photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Members of Haskell's American Indigenous Business Leaders chapter are pictured at Kiva Hall on the Haskell Indian Nations University campus Monday, March 27, 2023.

When about a dozen Haskell Indian Nations University students filed into Angeles Panaderia in eastern Lawrence earlier this week, they weren’t there for delicious pastries.

Instead, those students came to share business ideas. The group makes up the membership of Haskell’s American Indigenous Business Leaders chapter, which nationally is dedicated to increasing representation for Native Americans in business and entrepreneurial ventures through education and leadership development opportunities.

Their appearance at Angeles Panaderia, a Mexican bakery that opened recently in eastern Lawrence, was part of a first-of-its-kind project for Haskell — a direct partnership between a student organization and a local business. The Journal-World tagged along Monday evening as Haskell’s AIBL chapter met with Javier Angeles, one of the bakery’s owners, and shared ideas to help the growing small business.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Javier Angeles, one of the owners of Angeles Panaderia, addresses Haskell’s AIBL chapter.

The group came prepared with quite the list, starting with upgrading the shop’s menu board to a Trader Joe’s-style chalkboard complete with stylized calligraphy for the menu items and pricing. Other ideas included filling the storefront’s bare windows with signage and art and branching out from Angeles Panaderia’s existing Facebook page to other platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

And that’s not all. The group also had plenty of ideas for how the business might incorporate new handheld, laminated paper menus, or even take-out menus that visitors could keep at home. Marketing was another focus, with one idea geared toward using online customer reviews to identify peak visitor hours and another suggesting disseminating information at nearby hotels and other potential customer-generating hubs.

One student, senior Hannah Poorman, told the Journal-World that the collaboration was unlike anything she’d experienced in her college career. Poorman transferred to Haskell, and she said her previous four-year university didn’t offer the same practical opportunities.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Haskell senior Hannah Poorman takes a look at Angeles Panaderia’s point-of-sale system.

But now Poorman, a member of the Navajo tribe, is getting the kind of practical experience that she said would play a crucial role as she looks toward the next challenge after finishing her undergraduate degree — pursuing an MBA at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I feel like doing this (hands-on) learning, it helps us apply what we learn from all of our other business classes …” Poorman said. “We’re all at different levels of learning, so we all can try to implement what we’ve learned and teach each other, too.”

Fellow senior Randy Estrin worked closely with Poorman and Angeles in setting up the collaboration between the business and AIBL. As the conversation with the whole group began winding down, he sat down to speak with Angeles one on one about what steps he and the other members of the group could take to make what they’d talked about this week a reality.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Haskell senior Randy Estrin chats one-on-one with Javier Angeles about how he and other members of Haskell’s AIBL chapter can begin taking action on the ideas they shared.

Estrin told the Journal-World he also sees the partnership as a great opportunity to gain practical experience. Plus, taking on a leadership role for this project aligns with Estrin’s goals for after graduation, too. In his case, that’s moving back home and making an impact in an administrative role for the Tlingit and Haida tribes of Alaska.

“I think it’d look good on a lot of our resumes, too,” Estrin said. “Not for the obvious reason, though, but since a lot of us may not be (able) to balance a full-time job and being a full-time student as well. Even if you get a little bit of volunteer work under your belt, especially if you’re a business major and it’s business-related, it kind of gets your foot in the door for having actual experience behind you instead of just in the classroom.”

Other members of the group shared plenty of other reasons why the partnership is exciting, including that it’s a valuable chance to learn the mindset and ethics of running a business firsthand.

They could even see it paving the way for partnerships with other small businesses in Lawrence, especially businesses like Angeles Panaderia (located in a strip mall at 19th and Haskell) that are not in the larger shopping hubs of the city.