News |

Business professors take a pie for the team in AKP fundraiser

By Emily Southwick

Posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007, 12:00 am

This week, members of the University of Maine’s professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, are raffling off tickets for a pie-throwing contest to raise money to buy a clock for the D.P. Corbett building on campus.

Since Monday, AKP has been in the DPC atrium, collecting money in five jars – one for each of the brave business professors who have put themselves in the position to have a pie thrown in their face, should their jar raise the most money. Students who donate a dollar are entered in a raffle to throw the pie at 2 p.m. on Friday, March 23.

“The professors are getting into it and really having some fun,” said Amber Gallant, a fourth-year marketing major. “[It's] neat, because you usually see professors in a serious setting.”

Alpha Kappa Psi believes installing a clock in the DPC atrium will be beneficial to students.

AKP Chair of Fundraising Emin Okutan, a third-year business major and exchange student from Bilkent University in Turkey, is in charge of the project. “I lost my watch once and realized its importance more than anyone,” said Okutan, one of many students who are consistently running late for class, but never actually know how late without clocks in the classrooms and buildings.

The group also stresses the importance of building relationships throughout the school of business.

“Our main goal is to bring some of the faculty closer to the business students to enrich the business school community,” Okutan explained.

The fundraiser is unique in more than just the fact that students will be throwing pies in their professors’ faces. It has a spy espionage theme, depicting faculty members as international agents. Okutan said that it is an attempt for AKP to “[have] events to surprise and catch the interest of [the] UMaine community.”

Richard Grant, director of business graduate programs and one of AKP’s advisers, is one of the volunteers to potentially be pied.

“I volunteered for this because I know that Alpha Kappa Psi is a worthwhile organization, which strives to do good things for its members and for its community,” Grant said, while admitting he’s not too worried, placing his bets that Dean Innis will win, but will be okay with whatever the outcome because “the worst-case scenario is free pie!”

Innis, however, will have competition with AKP’s other adviser, David Barrett, who said he’s “giving exams this week to about 90 undergrads, so I suspect there will be a lot of disgruntled students hoping to pie me.”

According to Gallant, the group has raised about $100 so far. Anyone interested in being a part of the fundraiser can visit AKP’s table in the DPC building this week.