WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2009
Jon DeVries's career, in many ways, has revolved around the re-examination and experimentation with the status quo. As a community organizer in the early 1970s, he rebuilt and rehabbed inefficient or outmoded affordable housing projects. As a consultant, he led economic development projects that changed the face of Chicago's Calumet area, as well as the way retail real estate operates in Guatemala.
Now, DeVries is doing a different kind of re-examining as the director of the Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University. The six-year-old school is still constantly changing and growing as the way real estate professionals are trained evolves.
"There's more of a need for specialized education now that there used to be," DeVries says. Real estate has become more of a corporate, national business in its orientation, even international. The skill levels that the industry needs continue to rise."
And as more universities offer real estate degrees, Roosevelt is constantly striving to creatively use its resources to get scholarships for students, retain them for the course of the two-year program and place them in a career path.
Unlike Roosevelt students, who chose to get an MBA with a concentration in real estate or Roosevelt's Master's of Science in Real Estate degree, DeVries never knew that real estate would be his career path. He finished a divinity degree from Union Seminary in New York City before entering community organization as a career. He won an award for his first project in community housing rehab in North Carolina when he was recruited away by Louis Goodkin of Goodkin Research. During his time at Goodkin, he realized the impact that real estate would eventually have not only on his own life, but on the business world as a whole.
"They were the first to realize that it was becoming a big industry and not just out of the back of a pickup," he says of the Goodkin brothers.
DeVries's next stop was a nearly 10-year-long stint with the Arthur Andersen Consulting. The now-defunct accounting giant's real estate division handled the planning of the new Joliet Arsenal and helped lure Boeing to its current Chicago headquarters under DeVries's tenure. But just as Arthur Andersen collapsed, he found his niche at the Institute with the help of then University President Ted Grossman.
"Jon was the only one we ever considered for his job," says Marshall Bennett, "He's very bright and dedicated and he has brought a lot of success to the institute. He's just the perfect guy for the job."
The University has been known for its progressive views, DeVries says. In the 1950s and '60s it was frequently a haven for minorities seeking higher education. Now, DeVries and his staff are trying to build on that tradition.
"We have a history of helping groups that are underrepresented get into the industry," he says. "We now have a future women leaders program, we have a Hispanic leaders program. We have a program that helps students who are economically disadvantaged so they can get some help for a few years. We have a variety of scholarship and training programs too focused specifically on adding groups to the community."
But DeVries's ideas of change aren't just limited to getting students in to the University. He's also trying to get students to stay in school, which can be a problem for commuter campuses. He helped develop and build a new professional training center, which was dedicated on December 10 and includes a library, interview room and board room as well as space to practice presentations.
"It's open from eight o'clock in the morning until eight at night so...it encourages people to come in here at any time of day. Come in during your lunch hour if you work downtown, come in early in the afternoon," DeVries says. "It encourages a lot of socialization, it gives you a whole layer of experiences with the faculty the staff and other students outside the classroom to supplement the classroom."
One reason students might come to the center early is for the new professional development courses the University started offering this year. The classes meet before students' regular classes and cover topics like how to use the internet for real estate listings and how to ace an interview.
Mentoring and networking are common practices in the new center, as well as at the Fogelson Forum and the Goldie Wolfe Miller Women in Real Estate forum, each held three to four times per academic year. Mentors from real estate organizations such as CREW, CORENET and BOMA to help students better understand what their everyday lives will be like as real estate professionals.
"I think the whole program is based on giving people advice as they go through, we're giving them mentors," DeVries says. "It's a networking industry I think that if you take advantage you'll be very well networked and it's very important."
In addition, DeVries has helped raise the money to hire to new professors for the Fogelson Chair and Pasquinelli Chair positions to supplement the existing Bennett Chair professor. The school is also trying hard to work with major real estate companies to help place students after graduation.
"In essence we close the gap between education and placement. We may use job fairs next year as a tool to close that gap," he says.
In the future, DeVries hopes to offer continuing education classes for professionals who want to keep an edge on the competition.
"We'd like to do more programs for the industry, too. All of our student programs are functioning well but we're looking to get more continuing education programs because you can never stop learning," he says. "It's still very much a work in progress this is a very young school it's very exciting."
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