Tennessee Tech professor draws on childhood challenges to inspire students to raise more than $25,000 for charity
Students in a Tennessee Tech University organizational leadership course are learning that leadership is about more than managing people or turning a profit. They are putting classroom lessons into practice by planning and carrying out fundraising events for charitable causes — raising more than $25,000 to date.
The course, taught by Jeremy Bowers Schoen, associate professor in Tech’s College of Business, gives students the opportunity to select causes that matter to them, develop fundraising events and work together to make them successful. Along the way, they gain hands-on experience in teamwork, communication, problem-solving, delegation and resilience.
For Bowers Schoen, the lesson about giving back is a personal one.
As a child, he grew up in an underserved community in a family that grappled with issues of domestic violence. At one point, his family spent time living in a shelter. He remembers the people who helped them and says those experiences shaped his desire to bring service learning into his classroom projects.
“I don't know that I'd be here in the same way if it weren't for the people who were there to help me and my family when we needed it,” Bowers Schoen explained on a recent episode of Tech’s “College Town Talk” podcast.
Bowers Schoen said he did not always feel as though he had much to give. As a college student pursuing a Ph.D., he was taking on loans to pay for his schooling and had little time to volunteer.
Those experiences eventually changed how he thinks about service. Giving back, he realized, does not always require writing a check or making a significant commitment of time.
“I wanted to help students to understand you can give back even when you don't think you can,” Bowers Schoen said. “You're a college student. You may not have money to give, but you can still do something for something that you care about.”
That lesson is at the heart of the class project Bowers Schoen first developed with former colleague Marieke Schilpzand at Georgia Gwinnett College. Rather than simply teaching management concepts, the pair wanted students to put those lessons into practice by doing something meaningful for a cause they cared about. Bowers Schoen later expanded the project at Tech.
Students form teams, choose a charitable cause and develop a fundraising event. Causes have ranged from the Cookeville-Putnam County Animal Shelter, the Cookeville Rescue Mission and The Exceptional Bean — a local nonprofit coffee shop hiring individuals with disabilities — to national organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association and United Way.
One team rented a golf course for a glow-golf event and raised more than $4,000, while another organized a faculty “pie in the face” fundraiser, with Bowers Schoen among the faculty members volunteering to participate. That project raised over $2,000.
The task gives students experience leading a real-world initiative. Events do not always go according to plan, requiring them to adapt and find solutions.
“When you face some challenges — how do you recover from that?” Bowers Schoen said. “That's part of life.”
For Ukrainian-born Tech student Isabella Tkachuk, the project became an opportunity to support her home country. Tkachuk and her classmates organized a pickleball and cornhole fundraiser benefiting Raising Hope Ukraine, an organization founded by her parents to help people affected by the war in Ukraine.
Bowers Schoen initially worried the project might be asking too much of students, many of whom work while taking classes full time. Instead, he has watched students discover what they can accomplish.
“Yes, it’s work,” he said. “But they look back on it and go, ‘Wow, we did that. I did that. I can put that on my resume.’”
Outside the classroom, Bowers Schoen expands on his commitment to service by volunteering as treasurer for Friends of the Tennessee Central Heritage Rail Trail, which works to preserve and expand a 4.2-mile greenway stretching from Cookeville to Algood — providing valuable opportunities for walking and cycling while connecting communities throughout the Upper Cumberland.
The work reflects a broader emphasis on societal impact across Tech’s College of Business. Bowers Schoen believes universities have an important role to play beyond the classroom and in their communities.
That commitment is also part of what Bowers Schoen says he values about Tech.
“Honestly, seeing how much professors at Tennessee Tech care has reshaped the way I think about things,” Bowers Schoen said. “The faculty care about students in so many different ways. My colleagues do amazing work, and it has lifted me up in a lot of ways that I didn't expect.”
Listen to Bowers Schoen's full College Town Talk interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Pandora, Amazon Music or at www.tntech.edu/collegetowntalk.