CBA gets new development director

In the wake of last semester's cheating scandal, UCF's College of Business has appointed another director of development in Anne Beaulieu.

Beaulieu spent most of her career in the non-profit sector. Her background consists of donor relations, management and development. She will join Nancy Keon, who serves as the senior director of development, on the staff.

Having served as the president and CEO of United Way and working with organizations like American Red Cross, Beaulieu believes her philanthropic contributions help make her better suited for this new position.

"I am very excited to be here at UCF. I am often asked why I am in the field of philanthropy. I enjoy building relationships and connecting people with investment opportunities. Moreover, the UCF College of Business Administration clearly has great investment opportunities for donors," she said when she accepted the position.

Bringing the Central Florida community into CBA is Beaulieu's ultimate goal.

"My job is all about connecting people," she said. "I connect graduates, people who are interested in education, organizations and corporations that want to better their community with goals and objectives provided by the College of Business and UCF as a whole."

Dean of CBA, Thomas L. Keon, said that the college has been moving forward since the incident last semester when 600 students were required to retake a senior level business exam because of the estimated 200 students who were caught cheating.

The incident caught national headlines and it still stings Keon.

"My greatest concern was the large number of students that were involved and how comfortable they were with cheating" Keon said.

"It was highly upsetting to realize the hundreds of students didn't even think of the incident as cheating, but more as using a study guide for the test."

Keon said the college is no longer using the Pearson testing products, whose answers were leaked to the students.

As a new UCF member of staff, Anne Beaulieu was not present when the cheating incident took place. She said how she became aware of a small portion of what ensued from what she had read in the papers shortly after it happened.

"My initial reaction was that this was not beneficial to the students, the college, or UCF," Beaulieu said. "In that time UCF showed a weakness, a fluke in the system so to speak and now the college is trying to make it better. The light at the end of the tunnel is the opportunity to improve."

She said she does not believe the cheating incident will affect the inclination of donors to support the College of Business at UCF.

"Life is not perfect, and I think donors will be able to understand the situation," Beaulieu said.

Keon said he expects Beaulieu to bring the college some additional funding to CBA, particularly for extending testing lab hours.

CAB is now working hand in hand with the Student Government Association in order to extend testing-lab hours during finals week for this spring semester.

 Keon said they expanded testing-lab hours during finals week in the past and found that students did not utilize this time as much as the college had anticipated. However, because of grievances received from students about lab hours being cut short because of the fire alarm that went off during finals week in the lab last semester, they are looking for funding to make extra hours available.

Keon believes that Beaulieu will be capable of helping find funding to keep the testing lab open longer. If CBA finds that students are utilizing these extra hours, they will work toward keeping them available in the future.

Beaulieu said she is looking forward to working with CBA and its student body.

"I am so impressed with the student body. The graciousness and school spirit is incredible," Beaulieu said. "I am very grateful to have this opportunity and I am looking forward to having some fun as well."