Archive for the ‘Schilling, Jaime’ Category

by Jaime Schilling ‘06, Leadership Annual Giving Officer

One of the top reasons students and alumni cite for choosing Thunderbird for graduate school is the alumni network.  It was one of the major selling points for me when I decided to apply to Thunderbird.  A close-knit group of almost 40,000 individuals spread throughout the globe, working in every industry, the Thunderbird alumni network is perhaps the greatest asset one acquires in becoming a T-bird. 

Yet, my meetings with alumni have brought to light an inconsistency I wanted to address: while T-birds readily praise the value of the alumni network, they aren’t aware of how many resources they have at their fingertips to tap into that invaluable pool.  So, I want to take this opportunity to highlight a couple of those resources…
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by Jaime Schilling ‘06, Leadership Annual Giving Officer

Settling in at my desk this morning to begin the day’s tasks, I couldn’t shake my somber mood as I continued to ponder the images I’d seen on the news before I left for work of the devastation in Haiti caused by the January 12th earthquake.  A Thunderbird alumna from 2006, I was one of the early graduates from Thunderbird’s recently instituted International Development track.  Through my studies and beyond, I have spent much of the last few years researching and contemplating sustainable solutions for struggling countries and economies.  This morning, I find myself perplexed, yet again, with the same issue that’s troubled me for years: The world’s poorest countries are already faced with such a potent mélange of challenges to development, all so fundamental to a nation’s healthy functioning — geographical constraints, political instability, underdeveloped infrastructure, widespread disease – that gains made in any one area can be utterly wiped out by a breakdown in another.  This is Haiti’s reality.  The most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere, Haiti has achieved some hard-fought gains in the past several years, only to be devastated by a natural disaster before it can gain a solid foothold on the economic development ladder.
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