama with this group.
“Springfest 2023” was to be a three day Spring Festival with concerts every night, a pep rally for all the sports teams, a barbecue, a student organization introduction, welcome to new students, a carnival with games and actors walking around, food trucks and an alumni breakfast. The students made all of this come to life with creative and innovative ideas in their proposal. I was impressed by the ingenuity that the student consultants showed that evening. My President and Senior Vice-President of Operations showed a cool and calm front and the utmost professionals that evening, leading their Team to success in the presentation.
The project was not without its share of problems and it is all things we see in the real world in the workforce. I had Team members I had to constantly talk to about their performances, their lack of input and not communicating with the Vice-President. I swear I had not done this much discipline since I worked at Macy’s. So this is what the modern CEO is going through. I know that cellphones are going to the bain of our society and our modern business world.
Even through all the drama that I had to endure and what challenges I put the Executive Team through, the student executives overcame it and put together one hell of a presentation. In the end though I had to fire three students from the project and I never did that before but again the modern CEO has a company to run and people who will not do the work can’t be part of the results. They need to find another place to work.
Still, I was proud of the students and here is the project “Springfest 2023”:
The proposed Logo for “Springfest”:
The new logo for “Springfest”:
The website for “Springfest”:
https://sites.google.com/me.bergen.edu/springfestbergeccoparc/home
Here is the PowerPoint Presentation of the Project:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1spmWeccPcqw8CHehN5Eb8lBnmOFwhBq8bJyPnplWN1o/edit?usp=sharing
The Talent Team’s Office Presentation:
The Marketing Team’s ‘Springfest’ commercial:
The Marketing Team’s “Welcome to Bergen Community College” Video:
The Marketing Team’s Instagram Account:
The Entertainment Team’s video on the new school song:
See the presentation below
The Presentation of the Paramus Team Project “Springfest 2023”:
In lieu of giving a forth quiz, I gave the Teams the scenario that my Corporate partner, Susan Gonzales Honan, was impressed by the Team’s performance on the project and challenged the four Teams to come up with ideas for the New Brunswick Corporate Christmas Party. The project included creating an invitation, a menu with an appetizer, main dish, dessert and a signature Christmas drink. The Entertainment Team was asked to create an original Christmas song for the company. They came up with a very interesting rap song. Here are the results from each Team.
CEO Justin Watrel with Vice-President of Entertainment Joshua Manns and his Executive Team on the night of the presentation.
The Corporate Christmas Party Project-Quiz Four:
The Corporate Christmas Party ideas from the Paramus, NJ Teams:
The Powerpoint Presentation:
The Executive Team’s Ideas for the party:
Merry Christmas from Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.!
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