School of Marketing and Innovation
Marketing and Innovation Practice Center
Goals
- To provide experiential learning for our students within the School of Marketing and Innovation.
- To engage faculty members in meaningful ways with different businesses and organizations within the Greater Tampa Bay and Sarasota-Manatee county regions.
- To provide local businesses and organizations with a real solution to an issue or problem that they face within the areas associated with the program.
Executive Summary
The Marketing and Innovation Practice Center project is available across all three campuses and supervised by faculty members from all three campuses. The center gives students new skills and experiences with "real world" projects sponsored by industry partners. Students work in groups of two performing collaborative team-based projects. Every project is supervised by at least one faculty mentor and at least one representative of the project-sponsoring industry partner. Projects typically last one semester. Based on a project's outcome or the nature of the project, an industry partner may choose to sponsor the next phase or a new project for an additional semester. Some flexibility is built into this program for situations where the project start date cannot coincide with the start of the semester, or where industry partners require students to work on multiple projects. However, the selection of projects should be based on some learning objectives. There is also some flexibility as to the location where students complete project work (at the USF campus and/or sponsoring industry partner facilities).
Benefits
Participating students gain valuable experience along with earning possible stipend
and credits.The program will offer a unique skillset beyond the classroom to make
the students more marketable for the internships and careers. These students become
more competitive in the job market, and are noticed by sponsoring industry partners.
Acquiring internships often poses a challenge for international students due to restrictions
with student visas regarding paid work. Participating students also benefit from the
mentoring provided by School of Marketing and Innovation faculty and industry representatives
supervising respective projects.
Faculty members benefit by applying their knowledge to "real world" problems, while
at the same time maintaining currency in their practice skills. They also learn about
industry problems, technology solutions, and issues, which they can bring to the classroom,
and to their research.
The business partners benefit in several ways. First, they have the opportunity to work with top-quality business analytics and information systems students in order to create solutions to projects that benefit them, while leveraging the expertise of top faculty members. Companies are able to engage and observe students perform projects for future consideration of full-time employment, reducing the cost of recruitment.
Offerings
- Marketing Research
- Digital Marketing
- Business Development
- CMSI Lab
- Marketing Audit
- Event Marketing
- Marketing Promotions
Operations
The center is supported by the industry partners who benefit from the services performed.
Projects are accepted on a rolling basis. It is generally the most beneficial for companies to plan for a September-December or January-April timeline. Please allow a period of 6-8 weeks prior to starting for setup. Applications may come from companies, faculty, or students themselves.
Participants must be USF students and are selected based on GPA, skill sets, and the availability of projects. Honors students are encouraged to apply as project work could be part of a honors thesis, subject to the terms of the non-disclosure agreements.
Partners
Marketing and Innovation Practice Center Partner: $6,200- $16,000 per semester
- Provides funding for two students for 5-20 hours per week per student (15 weeks).
- Funds faculty supervision and research throughout the semester for the students and for the partner
Note for all Practice Center Partners
All required paperwork, including the signing of non-disclosure agreements as required by the project partners, and documents as required by USF, must be completed before the start of the semester. Also, students are employed by USF, and therefore USF manages the payroll processing for students.