'Improv'-ing skills
David Harris, Online Editor
Issue date: 11/28/07 Section: News
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An unusual improvisation - or improv - class does exactly that: Freshman business students are forced to think fast, be active and pay attention to each other through a series of games.
"They're definitely silly but they're helpful and positive," said Paul Roche, a freshman majoring in business marketing.
Fall 2007 was the first semester USF offered a business improv class, said Katie Elverson, an academic advisor and coordinator for the Business Living Learning Community (BLCC).
The BLLC places freshmen in the same academic program in the same residence hall.
"By pairing these freshmen all together, who instantly have this common bond, it'll help them to be more successful and be a support group for each other," Elverson said.
To get into the class, freshmen must be accepted into the Bulls Business Network.
Of the students living in Maple Hall, 28 are enrolled the course this semester.
Aixa Del Toro, a freshman majoring in marketing, said it's a tight-knit community.
"Everyone knows each other here," Del Toro said. "At the least, someone is always stopping in to say 'hi.'"
Kari Goetz, a former comedy improv artist from Los Angeles, teaches the class once a month for two hours. When she's not there, she's working at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Goetz got her start as a business teacher when she met Robert Forsythe, dean of the College of Business Administration, at a luncheon.
They starting talking about improvisation and how business students could use it, and came up with the idea for the class.
Although the class isn't mandatory, Elverson said most of the students show up regularly.
At Tuesday's meeting, the turnout was a little low at first, but a couple of students made phone calls to rile up the rest of the group. After some networking, attendance increased.
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