Midterm Reflection

Kirstie Harsha
Georgia Southern University
October 9, 2016

Center for Sales Excellence

Practicum Experience
The practicum experience I have chosen to participate with is the Center for Sales
Excellence in the College of Business at Georgia Southern University. My mentor for this
experience is the director of the Center for Sales Excellence, Dr. Linda Mullen. Besides Dr.
Mullen, there are four employees that are involved with the Center for Sales Excellence: codirector, Dr. Lindsay Larson, Dr. Stefen Sleep, Dr. Jim Randall, and graduate assistant, Deborah
Howard. The Center for Sales Excellence works with College of Business students at Georgia
Southern University that are studying Marketing typically junior and senior level students.
More specifically, the Center works with students that are competing with the sales team during
competitions held at Kennesaw State University.
The Center for Sales Excellence was established in 2007 to support and promote the
marketing students pursuing a career in sales and sales management. The Center provides
students with hands-on experience through sales role-play in two dedicated labs that are set up to
resemble offices. More importantly, the Center for Sales Excellence works to bring companies in
the sales industry to Georgia Southerns campus that are looking to hire. I became involved with
the Center for Sales Excellence as a College of Business student. Dr. Mullen, my mentor, was a
favorite professor of mine. Although I did not compete with the sales team at Kennesaw State,
Dr. Mullen was instrumental in my education and gained sales experience during my college
years. Thus far, I would rate my experience a 4 out of 5. Dr. Mullen had broken several bones in
her leg before the fall semester began so she has had to miss some time from work which makes
our communication strictly email at some points. I look forward to the coming months as she
gains better mobility, and I believe the experience will move closer to 5 out of 5.

Portfolio Application
One piece of my portfolio comes from my current course, Student Services in Higher
Education taught by Dr. Fayth Parks. The paper is entitled Student Development Theories, and I
chose this piece because it is the most relevant with my practicum experience. Having studied
many of the countless types of student development theories, I have been able to better
understand the students that the Center for Sales Excellence works with. Before taking this class,
I never knew how many theories and theorists there were dating all the way back to Plato and
Aristotle. While students do not know they are going through these educational, social, and
sexuality developments, having studied them myself, makes it easier to help and guide students
along their college path.
Eye-Opener
The biggest eye-opener that I have experienced is the lack of funding within the Center
for Sales Excellence. As the Development Assistant in the Office of Development and Alumni
Relations within the College of Business, I have a great deal of insight on incoming monies to
the College of Business. Part of my job is to pull monthly Object reports that show who gave,
how much was given, and what fund they gave to. Some of the funds get much more support
than others.
The Center for Sales Excellence is one of the funds that does not get much support from
alumni and other donors. With more funding, the Center could expand its facilities beyond the
two mock offices and have more space for marketing students to get hands on experience when
learning sales, send the competition sales team and other marketing students to Kennesaw State
without having to make the students pay for a hotel room, and hire an administrative assistant

specifically for the Center. More funding could also bring in more companies that are looking to
hire students upon graduation.
Philosophy
Dr. Mullen and I are alike in our administrative philosophies in that we both want the best
for the students in the College of Business, and we both will go out of our way to help the
students. I think that this is a very important philosophy to have, both administrative and
otherwise. On the administrative side, we both will help students find the correct paper work,
policy, or procedure in order for them to succeed in their classes and after graduation. We both
also think it is very important to keep record of incoming monies, alumni relations, and
documents pertaining to the Center.
Dr. Mullen and I differ in our administrative philosophies in that she is not as organized
as I am. She is quick to tell all her students that she is not organized in her paperwork keeping.
Her desk is covered in stacks of papers, books, etc. while my desk is clean with organized
binders in the hutch above my desk. I have found that it is best for me to keep binders by event,
program, initiative, etc. with important information stored for easy access. One thing that I hope
to leave behind with Dr. Mullen is a more organized method to her madness.
Competencies
One of the major competencies that would be helpful to have learned within the Higher
Education Administration program would be administrative budgeting. I have some knowledge
of budgeting from my current administrative position, but I wish I had better skills on how to
budget for working in higher education. This would be helpful information to leave behind with
my practicum mentor as well. Another competency that I wish I had would be web

design/maintenance skills. While administrative jobs do not require employees to create

websites, it would be very useful to know how to maintain and have at least minimal coding
experience. Right now, one of my practicum projects is to update the Center for Sales Excellence
website, and it would incredible helpful to know the basics of how to do this. Lastly, the most
important skill that everyone needs to learn is interpersonal skills. Learning to work with
different kinds of people is always a hard skill to learn, practice, and maintain. I wish part of our
program would have focused on interpersonal skills on the administrative side as we have to
work with many different levels of employees.