Middle Tennessee State University’s real estate club was spotlighted in a recent trade publication for the university’s support in sending a group of undergraduate students to a fall conference in Denver.

The Professional Report, a quarterly magazine published by the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, or SIOR, published an article written by Gary Marsh titled “Founding the Next Generation” that laid out how SIOR and the SIOR Foundation are increasing efforts to attract the next generation of professionals to the commercial real estate industry.

Some members of MTSU’s Blue Raider Real Estate Club attended the the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors fall conference held in October in Denver, Colo. Pictured, from left, are Heyward Rogers, Daniel Vincent, Cailen Roth and Ashleigh Turner. (Submitted photo)

In the story, Marsh notes how the MTSU Blue Raider Real Estate Club “initiated its own attendance to the Fall World Conference in Denver, after the suggestion from one of its professors and a phone call to the SIOR Foundation in Washington, D.C.”

Dr. Philip Seagraves

“We work really hard to get our students out of the classroom and meet with industry professionals to give them exposure to the real world and introduce a network of contacts in the industry that could lead to job opportunities,” Dr. Philip Seagraves, director of the real estate program at MTSU and an economics and finance professor in the Jennings A. Jones College of Business, said in the article.

The university awarded the real estate club $15,000 for this academic year, some of which covered traveling expenses for five students to Denver.

“As the treasurer of Tennessee’s only collegiate real estate club, I am very grateful to Middle Tennessee State University for sending us to the SIOR conference, and SIOR for making us feel welcome and sharing their knowledge of commercial real estate,” said Cailen Roth, MTSU entrepreneurship student and Blue Raider Real Estate Club treasurer.

— Jimmy Hart (jimmy.hart@mtsu.edu)

Members of MTSU’s Blue Raider Real Estate Club and some of their fellow participants in the Fall 2018 Society of Industrial and Office Realtors Foundation Student Real Experience Program are joined by David Hagan, SIOR Foundation trustee and past president, for a photo at the SIOR fall conference held in October in Denver, Colo. Shown, from left, are MTSU students Cailen Roth and Daniel Vincent; the SIOR Foundation’s Hagan; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students Mathis Nedell and Stanford Shell; University of Southern California student Pierce Schneider; MTSU student Heyward Rogers; Caci Rhuda, a student at the University of Connecticut School of Business; MTSU student Ashleigh Turner; and Lu Zhao, a student at the United Kingdom’s University of Reading. (Photo courtesy of SIOR)