Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State students are wanted by the FBI--but it's a good thing.
Eighteen university business majors are working on a plan to help polish the FBI's image among college and university students. Their work is part of a national campus recruiting effort by the top federal law enforcement agency.
The FBI Collegiate Marketing and Recruitment Program is giving students at MSU and several other institutions across the country an opportunity to develop and execute their own marketing campaigns to boost the agency's image among its primary pool of future employees.
"This program will help alleviate some misconceptions students may have of the FBI," explained Special Agent Jeffrey Artis. "At this point in their lives, students are focused on career choices and we want the FBI to be one of their choices."
On April 4, as a part of the marketing plan, the MSU team will stage a public campus event aimed at increasing awareness and consideration of FBI career opportunities.
"The Showdown" will feature five-member student teams participating in a series of mental and physical challenges. The two-hour program begins at 5 p.m. in the Colvard Union's third-floor lobby and progresses outside to the nearby Drill Field.
All involved Mississippi State students are senior-level majors enrolled in a market management class taught by Zac Williams, a second-year doctoral student at the university. They have created their own "marketing agency" called Southern Solutions to create and implement the spring-semester campaign.
"Southern Solutions is trying to raise awareness about the broad range of great opportunities students can have with the FBI on a full-time basis and as interns," said Williams, whose course is a capstone for marketing majors.
Brian Engelland, head of the department of marketing, quantitative analysis and business law, described the project as a "win-win situation" for MSU students and the FBI.
"Students not only learn about strategy and planning, but they also learn about the difficulties of real-world implementation," added Engelland, an associate professor who directed a similar student marketing project for the FBI in the fall of 2004.
This semester, the students are managing a $2,500 advertising and promotion budget provided by the federal agency. The FBI's contact organization for education marketing, Orinda, Calif.-based Edventure Partners, is assessing the performance of the MSU and other national collegiate teams.
"If the FBI likes any of our ideas, they are free to use them to help increase their recruitment on the different campuses," said Adam Sanders of Brandon, the MSU student serving as Southern Solutions' media coordinator.
The campaign specifically targets students in such critical skill areas as accounting and finance, engineering, computer science and information technology, physical sciences, and mathematics. Also sought are individuals with intelligence, law, law enforcement, investigative, or military experience, as well as fluency in a foreign language.
Other participating teams are representing George Washington, Johns Hopkins, Prairie View A&M, and Savannah State universities, along with the universities of Arkansas-Little Rock and Southern California.
"It is exciting to know that our class was chosen to assist the FBI in a recruiting effort," said Marcus Evans of Remlap, Ala., head of campaign strategy for Southern Solutions.
For more information, contact Adam Sanders at msusolutions@yahoo.com; Marcus Evans at (205) 915-8524 or mle40@msstate.edu; or Zac Williams at (662) 325-3238 or zsw7@msu.edu.