Anakin Leister, a rising senior from Trinity, N.C., is pursuing a marketing concentration as part of his Business Management and Leadership major at Pfeiffer University. This past spring, he participated in a work-based learning initiative, not at a part-time job or an internship, but as part of his Organizational Change course at Pfeiffer.

He and fellow students in one of several project task groups proposed ways that Connie’s Coffee & Cafe in Albermarle, N.C. might grow and enhance its operations, having been invited to do so by Connie Blalock, the cafe’s owner. Their suggestions, which often included AI programs, were informed by a visit to Connie’s, a 17-year-old establishment about 20 minutes from Pfeiffer’s campus in Misenheimer, N.C., and by meeting with Blalock to learn more about how she had built up her business and about its current challenges and goals.

The students also prepared PowerPoint presentations, with budgets, which they ran by Dr. Raushan Gross, their Organizational Change professor, before going before Blalock to present them. Gross, an Associate Professor of Business Management and Leadership, often favors experiential learning.

“Dr. Gross is very good at teaching that way,” Leister said. “We got hands-on experience. Doing it hands-on and getting feedback, you learn more.”

The partnership with Gross’s Organizational Change students and Blalock began to take hold after Gross approached Erica Church, the CEO/President of the Stanly County Chamber of Commerce, with the aim of forging closer relationships between his students and the county’s business community. Blalock’s business was floated as a way to get things started.

“Erica really cemented the relationship that I had with Connie,” Gross said. “She got that relationship started through just us talking. I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Erica for really bridging that gap.”

At first, Gross envisioned Blalock merely talking about her business and communicating to the students the lessons she’d learned about running it.

Blalock had a different idea in mind, hoping to learn how the students might apply their know-how to the real-world scenarios of her business. “If it’s feasible, I’ll see if I can put it into action,” Gross remembers Blalock telling him.

Blalock says Gross’s students were very interested in her business and “had some great ideas.” She envisions implementing several of them, from shipping out orders of different types of non-perishable coffee beans to implementing a scheme that would enable customers to pick up their orders in a designated area of the store after paying for them online. She’s also keen to develop what rising senior Gabi Gama proposed, namely a more consistent and engaging social media strategy that resonates with college students.

Also under consideration is a group suggestion favored by Nkosinathi “TK” Dlamini, a rising senior from South Africa who’s majoring in both Business Management & Leadership and Computer Information Systems. This would bring a food truck from Connie’s to baseball games and other outdoor events at Pfeiffer. “A lot of people attend these events,” Dlamini said. “A food truck would raise Connie’s profile among them.”

Leister has already added his work for Connie’s to his resume. He’ll be able to tell prospective employers about some of the suggestions his group made. One that’s already happened was filling the ample open spaces at Connie’s with a couch and arm chairs; in this way, college students and other young people would come to view the cafe as a place to socialize or work on their laptops during lengthy visits.

Connie’s is known for making free meals available to members of Albemarle’s unhoused population. A proposal from Leister’s group would build on that with food drives in which, for example, the donor of five canned goods could receive a dollar’s credit toward a purchase of a cup of coffee.

Will Organizational Change students advise other businesses in the future? Gama, whose group proposed promoting Connie’s Coffee & Cafe in flyers placed in Pfeiffer’s Welcome Weekend packets (among several other suggestions), certainly hopes so.

 “I enjoyed this assignment,” said Gama, a rising senior from Matthews, N.C. who’s majoring in Business Management & Leadership and in Strategic Communication & Social Media. “It gave us real-world practical experience with the assistance of a professor whose guidance was really beneficial.”

And Church is bullish about chamber businesses forging more collaborations with the Organizational Change students of Pfeiffer. “I think it’s a wonderful program,” she said. “I hope we can continue to expand it. I look forward to working with Pfeiffer again this year to continue integrating their students into our business community.”