Dean's Message
A Message from the Dean
Greetings!
It’s been a very exciting spring with all of our outstanding events and numerous success stories coming from the College of Business. I am proud to announce the College has continued to move up Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2013 rankings of the best business schools in the country. BGSU is #90 among both private and public universities. Only 145 business schools out of approximately 1640 four-year business programs were eligible for this selective ranking. The College of Business is ranked #41 among public universities and is #30 for academic quality among all public universities.
In other good news….congratulations, Beth Albers, who was selected to receive one of the prestigious R. Gene Richter Scholarship Awards. She is one of ten recipients nationally recognized as a top supply chain management student. She is also the fifth BGSU student to be selected in the past eight years for one of these scholarships.
In addition, two finance students, Susan Lang and Lauren Little, took third place in the semi-final round of the Financial Plan Competition, hosted by the International Association of Registered Financial Consultants.
I would also like to share good news that our student chapter of the American Marketing Association earned a national award for "Outstanding Chapter Communications." This is the ninth consecutive year our chapter won a national award.
Our faculty and staff members are also being honored for excellence. Economics Professor Mary Ellen Benedict received one of two BGSU President’s Awards for Academic Advising of Undergraduate Students as well as the Faculty Mentor Award. Dr. Zheng Zeng, assistant professor of economics, was honored as the Outstanding Young Scholar. Management Professor Deb O’Neil was honored with BGSU’s 2013 Faculty Excellence Award for work with her class on Mastering Change. Kathy Helm, College of Business Budget Officer, was recognized as a member of the BGSU Classified Staff Council which was honored as a Friend of the Office of Service-Learning. Congratulations to all of our award-winning faculty, staff, and students!
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We also hosted numerous successful spring events including our E-Week. More than 2,000 people attended our week-long celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit, bringing together successful entrepreneurs with aspiring ones. "The Hatch" was a huge success with more than 600 people in attendance and a live stream to thousands more. Eight students did a fantastic job of presenting their business ideas to a panel of investors. Four of the students’ start-ups were funded with a total investment of more than $100K. The following students received funding:
- Hunter Bihn, Personal Sharps Container for Insulin Pen needles
- Krysten Jablonowski, Dorm Room Furniture Company
- Scott Hodges, Taco Food Truck Company – "Bueno"
- Kourtney Greco, Children’s Write-a-book
Great job to all of our outstanding students! Many thanks to our investors and to the 11 alumni who served as mentors! View a brief video recap of "The Hatch" and learn more about our outstanding students, investors and alumni from The Falcon Hatchery webpage. A one-hour encore presentation of "The Hatch" will air on WBGU-PBS on Thursday, June 20 at 9:00 p.m. I hope you will watch.
Congratulations to four highly successful entrepreneurs and business leaders - Larry Davenport, Joe Fisch, Pat Ryan and Fritz Wolfe – who are the newest group of inductees to the prestigious Dallas-Hamilton Hall of Fame held Thursday night of E-Week.
E-Week ended with a sold-out crowd in the Lenhart Ballroom for the 10th Annual Sebo Series in Entrepreneurship. This year’s theme was "Adding Value to Business through Social Media." Thanks to our keynote, Erik Qualman, social media expert and best-selling author, and to our panelists, - Kim Garretson, co-founder and innovation ventures partner, Ovative/Group; Meredith Soleau, human resources director, Ed Schmidt Auto, Inc.; Mike Osswald, vice president, experience innovation, Hanson; and Shannon Paul, vice president and social media strategist, Fifth Third Bank.
I would especially like to thank Bob Sebo for his generous support of this event since its inception ten years ago. Here is a recap of the event.
Local and national business leaders from as far away as Arkansas, Texas and North Carolina came to the BGSU campus for the 1st annual Best Practices in Business Analytics Symposium, hosted by the College of Business and the Center for Business Analytics. Data expert Ashwin Patil, Director, Business Analytics & Information Management, Deloitte Consulting, LLP, was the keynote. Mike Hoskins, CTO of Actian Corp., discussed how data is "the central business asset" during lunch. A best practices panel included:
- Joe Gottron, Senior V.P., Pharmaceutical Segment, Enterprise Information Technology, Cardinal Health
- Jim Albert, BGSU Professor, Math and Statistics Department
- Ed White, BGSU Executive-in-Residence, former CFO of Owens-Illinois
Read more about this interesting event.
Women in Leadership attracted a huge crowd of nearly 500 people to listen to high-profile women in leading roles. The keynote speaker was alumna Amy Shore, Senior Vice President, Nationwide Insurance, whose presentation was entitled "Becoming a Woman of Influence." We welcomed alumna Betty Montgomery, former attorney general of Ohio and a former state auditor as the luncheon speaker. Panelists included the following:
- Shelley Brazeau Temple, Regional Vice President, Nationwide Insurance, BGSU alum
- Janet Hartley, Professor of Management, Bowling Green State University
- Sharon Speyer, Regional President - Northwest Ohio, Huntington
- Maryrose Sylvester, President & CEO, GE Lighting, , BGSU alum
Barbara Waddell, Director of the Office of Equity & Diversity (OED) and University Title IX Coordinator, served as the moderator. This event was hosted by The BGSU Center of Excellence – Developing Effective Businesses and Organizations. Read more…
Thirteen teams from student business organizations, along with a team of faculty, competed on April 18 for the coveted "Golden Tie" award in the 1st annual Business Olympics. The participants demonstrated their keen "business prowess" in such games as Speed Finger Skating, Rubber Band Archery, Tie Tying, Market a Product, Business Pictionary, and the Supply Chain Relay. The student feedback was overwhelmingly positive for this event planned by the College of Business Student Ambassadors. To generate more excitement for the raffle prizes, I volunteered to take a pie in the face. Here is a recap of the fun festivities.
We honored nine senior Student Ambassadors at a recognition dinner for their dedication and commitment to the College of Business over the past year. Each was presented a framed photo of the Student Ambassador group, along with an engraved glass statue. These students have worked many hours and promoted the College very well.
The College of Business’s prestigious top senior award, the Karl E. Vogt Award, was awarded at the Class of 2013 Luncheon and Time Capsule Ceremony. This year’s award was presented to finance and accounting student, Travis Harbauer. The other two finalists for this honor were Corrie Jones, a supply chain management student, and Andrew Myers, specializing in marketing. Read more about their impressive accomplishments.
Dr. Paul Schauer, accounting professor, was voted by the Class of 2013 to deliver their "last lecture" at the luncheon and class representatives Janie Rauscher and Chelsea Soss presented the senior class gift to the College. The Class of 2013 time capsule was sealed until their 30th Class Reunion in 2043. Read more about the senior luncheon.
We honored 140 students graduating from BGSU’s College of Business this spring. We wish all of them the best of luck and look forward to staying connected as they launch their careers. In addition to sending off our graduates, we will be saying goodbye to three long-time professors retiring at the end of June - Management Professors Jim McFillen and Linda Ueltschy and from accounting Dr. Larry Kowalski. These three have been teaching at BGSU for a combined 75 years. We appreciate their long-term commitment to the College and their teaching excellence and wish them well.
As we close the 2012-13 academic year, this will be our last Biz News until August when we welcome a new academic year and an incoming class of freshmen. Be sure to "save the date" for BGSU’s Homecoming Weekend, October 4-6. We will have several new programs that weekend including a "Hatch Watch," replaying an hour-long program recorded from this spring’s "The Hatch," and "Classes without Quizzes," featuring lectures by faculty and alumni. Stay tuned!
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I truly have enjoyed my first year as Dean of the College of Business and look forward to another exciting year of success!
Have a great summer!
