Twenty-five years after opening the first sales center in the country, the Center for Professional Selling at Baylor University continues to lead and excel in all aspects of sales education. To commemorate its 25th anniversary, the Center hosted a five-day international conference with scholars, practitioners and students from September 16 – 20, 2010.
As the Center celebrated its 25th anniversary, The Journal of Professional Selling and Sales Management (JPSSM) also celebrated its 30th anniversary. Through the Baylor-sponsored research symposium, over 50 scholars from 11 countries developed articles for a special anniversary issue of JPSSM.
Other events to commemorate the Center’s 25th anniversary included a meeting of the University Sales Center Alliance (USCA), a presentation on the future of sales and the C-suite, and a celebration banquet featuring Baylor Men’s Basketball Head Coach, Scott Drew, who drew parallels to his role in recruiting, training, and motivating players.
The Center’s 25th anniversary also provided the opportunity for Center faculty and Advisory Board members to discuss and enhance the impact of the Professional Selling Program. Outcomes included the development and requirement of new courses, the addition of new opportunities for student internships and corporate interaction, an update of the technology and facilities associated with the Center and the development of new opportunities to refine selling skills through extra-curricular events and additional competitions.
“Leading up to the 25th Anniversary, we assessed our resources and identified the changes needed to take the Center and our students to the next level,” said Dr. Andrea Dixon, executive director for the Center for Professional Selling.
The Center for Professional Selling’s 25th anniversary was an opportunity to celebrate the Center’s rich history, and to establish a vision for the future.
“My dream is that Baylor might become an incubator for new sales practices that might be jointly tested in the corporate and academic fields,” said Dixon. “In the future, our students will be sought for their knowledge of best practices as well as the next practices for creating a strong sales organization.”