Marketing students at the University of Minnesota-Crookston worked with the local government on major projects in their senior year.
Over the last two years, students have created a new marketing plan for the city, helped redesign the city’s website and recommended a new marketing job.
Al Fattal Anas, an assistant professor at Crookston, began working with Community Development Director Karie Kirschbaum after she approached the marketing department in 2022, looking for help in his new position.
“I have always been a big fan of this community engagement concept,” Anas said. “While in Europe, I was involved in several projects similar to this. Where businesses come to the university and look for guidance.”
Marketing students came up with a marketing plan in 2022 for the city of Crookston. Since then, each semester, students in Anas’ marketing research class have worked with different parts of the local government to conduct marketing research and provide guidance for the city.
Currently, students are working alongside natural resources students on the trail system in Crookston to improve usage, Anas said.
Anas said the city is home to lots of beautiful trails, and students are hoping to improve their use.
“We are looking at the condition of the parks and how we can make it better,” Anas said.
Eric Castle teaches the natural resources course, working alongside Anas’ students to develop an interdisciplinary project to help maintain parks in the community. He said students are learning in the classroom and going into the field to photograph and inventory items as they determine how to improve the trails.
Castle said they are combining with marketing students to see their perspective.
“I think some of the strengths that some of the marketing students have is they are trained in how to tell stories, they have that skill set,” Castle said. “Natural resources students don’t necessarily have some of those skills, but combining the two classes allows the final product to leverage the knowledge of both the marketing students and the natural resources students.”
Castle said students tend to appreciate these applied projects, where students can interact and work with local communities and collaborate with real people.
Anas said he teaches this course differently than his other courses, as the focus is on the application of concepts. He said the students, mostly fourth years, are deeply engaged in the course.
Each project requires students to find a driving question, interview people in the community, create a survey and come up with recommendations. The undergraduate students’ work has led to several changes in the city of Crookston, Anas said.
“They recommended that the city should create a marketing coordinator,” Anas said. “Now we have a marketing coordinator and we work very closely with this person.”
Anas said that students have received job offers after they have completed projects in this class. He does not know what project students will be working on in the fall, but he plans on continuing to work in the community.
“I’ve always loved experiential learning, even when I was a student,” Anas said. “We don’t remember the lectures once we graduate, but we remember the experiences. They present work in front of strangers, and break out of the college environment.”
