GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- As businesses began to bounce back in the wake of the Great Recession, Kevin McCurren, executive director of Grand Valley State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, began to hear employers utter a common need: better skilled managers.

s Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, began to hear employers utter a common need: better skilled managers.

“We cut ourselves down to the bone, we reduced our staffing and had to make the cuts we had to make to survive,” McCurren recalls businesses telling him. “But as we started to grow again, we’d really like to put a lot of emphasis on our management team.”

To help, GVSU is launching the Center for Leadership and Innovation, an organization within the university’s business school that aims to provide training for mid-to upper-level managers and executives.

Kevin McCurren

Businesses have long invested in training for top executives and other high ranking company officials, but entry level managers are rarely offered training to help them grow and advance in their careers, said Paul Heroman, who’s serving as the startup manager for the program.

“Those people were ignored,” said Heroman, who was a participant in Michigan's Shifting Gears program and for nearly two decades has operated companies throughout the nation, primarily focusing on printing and packaging.

“They were put in a position of responsibility. They were given little direction for leadership or innovation,” he said.

GVSU said the center could begin offering training this fall. As of now, administrators are looking for employers to partner with to help design the proper curriculum.

Primarily, manufacturers have expressed the need for training, although business within the health care and service industries have also expressed interest.

“Anytime you’re in a growth pattern, you need people to step up,” McCurren said. “We keep hearing we need to teach them to be better leaders to be better managers.”

GVSU expects to tap a wide variety of people to help teach the courses, which could run as short as a few days to as long as a few weeks. That could mean GVSU professors as well as professionals working in the business world.

The goal, Heroman said, is to provide training that employees can take directly back to the workplace.

“I don’t want people to come in for a couple days and wonder what they are going to do with it,” he said. “We want it to be practical. We want it to be useable.”

March 26, 2012

Dear Dr. Kumar,

On behalf of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FSB), I am pleased to congratulate you on your selection for a Fulbright award to India. The FSB is the Presidentially appointed 12-member Board that is responsible for establishing worldwide policies for the Fulbright Program and for selection of Fulbright recipients. Your grant is made possible through funds that are appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress and, in many cases, by contributions from partner countries and/or the private sector.

Your selection for a Fulbright award is, in itself, an achievement for which you can be justly proud. However, please bear in mind that there are several more steps to be accomplished before you become a Fulbright grantee. These include but are not limited to the following. This award is contingent upon your obtaining official research clearance from the host country, where applicable. It is also contingent upon your obtaining a satisfactory medical clearance and the necessary visas. The terms and conditions of your award and other pertinent information will be forwarded to you by the Fulbright Commission in India following completion of all formalities. After the necessary grant documents containing the terms of your grant have been provided to you for signature, you must sign them and see that they are returned as instructed.

As a Fulbright grantee, you will join the ranks of distinguished participants in the Program. Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, university presidents, journalists, artists, professors and teachers. They have been awarded 43 Nobel Prizes. Since its inception more than 60 years ago, approximately 300,000 Fulbrighters have participated in the Program.

Developing international understanding requires a commitment on the part of Fulbright grantees to establish open communication and long-term cooperative relationships. In that way, Fulbrighters enrich the educational, political, economic, social and cultural lives of countries around the world. We expect that you, too, will become involved in the community while on your Fulbright exchange. In so doing, you will demonstrate the qualities of service, excellence and leadership that have been the hallmarks of this Program for more than 60 years. As a representative of your country in India, you will help fulfill the principal purpose of the Fulbright Program, which is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of the more than 150 countries that currently participate in the Fulbright Program.

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, which oversees the operations of this Program throughout the world, joins the Board in congratulating you. If you have any questions about your grant, please contact your program officer at the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

We hope that your Fulbright experience will be highly rewarding professionally and personally, and that you will share the knowledge you gain as a Fulbrighter with many others throughout your life.

Sincerely,

Tom Healy

Chair

ALLENDALE, MI -- If you find yourself dubbing, slicing, hooking, worm-burning and flat-out missing the golf ball out on the range at The Meadows at Grand Valley State University this spring, you may just get a tap on your shoulder from Mike Sullivan.

Sullivan, the new director of instruction of the Kendall Academy at The Meadows at GVSU likes to help those in need as they continue their battle to show that little white ball who's boss.

"I think people look at it as a very complex and hard game to learn, and while that may be true at times, it doesn't need to be," Sullivan said.

"It can be put in a simplistic manner, and I think that's one of the philosophies about my teaching. It's a game that you can play your entire life, and you want to make it fun, and it can be fun."

A Ferris State University graduate from the Professional Golf Management program, Sullivan says he'd eventually like to grow the Kendall Academy to add some interns into the mix.

"Having the opportunity to combine an instructional program with all the other athletic programs they have here just adds to the whole environment for Grand Valley and we hope to contribute to that," he said.

Although not a member of the staff at GVSU, Sullivan brings the respected reputation of the Kendall Academy of Golf to The Meadows, where he hopes to have an impact on players of all abilities at each level.

"We'll try to cater some evening clinics for people who work during the day, some clinics for women and some for seniors as well. It'll be a big menu."

Many golf instructors have a niche part of the game in which they can really bring out the best in a player. For Sullivan, it's the short game.

"I think we'd all like to say, as instructors, that we're really well-rounded in all different areas, but for those people who know me and my particular game, I like to take the weakest part of my game and focus on that the most, and you try to instruct that to your students.

"The short game is a big thing for me, because I think the game is played from the green backwards."

Sullivan looks at golf a little differently from many pro instructors. He's not going to try to change your swing to replicate a tour professional.

"I don't think think there's one molded swing," he said. "There isn't a perfect method. I think the important thing is to look at the individual, figure out what their abilities are and then build a road map with them around their capabilities."

Even while instructing, Sullivan thinks of himself as a student, choosing to learn from the differences that come up with the people he teaches.

"I think as an instructor, you're always learning too. You have to be creative. Every new student you have has a different movement."

Sullivan preaches three things: Good grip, good posture and good balance.

"At the end of the day, I've got to find out what your goal is. My goal is to make the game more fun for you. You've got to figure out where the person wants to go with the game."

So, much like an electrician, a plumber, a tax preparer and a chef, a golf professional gets put into strange spots when out with their friends.

When on the course for recreation, Sullivan likes to let everyone enjoy their round. he's not hustling around, "fixing" everyone's swing.

Grand Rapids field biologist helping slow the world down one hammock sale at a time

Published: Wednesday, March 07, 2012, 5:04 PM     Updated: Wednesday, March 07, 2012, 5:05 PM

By Garret Ellison | gellison@mlive.com MLive.com

Building will be part of GVSU's downtown GR campus

To view the video please visit woodtv8.

To view photos from the Grand Rapids Press/Mlive.com please visit the photo gallery.

Updated: Tuesday, 21 Feb 2012, 6:02 PM EST

Published : Tuesday, 21 Feb 2012, 4:36 PM EST

GVSU celebrates milestone in construction of Seidman Center

Published: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 11:26 AM     Updated: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 11:55 AM

By Brian McVicar | bmcvicar@mlive.com The Grand Rapids Press

Sonja Johnson says Grand Valley State University’s new L. William Seidman Center will provide another boost to the university’s campus in downtown Grand Rapids.

On Tuesday morning, Johnson, who serves as the executive director of GVSU’s Van Andel Global Trade Center, stopped by the building and commemorated a milestone in its construction. She signed the beam that will be used to complete the steel skeleton of the building, which is scheduled to open in May 2013.

“It’s just a great undertaking,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of work that’s went in from the university from all different directions.”

Students and staff from throughout GVSU are expected to follow suit and sign the beam today. It will be lifted into place around 1:30 p.m., just after President Thomas Haas and Seidman College of Business Dean H. James Williams place their signatures on it.

Activity around the beam this morning caught the attention of Chelsea Cooper, a 21-year-old criminal justice major at GVSU. She signed the beam after asking construction workers what the occasion was.

“I just think it’s cool that it's going to be in the building, and it’s going to be in the building as long as it’s there,” Cooper said.

The $40 million building is four-stories, 120,000-square-feet, and will provide new space for the GVSU’s Seidman College of Business and house GVSU’s Small Business and Technology Development Center.

Press File PhotoIn this September 2011 photo, Grand Valley State University students switch classes on the Allendale campus. Gov. Rick Snyder's budget proposal gave GVSU the biggest performance bonus out of Michigan's 15 public universities.