Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com August 21, 2017 • Hartford Business Journal 11 a place you commute into then commute out of at the end of the day, not a place you spend time afterward," said Free. "But our students increasingly like the urban feel." When 22-year-old Olivia Cormier begins her second year of study for her graduate degree in social work this fall, she'll be in downtown Hartford instead of at the for- mer West Hartford UConn campus. But her internship will take her to a division of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) in Middletown and one of the agency's outpatient mental health pro- grams in Norwich, she said. Cormier also works at the UConn School of Social Work downtown and she said she is looking forward to studying at the new cam- pus while completing that internship. "I really like being downtown," Cormier said. "It feels a lot more like a campus than West Hartford, more active and more convenient." Evidence of success The advantages of being downtown have already been demonstrated by the experienc- es of USJ's pharmacy school and the UConn School of Business, officials said. While USJ's pharmacy graduate students can work at drug companies here and around the state, many train in labs or offices at Hart- ford and St. Francis hospitals and at the St. Francis Behavioral Health Group, says Dean Joseph Ofosu. Many live downtown and all must do 60 hours of community service, fur- ther entrenching them in the region, he said. "We are quite embedded in the city in terms of our students and our faculty," Ofosu says. "The way the program is designed, every student is supposed to have internships or expe- riential training. These are held through these hospitals or health institutions because that is where you have a variety of patients and clinics." The hospital jobs that students typically get locally after graduating include staff or clinical pharmacist positions or post-gradu- ate pharmacy residencies, he said. For new incoming UConn public policy grad students, comparable opportunities in state or local government might become available, says Mark Robbins, head of UCo- nn's Department of Public Policy. UConn has more than 100 organizations that participate in internships and profes- sional practice programs. The mix of those organizations will continue to shift toward Hartford-based entities, Robbins said. Second-year UConn MBA grad student Leonard Borriello, 32, lives in Hartford and said he is eager to finish his studies there. Chances to network are plentiful, he said. "Aside from being where the business hub of Connecticut is, state government has a lot of initiatives for pushing business development and growth," he said. "[With] alumni, [there's] a lot of opportunity not only to network, but [to] run into people already established in these companies. There's just a lot of criss-crossing between industries." UConn's School of Social Work has partnerships with the state's depart- ments of Social Services, Mental Health and Addiction Services and Children and Fami- lies, adds UConn Spokesman Tom Breen. "These are agencies a lot of our students are going to be working for when they gradu- ate, and some of them are working with non- profits now," Breen said. "One of our expecta- tions is that more graduate students will be working for these government agencies and nonprofits while earning their degrees." Besides the 1,392 graduate business stu- dents, UConn will have 175 grad students studying public policy, 34 in the Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction and 379 studying social work, Breen said. Cormier, who is aiming to become a licensed clinical social worker, said it will take her two years of clinical practice and being supervised in a clinical setting, plus passing a state test to get there. Eventually, she hopes to work in the Hart- ford area, she said, possibly at Hartford non- profits like Catholic Charities or the Village for Families and Children, or at city hospitals. "It's something I'll look into when I gradu- ate," she said. n WELCOME to the neighborhood CGI welcomes the University of Connecticut as it celebrates the opening of its downtown Hartford campus. As a Top Workplace and local IT and business partner with global scale, we are in good company, with a world-class university now in the community we have called home for more than 35 years. Congratulations and best wishes from CGI in Hartford. cgi.com/hartford Business and IT partner Leonard Borriello, UConn MBA student Mark Robbins, head of Department of Public Policy, UConn Kent Holsinger, graduate school dean, UConn P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D University of St. Joseph School of Pharmacy Dean Joseph Ofosu said the school may add a master's pharmacy program downtown.

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