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| May 2007 Issue In this issue: Contact us:
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Dear friends and colleagues, As another eventful school year comes to a close, I am excited by the role the UIC College of Business Administration continues to play in creating new knowledge, new business, new value and new leaders for Chicago and the world beyond. I am also pleased with our growing success in fields such as entrepreneurship and tech commercialization. The following are a sampling of some of the college’s outstanding achievements from this year. • CBA received a $250,000 grant from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trust to establish the International Center for Futures and Derivatives. • Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review named our undergraduate entrepreneurship program ninth and graduate program 12th in the nation. • Crain’s Chicago Business ranked the Liautaud Graduate School of Business MBA program fourth in the city among programs accredited by the AACSB International. • OrthoAccel Technologies, Inc., a start-up business venture co-founded by five of our recent MBA graduates, signed a merger agreement with SimplexityMD, a Houston-based new venture development company with a focus on medical device technology. • The Chicago Innovation Awards presented the CBA with a scholarship in recognition of our work to advance entrepreneurial studies and interdisciplinary product development. • CBA's Interdisciplinary Product Development course garnered the Mid-Continent East Regional Business Deans Association’s 2006 Innovation in Business Education Award. • Our UIC graduate accounting students received the highest pass rate for the 2006 CPA exam among Illinois business schools with graduate accounting programs. More than 52% of UIC graduate students taking the exam passed all four parts. • The Optimal Vision Corporation team, comprised of former and current UIC Liautaud MBA students, was named Grand Champion at the University of San Francisco’s prestigious International Business Plan Competition. • CBA organized several tremendously successful events, including the Alumni Leadership Academy induction ceremony, the CEO Conference, which drew an estimated 1,400 people, the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame ceremony and the second annual Concept2Venture business plan competition. Through these accomplishments, the college further established itself as a leader in innovative business education and research that is positioned to effect positive change in the global marketplace for years to come. While I am proud of all these accomplishments, what pleases me most is seeing each one of our new graduates ready to take the next step from business student to business leader. They are a smart, motivated, ambitious group distinguished by a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Above all else, they are shining examples to the world of the tremendous impact someone with an education from the CBA can have on the future of business. - Stefanie.
Dean’s
Office Welcomes Holly Griffin Holly Griffin joined the CBA as assistant to the dean on April 3. She has worked at UIC for six years, most recently in the department of graduate medical education. Holly holds a degree in psychology from Saint Xavier University in Chicago. CBA Hosts Chinese Foreign Exchange Executive
Deputy Director Wei Benhua The International Center for Futures and Derivatives and the U.S. Asia Executive Development Program recently co-sponsored a panel discussion about the current climate and future of world markets. The panel, titled China's Reserve Investment Strategy, Risk Management and the Challenge of Capital Account Convertibility, featured Wei Benhua, deputy director of the State Administration for Foreign Exchange, People's Republic of China. Other panelists included David Marshall, senior vice president of the financial markets group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, David Hale, a Chicago-based economic consultant on international financial markets, and Richard Co, financial research director at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In addition to the ICFD and USAEDP, sponsors included the CME and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. SAFE manages China's foreign exchange policy and issues related to its balance of payment reserves, currently estimated at more than $1 trillion.
Student Teams Create Working Advertising Agencies Two teams of students in Professor David Koehler’s marketing class spent the semester creating full-scale advertising campaigns for nationally recognized firms. With the assistance of EdVenture Partners, Inc., both groups formed working ad agencies to develop their multi-media campaigns, including print, video and Web advertising as well as all-campus publicity events. The students who formed Pinnacle Consulting developed a campaign for Vector Marketing in order to raise awareness of the firm’s Cutco Cutlery product line and related employment opportunities. The second team, Millennium Consulting, developed a campaign for Sapphire Mobile Communications promoting their new Phire application for banking by cell phone text message. Both teams concluded the semester with a presentation summarizing their campaigns and results before representatives from their client companies. While giving the students invaluable real-world experience in advertising and marketing, the projects provided their clients with exposure and creative marketing ideas from, and for, their target audiences. Notes Koehler, “It has been amazing to me to watch how these young people take an idea and, through their own creativity and hard work, turn it into something truly remarkable. Each team has the chance to learn from the teams that came before, and they just keep getting better.” CBA Teams Take Two of Three Finalist Spots at LES Competition CBA’s Optimal Vision Corporation and Flow Diagnostics beat out teams from throughout the United States and Canada to claim two of three spots in the finals for the prestigious Edwin A. Shalloway Graduate Student Licensing Competition. In addition to competing for the $10,000 grand prize, they will have the opportunity to network with more than 400 professionals representing all aspects of the intellectual property transfer and commercialization industry. Notes UIC Professor of Entrepreneurship Rod Shrader, “Having CBA teams represent two of the three finalists for this competition is truly an amazing achievement. I am incredibly proud of our students and this accomplishment.” Current MBA students Shrijay Vijayan and Kristin Ware, and 2006 graduate Kelly Liebl, are the founders of Optimal Vision Corp., a start-up venture based on three UIC-owned patents for technology that treats presbyopia, a vision ailment that causes difficulty in focusing on close objects. Flow Diagnostics, formed by MBA students Karen Tovey and Santhosh Anand, advances a system for detecting and characterizing vascular narrowing through acoustic and geometric imaging of veins and arteries. The final competition will be held at the 2007 LES Spring Meeting May 16-18 in Atlanta, Georgia. FBC Day Features Exhibition and Workshops
Pictured from left to right, Jeff Graham, FBC member and owner of FiberOptic Studio, discusses opportunities available at his company with management major Robert Jackson and accounting major Li Ma. Above right, keynote speaker Doris Christopher shares her experience as founder of The Pampered Chef. The CBA’s Family Business Council hosted Family Business Day Thursday, April 5. The day included afternoon workshops as well as a member company information showcase where attendees, including CBA students, had the opportunity to learn more about FBC member companies and the potential for both internships and full-time positions. Doris Christopher, founder and chair of The Pampered Chef, a Berkshire Hathaway company and the premier direct seller of high-quality kitchen tools, delivered the keynote address.
Art Velasquez, president and CEO of Azteca Foods, helped kick off Entrepreneurship Week at UIC by serving as the guest speaker for Michael Miller’s “Executives in the Classroom” competitive strategies course on April 5. Prior to his presentation, Mr. Velasquez was joined by Professor Gerry Hills, executive director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, at an informal meeting with marketing students where he shared his experience turning a small start-up company into one of the largest Mexican foods manufacturers in the Midwest. He was among numerous successful entrepreneurs who visited CBA classrooms throughout the week.
• A meta-analysis paper on psychological contract breach and outcomes, co-authored by Professor Sandy Wayne, Hao Zhao, a former CBA doctoral student and current assistant professor at RPI, Jesus Bravo, another former CBA doctoral student and current assistant professor at ASU, and Brian Glibkowski, a current doctoral student in CBA's program, has been accepted at Personnel Psychology. Professor Zhao served as the lead author for the paper. • Angela Prazza, associate director of the International Center for Futures and Derivatives, and Donna Nowacki, director of academic services, were among 14 individuals campuswide to receive the INSPIRE Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association. The award recognizes outstanding service at UIC by those who embody the university's core values: integrity, nurturing, service, pride, intellect, respect, and excellence. Angela was additionally honored as the recipient of the Luminary award, given each year to one outstanding INSPIRE awardee. • Professor Gerry Hills was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award in Academic Entrepreneurship by Beloit College's Center for Entrepreneurship in Liberal Education. He was recognized for founding several enterprises, including the UIC Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Annual Research Symposium on Marketing and Entrepreneurship, the national Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization, and the U.S. Association for Entrepreneurship and Small Business. • Freida Curry, director of the Center for Urban Business, moderated a workshop titled "Business Growth Through Marketing & Promotion" as part of the 9th annual LaSalle Street Project Symposium hosted by Rainbow PUSH. The mission of the symposium is to encourage economic inclusion and development by facilitating partnerships between leading corporations and minority businesses. • Graduate students Cheryl Luczak and Frederik Beuk, working with Waldemar Pfoertsch and Jian Su from UIC and Jennifer Chandler from UC-Irvine, had a paper accepted for publication in the Academy of Marketing Studies Journal. The paper, titled "In Branding: Development of a Conceptual Model,” won the Distinguished Research Award at the Allied Academics Spring 2007 International Conference. • Dr. Youn Jai Lee, a visiting scholar in the economics department, and Dr. Jin Man Lee, also from the economics department, presented papers to Korean community leaders on April 7 as part of a research seminar hosted by the HANSA Institute. Their presentations generated coverage in both the Korea Times and Korea Daily. • Joseph Persky, professor of economics, talked about Gov. Blagojevich's plan for investment in education in an April 19 Lincoln Daily News article. Professor Persky also offered his views about Governor Blagojevich's proposal to institute a gross receipts tax in a March 30 Chicago Sun-Times article. • Barry R. Chiswick, distinguished professor and head of the economics department, appeared on "Chicago Tonight" (WTTW ch.11) to discuss the May 2 immigration march and rally in Chicago. Professor Chiswick was also interviewed for an ABC7 (WLS-TV) segment on the May Day protests, which aired throughout the day’s newscasts, as well as for a Chicagoland Television (CLTV) segment. • The university's Technology Ventures Program was the subject of an extensive article titled "Save Money With MBA Students as Analysts, Start-up Managers" in the inaugural issue (May 2007) of Technology Transfer Tactics. This publication is distributed to directors of technology transfer offices at universities throughout the United States. • The March issue of IP Investor also featured an article about the college's Technology Ventures Program. The article, titled "Student Spinouts: Two Pioneering School Programs Put Students in the Driver's Seat," discusses how two programs (CBA's program and one in London) help engineering students commercialize their own inventions. • Eugene Fregetto, clinical associate professor of marketing, was quoted in an April 2 Chicago Tribune article about minority-owned business certification. • Robert Kaestner, professor of economics, was quoted in a March 23 Reuters article, an ABC News online piece, and a Chicago Public Radio segment regarding plans for universal healthcare in Illinois. • Thomas Smith, clinical assistant professor of economics, talked about the Tribune Company going private in a deal engineered by Chicago real estate tycoon Sam Zell that aired during April 2 WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio news updates. Smith additionally spoke about the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament and its impact on office productivity on WLS-AM during March 12-13 news recaps. • George Roe, clinical associate professor of accounting, was quoted in a March 20 Chicagobusiness.com article about the Better Business Bureau's role as an information provider. •
Rod Shrader, associate professor of management and
entrepreneurship, discussed the challenges for entrepreneurs setting
up Internet businesses in the March 12 Chicago Tribune. Saturday,
May 12: Spring 2007 Commencement
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