MBA students wrap up their Italian adventure in the city of love
EDITOR’S NOTE: Zane Shaieb is an MBA student at UNLV. He traveled to Italy as part of the program’s international seminar which allows MBA students to take what they are learning in the classroom and see how it applies in the real world. Zane’s story is the last in our four-part travel sirens that covered the experiences of students in Italy.
We arrived by bus in Verona and met our wonderful USAC host, Gözde.
Fashion is a key industry in Verona. We passed Dior, Louis Vuitton, and other designer brands on the walk to our first stop: a "social enterprise" called Progetto Quid in the heart of downtown Verona. This organization uses leftover materials from designer fashion brands to create new pieces and markets them at flagship stores throughout Italy. Socially, they also want to combat Italy's unemployment and migrant crisis. Women specifically face 49% unemployment. Quid is utilizing labor from "protected" and disenfranchised women: 45% are migrants and 90% are women. They hope to develop people with "low formal skills" into various jobs throughout the labor market.
THE CITY OF LOVE
Verona is known as the "city of love" and we got to experience the wonderful setting of Shakespeare's famous Romeo and Juliet. A guided tour brought us to the statue of Juliet and the balcony where she called out to Romeo (in the tale, which turned out to be fiction).
We also saw Dante's statue and learned his love for the city and its rulers inspired "Paradiso," the journey through heaven. Our guide brought us to a magnificent arena built by the Romans--predating the Colosseum in Rome. Here we saw much of the top of the arena was removed and used as a stone supply for ancient Christian basilicas. Our guide's friendly and informative disposition was mirrored by the people we interacted with "after hours" in Verona. Some of the best memories I had were exploring the castle and town late-night with classmates:
talking to locals, breaking bread, and sharing vino.
SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES IN EUROPE
On the final day of the trip, Gözde led us to USAC's Verona campus. Here, we attended a lecture and learned about sustainable EU businesses that are positioned at meeting ESG guidelines: following the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. There is no such thing as a fully green business, but only businesses that are positioned "greener." However, I think that this pursuit is better than the approach that many US companies take--choosing short-term profits over any sustainability. In Europe, the cost-benefit is increasingly being framed in a
long-term perspective. In the short term, they have also proven viability with "sustainable marketing," where you demonstrate your ESG practices to the customer.
The UN's 2030 guidelines are very influential in Europe, and I saw examples of sustainability that made me rethink just how wasteful Americans can be. Wooden forks, diverse public transportation, and clean cities to name a few. We saw many examples of sustainability in
business that could be used as a framework for the U.S. as they enter into a new era of climate crises and regulation.
UNLV’s MBA program is a hybrid, part-time program that gives students the flexibility to earn their Master of Business Administration while still working full-time. Our program is consistently ranked in the top 100 by U.S. News and World Report, is taught by our accomplished faculty, and class sizes are small to encourage engagement between faculty and students.