As Liam Fluharty ’23 leads a small tour through Bryant’s future Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Center (BELC), his excitement is contagious.
Right now, in early July, it’s still very much under construction; we’re more than a month away from its August debut, or “showtime” as Fluharty calls it. But as a project coordinator with CSL Consulting, the firm hired to convert the BELC from office space to Bryant University’s new flagship building, he knows every inch of the first and second floors.
It’s a future he can already see clearly. When he passes the second floor elevator bank, he stops to point out a blank section of wall. “It’s going to say, ‘College of Business’ right there in big letters,” he says with satisfaction. “And it’s going to look amazing.”
Yet even as Fluharty, who majored in Leadership and Innovation Management, helps to build the university’s future, he can’t help but remember his past. One of the reasons he likes his job is that he gets to turn clients’ dreams into realities, and he knows this client particularly well.
It was as a student that Fluharty first learned about Bryant’s Vision 2030 Strategic Plan, of which the BELC is a signature piece, and was able to offer feedback through a student focus group. When he was assigned to work on the project after graduation, it seemed like fate.
“I had an incredible experience at Bryant, and I wouldn’t change it. The BELC is going to help make sure that Bryant can continue to provide that experience to students in the future.”
As Fluharty points out the BELC’s new classrooms and labs, he recalls learning from mentors such as Lecturer of Management Robert Massoud, who taught him how to manage a thousand complex concerns while still keeping his eye on the big picture.
In the BELC, “there’s a space here for everyone to pursue their passion,” he says.
Further along, Fluharty notes rooms dedicated to Bryant’s student-run clubs and organizations and how his own involvements taught him lessons that went beyond the classroom — like how to lead as student government president, or how to make a positive impact by organizing a fundraising drive that collected more than $150,000 for cancer research.
As a student fellow, Fluharty helped organize a 160th anniversary celebration for Bryant. Some might see it as an odd year to commemorate, he admits, but he argues that it’s never a bad time to celebrate a place you love.
“I had an incredible experience at Bryant, and I wouldn’t change it,” Fluharty explains. “The BELC is going to help make sure that Bryant can continue to provide that experience to students in the future.”
