Cincinnati Business Courier August 6, 2013 New Xavier program links students, small businesses Xavier University is ready to unveil a new way to connect small businesses with students, a program it has spent the last year refining. X-LINK serves two functions, actually, as Williams College of Business Dean Brian Till Brian explains to me. First, it’s a network for small and medium businesses in the Cincinnati region to collaborate, pool buying resources or help one another out in other non-competitive ways. Second, it makes available XU students to help out these businesses when they might need an extra boost: Need help installing accounting software or doing market research? Xavier’s best promising young minds are on it. “One of our strategic focus areas is experiential learning, so what this does is give students an opportunity to apply what they learn to a real context,” Till told me. “As an institution, Xavier puts a lot of value in service to others. It’s a opportunity for students to give to the community.” There’s also some window dressing, too. You can’t have a city with 52 distinct and diverse neighborhoods without wanting to show off the character of each. Funded by a Charitable Words grant, X-LINK will partner with local photographers and designers to produce video shorts to highlight neighborhoods and their local businesses. X-LINK will be funded through a fee for member businesses as well as community funding partners who want to contribute. Cincinnati’s won’t be the first such model — the American Independent Business Alliance has similar programs in 90 communities across the nation — but it will be the first done in partnership with a university. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.