MKTG 100: Turning the Tables

Turning the Tables

Course: MKTG 100

Faculty: Karen Eutsler

Partner: St. Vincent De Paul 

Marketing involves varying levels and types of exchanges. In Karen Eutsler’s Introduction to marketing class, she worked to exchange one type of her students’ views for another through an immersive-learning weekend retreat to St. Vincent De Paul in Cincinnati.

“I’m hoping that, by experiencing it from the other side of the table,” Eutsler said, “it helps them appreciate that vantage point and makes them put more effort and heart into the project.”

The course, which had the immersive-learning attribute, was a chance for Eutsler to help her students learn that marketing needs to be done for more than just big business.

Eutsler said. “They still have employees, they still have payroll, they still have bills. They just have a different mission than a for-profit company… A higher mission than just making money.”Eutsler believes that, as a result of this trip, it might help students learn not just more about marketing, but about the social justice issues in the community around Xavier.

“Our class did a nice job of having a good community of it, but when we went on the retreat, it took it to a whole different level,” Eutsler said. “I think experiencing some of the things about poverty in general, but then more specifically because it’s their backyard, made it impactful and eye-opening for them.”

The experience was one that Eutsler believes hit home with many of her students and will help them with their next project: developing a marketing plan for St. Vincent De Paul.

"There were lots of tears throughout the trip so I think that the messages they were trying to do hit home in good ways,", Eutsler said. “I think that it made many of them very passionate that they should do more. So I’m hoping that the passion flows through them with the next project we’re doing.”