Carl Follmer, director of the Frank Business Communications Center in the Tippie College of Business, said poets know how to use the exact right word and turn of phrase to convey in the clearest terms what they’re trying to say. That, too, is the goal of effective business communication.   

Too often, though, business communication is burdened with empty buzzwords and directionless writing that is as apt to confuse a reader as make a point. In the Frank Center, tutors teach business students to avoid muddy communications to focus on clarity and brevity. Like poets.   

Fortunately, Tippie has a good source of poets to help business students improve their writing. Just down the street is the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and many of its poetry students are writing tutors in the Frank Center. Tutors come from among the Workshops’ novelists, too, and the university’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Given those programs’ record of producing some of the best award-winning writers in contemporary American literature, it’s entirely possible that an Iowa business student is improving their writing with the help of a future Pulitzer Prize winner.