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PLU Business Department
Building Bridges

Connected students: In the classroom, in the community and around the world

There are too many School of Business students to name—at both the undergraduate and graduate level—with outstanding accomplishments.

Holly S. Peterson ’01 would be a dream come true for any academic department, but at PLU she is a dream for two—the Department of Languages & Literatures and the School of Business, as she double majored in Spanish and business administration.

“It has been a great learning experience,” Peterson said of her experiences in the School of Business. “I can clearly see the immeasurable interdependence of business, community and the environment.”

She has done what you would expect from a great business student: internships with State

Farm Insurance and General Motors marketing; a research project in San Juan, Costa Rica investigating a private lending institution for women entering small business ventures; vice president of public relations, International Business Club; student representative for the School’s alumni organization, PLUS Business. However, her most jaw-dropping endeavor has nothing to do with business skills.

In August 1999, Peterson went to Ecuador to learn more about the country and the Spanish language. She ended up in Ahuano, a small village in the Ecuadorian rainforest, which is eight hours of driving and a canoe ride away from modern civilization. At a rural school in Ahuano, Peterson created an English curriculum and taught students from grades K-12.

“I feel that PLU gave me a broader perspective of the world,” Peterson said. “They helped develop my communication skills, and the professors have been personal and dedicated. The School of Business also does an exceptional job of fostering student desires to go abroad.” Peterson’s global education has only begun. She has recently applied for a Fulbright that would have her studying the Chilean economy.

And that is what the PLU School of Business has done—prepared students for a global world and made them aware of what their community, as well as their own hearts, need.