Like its 20-acre Berkshire Farm, which produces 20,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables each year, AU’s Airlie Center offers a bounty of experiential learning activities.

“There’s endless opportunity rooted in Airlie,” says Bronté Burleigh-Jones, Kogod/BS ’91, MBA ’93, CFO, vice president and treasurer. “The first time I walked on the property in 2022, I was immediately struck by its special nature and what an incredible opportunity we had in it for our community of Eagles.” 

In September, about 20 first-year students in School of Communication professor Sarah Menke-Fish’s Visual Literacy class boarded a 7 a.m. bus bound for Airlie in Warrenton, Virginia, about an hour outside of DC. Cameras in hand, the students captured images of the rolling countryside, cows, hogs, and loads of fresh produce, splicing together a 60-second digital postcard from the 300-acre property, which was gifted to AU in 2016 as part of the Change Can’t Wait campaign.

The field trip not only helped the budding filmmakers hone their skills, it also gave them valuable insights into their client for the semester: Airlie, with whom students are working to create a brand strategy that includes visual storytelling for social media and the web. They will present their campaign in December. 

And earlier this year, Airlie worked with another group of Eagle consultants, when 14 MBA students in Kogod executive in residence Tom Kohn’s capstone course were tapped to analyze the property’s business strategy. Working in teams during the spring semester, the students focused on sustainability, revenue, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and brand awareness, exploring how Airlie could be better integrated into the AU experience. 

Kohn’s students have worked with 40 different clients over the eight years he’s taught the course—but this marked the first time his class partnered with an internal client. “Our students in some ways were more well-positioned to give valuable advice than an outside firm,” he says. “They’ve been living this for two years of their MBA, so they can relate to the client better.” 

The students’ strategy—drawn from research and interviews with nearby residents, former guests, students, and faculty members—“drove us to understand that we were on the right path,” says Michael Scher, SOC/BA ’08, WCL/JD ’13, Kogod/MS ’19, assistant vice president of campus auxiliary services and Airlie

For example, a recommendation to host more events on the prope.rty spurred the AU-Airlie Fall Festival and 5K on November 11, while another team’s analysis of sustainability practices prompted Airlie to introduce more composting measures, which have increased savings while shrinking the property’s environmental footprint. This fall, Airlie also debuted recipe cards as part of its CSA program, which launched this summer and has since doubled to more than 100 subscribers.