C O M M U N I T Y: U P C LO S E
NETWORK BUILDER y M AUREEN
MBA ’15
MCCAFFERY COLEMAN,
Marketing Manager, TenMarks Education MAUREEN MCCAFFERY COLEMAN likes to bring
people together. As an elementary school teacher for three years, she says she tried to bring her students together in the classroom. With so many different learning styles and backgrounds, it was a challenge. Her passion for improving student outcomes led her to study business so she could “develop a skill set that could make a real change in education.” While at McCombs, Coleman used her passion for making human connections to spearhead a new initiative with the school’s alumni office — the Texas 12 dinner program. The goal?
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To give alumni and students a chance to spend an evening together in an intimate setting — in the hopes of sparking new personal and professional relationships. The Texas 12 program brings together six students and six alumni, plus their spouses. Together with Christie Sutton, MBA ’15, Coleman kicked off the program in May 2015 with a dinner in Austin. Since the program started, dinners have been held in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Francisco. It is modeled after UCLA’s “Dinner for 12 Strangers,” a 47-year-old tradition that hosted 350 dinners last year alone and is emulated at hundreds of universities across the country. Now freshly armed with her McCombs MBA, Coleman, a Bay Area native, has returned to San Francisco to join Amazon’s budding education company, TenMarks. The company provides free math resources that match the needs of individual students. Its new products are designed to help close the education gap.
“It’s opened my eyes to a completely different set of resources that can make teachers’ lives easier and, ultimately, improve student outcomes,” Coleman says. “This allows teachers to really connect with their students in a powerful way.” Coleman says she also wants to forge her own ties. “For me in San Francisco, I’m longing for opportunities to connect with other McCombs alumni and almost relive my days at UT, which were really fun and special,” Coleman says. Texas 12 offers that possibility. “It’s not only a great social outlet, but also a professional opportunity to meet other people in my area and build my network.” The team is currently working to secure hosts for dinners to be held this year. If you’re interested in hosting a dinner in your city, please contact Robin Vallilee at Robin.Vallilee@mccombs.utexas.edu. — Amira Jensen
