College is often seen as the stepping stone from academic life into career life. One aspect of the Center for Principled Problem Solving is to assist students in making this transition.

The CPPS draws from both the resources at Guilford College and from the resources of the community outside Guilford. To help in the CPPS, a national board of advisors has been established for the center.

“A goal of the center is to become a front porch where the community interacts with the college,” said Mark Justad. director of the CPPS.

“The CPPS is doing really awesome projects for students such as grants, scholarships and internships,” said senior Marissa Dungan, PPS scholar and board member. “I think it’s important that students know about the center.”

In fall 2010, the Board of Trustees approved the establishment of a national board of advisors.

“The role of the board is to advise the CPPS, help raise money for it, enhance its profile outside of the school, and assist and provide feedback to the director of the center,” board member Dr. Joanne Bridgett Ciulla, a professor at the University of Richmond, said in an email.

The board held its first meeting in November of this year and currently consists of 13 members.

These members represent educators from Guilford and other schools, CEOs, owners of businesses and established entrepreneurs. Justad said that board membership continues to evolve and that a goal of the board is to have members that hail from all regions of the U.S. (right now the members only represent the East Coast).

When asked what she plans to bring to the board, Ciulla said, “I was one of the faculty members who designed the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, so I have some experience with program design.”

Ciulla’s skills will help since the board is still in its beginning stage. However, these skills are also important because of the role of the center. The CPPS offers advice on the design of Guilford’s academic curriculum so that what the students learn in the classroom can have a more direct connection to the “real world,” according to Justad.

“Boards such as this one are useful because they offer an outside perspective on the center and (because) they brings together people who have a variety of skills, resources and networks,” Ciulla said.

Because the board is just getting started, one of its primary goals is determining how it should best use its resources to assist the CPPS, Guilford and the community.

Dan Mosca, chair of the board, said that the decisions the board makes need to be environmentally conscious and ethically based.

During the meeting in November, board members heard from the CPPS and from Guilford students.

“We were impressed by the presentations that were given and by the caliber of the Guilford students,” said Mosca.

As a newly established entity, the board does face some challenges. One of these challenges is making sure that what the board is doing is consistent with what Guilford is doing.

“We want to collaborate with other departments so that we can best facilitate the goals that have been set for the center by the school,” said Justad.

The board has high hopes for Guilford, and its members are volunteering their time and resources to assist students. Justad said that the board along with the CPPS acts as a translator between the school and the world.

“Education can be enhanced by tapping into available resources which can better prepare students for accomplishing their goals outside of academic work,” said Justad.

It is often said that college helps prepare students for life, and the national board of advisors for the CPPS wants to ensure that this is the case for Guilford.