Trinity’s Business Analytics and Technology (BAT) program has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Valero Energy Foundation.
The funding, according to School of Business Dean Robert Scherer, will support student experiential learning activities and projects, cover faculty training and development costs, and provide much-needed analytic tools for the program.
“The generous donation from the Valero Energy Foundation demonstrates the strong support that the business community has for the strategic direction of our business analytics and technology program,” Scherer says. “This grant will enable us to enhance our cutting-edge academic programs by providing our faculty with contemporary tools and by providing our students experiential learning opportunities congruent with industry needs.”
Trinity’s BAT program, now in its fourth year of operation, has doubled in size each of the last three years and currently sits at 20 Tigers. The program has placed more than 95 percent of its majors inside the data analytics career field within three months of graduation, according to professor Jorge Colazo, finance and decision sciences chair. Trinity’s BAT majors have landed jobs at top firms such as Dell and Cisco Systems, or in the business offices of NBA teams such as the San Antonio Spurs and Orlando Magic.
Colazo says the program has already started making moves to expand partnerships with area organizations such as Toyota, Dell, Amazon, and Walmart.
With the Valero Energy Foundation grant, Scherer says the BAT program will be able to offer Tigers a more experiential take on data analytics.
These funds will help give students access to field trips, internships, and other experiences outside the classroom, such as a trip to the Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) Conference to hear national experts and to compete with other students in the career field.
The grant will also provide professional development support for faculty, keeping them on the leading edge of this rapidly-changing career field; Trinity also plans to purchase analytic tools including software and hardware, along with covering annual cloud-hosting fees to expose students to new non-relational and relational database platforms.
Visit Trinity’s School of Business page to learn more about finance career paths at Trinity, and read more about graduates of the BAT program.
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