On a roll…

Posted on April 1, 2013 by John Chenoweth

CoBE students and student organizations have been rolling in the awards. DECA recently came back from the state competition having won State Chapter of the Year. Brian Turner was elected president and Brandon McFadden will be parliamentarian.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) just returned from their conference winning International Chapter of the year and earning 2^nd place in the case competition. Austin Durham took second place in the AMA Student of the Year competition and Sam Hoerschner earned 3^rd place in the EBSCO Scholarship competition.

CoBE was also well represented with students participating on the National Champion Women’s Wheelchair Basketball team, the National Runner-up Women’s Basketball team, and the National Champion Women’s Gymnastics team.

In other news…

We’ve just recently launched the Institute for Water Business and will be mentioned in the April 15 Forbes magazine noting our minor in Water Business.

Opportunities you can’t afford to miss…

As we continue to look for ways to increase the “internationalization” of our college, we are pleased to increase the scholarship funding for study abroad. For 2013-2014 this increase means that we are committed to provide a $1000 scholarship for all CoBE students that choose to study abroad during 2013-2014 and meet the scholarship criteria. Students should speak to an advisor in the Center for Global Education now to begin planning your semester abroad.

If you are on campus, please plan on attending our Leadership Ways and Wisdom lecture series with Frank Witthun, Chairman, Cooper Gay Swett & Crawford. The event is in the Timmerman Auditorium in Hyland Hall on April 15 at 4:30pm.

How do you learn to be a leader?

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Lois Smith

In spring of 2011, the College of Business and Economics adopted a new mission statement. A part of the mission says that the college will provide . . . “an engaging environment for educating undergraduate and graduate students that advances . . . entrepreneurial leadership.” But just how does the college offer students the opportunity to become leaders? “Entrepreneurial” leadership, by the way, doesn’t mean that all CoBE students will be entrepreneurs ready to start new business ventures. Instead, it means roughly that students will be capable of looking at situations creatively, to be innovative whether they are working in century-old corporations with stable product lines or month-old start-ups using the latest technologies.

As we tried to understand how confident CoBE students were with their leadership skills and to uncover how they learned those skills, we distributed an online survey to seniors. Of the 449 graduating seniors invited to participate, at this point 207 or 46% have responded to the survey.

While analysis of the survey as a whole is not completed yet, we are learning about what CoBE students value as giving them leadership opportunities. The chart below shows how students ranked some of the activities in which they participated in their undergraduate careers. The rankings were from 1 – 8 with 8 being highest.

CoBE seniors rated four activities as most important for their development as leaders, with two of those top four being employment related. Internships were ranked highest as contributing to leadership and employment outside internships was third highest ranked. Student organization involvement ranked a close second to internships. A huge 74.4% of CoBE seniors were active in one student organization and 58.4% were active in two. A majority (58.1%) of the seniors worked as interns. Seniors listed Business Communication, Organizational Behavior, and Administrative Policy as the most useful core courses for leadership development. Closely following these top four experiences was community service.

So the advice from CoBE graduating seniors to those of you still working on your degrees would be to:

• Find an internship (or maybe even two?).

• Become actively involved in a student organization.

• Find a relevant work experience (even if it’s not an internship).

• Take advantage of the classroom opportunities you have in the business core.

• Finally, use your community service requirement to develop your leadership skills as well.

CoBE students have active lives inside and outside the classroom, building confidence in their leadership skills in many different ways.

Written By: Dr. Lois Smith, Associate Dean, College of Business and Economics

ACG Cup Case Competition

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Robert Schramm

So many of our students are participating in wonderful activities that help them grow beyond the classroom. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight four graduate students who recently traveled to Milwaukee to compete in the Annual Wisconsin Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Cup Case Competition.

Originally, 16 students (including one online student), representing 4 groups competed in the intra-campus ACG Cup hosted on the UW-Whitewater campus. Each group attended special training sessions hosted by Dr. Linda Yu and business experts on topics such as mergers and acquisitions valuation models, investment banking business practices, and effective presentation skills.

From left: Ryan Chimenti – Mentor and Chair for ACG Cup – Wisconsin
Spencer Gullick, Jessica Resch, Zihao Lin, Abdullah Al-qahtani, Linda Yu

The competition began when students were assigned a financial business scenario relating to the valuation and bidding process of a proposed merger and acquisition deal. Participants were given one week to complete the case analysis and prepare a presentation for a panel of judges. The intra-campus competition was held on January 24. Team Two represented by Abdullah Al-qahtani, Spencer Gullick, Zihao Lin, and Jessica Resch won the intra-campus competition and prepared for the regional challenge in Milwaukee.

Teams from Marquette University, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Madison and UW-Whitewater competed at the regional finals on Saturday, February 9. The Whitewater team competed well, but was defeated by a tough Marquette team. We would like to extend our congratulations to our team members for a job well done.

At UW-Whitewater we believe student real-world applications such as the ACG Cup Case Competition play a significant part in student learning. The 27 student organizations in the College of Business and Economics have always represented UW-Whitewater with exceptional achievements in regional, state, and national events. You can view a list of the student organizations at http://www.uww.edu/cobe/aboutthecollege/studentorgs.

Written By: Dr. Robert M. Schramm, Assistant Dean, College of Business and Economics

Changes…

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Janet Olson

So, it’s the third week of the spring semester and registration for summer courses begins next Monday, February 11th. As one semester starts, we’re working on the next. I think I’ve mentioned that in my blog before, but I’m just pointing out that it’s still true! And the fall timetable is due soon…

We’re in the throes of change here in the Assistant Dean’s Office, which I guess is appropriate for what is loosely termed the “spring” semester. (It is snowing as I write this.) Anyway, we’re growing a bit. I hope that very soon we will begin a search for a new advisor to assist with sophomore level concerns, such as the transition to CoBE advising, making connections with majors and departments, and advising, in general. Eric Roche, our senior advisor will continue, and the three of us will work together on Learning Communities, sophomore programming, advising, and more!

One change for me is working with the Business Communication program. We’ve been having meetings to consider changes to the Business Communication course and to improve business writing, in general. We will be looking at ways to weave writing throughout the curriculum and to build continuity among courses such as Business Communication and Career Information. Good writing requires practice and reinforcement, and we hope to find ways to assist in those endeavors.

Students on the BBA online track and students earning second majors and degrees will now be advised in the Assistant Dean’s Office, as well. Chris Kutz was formerly the advisor to these students, but her advising load has increased significantly, and she will advise only graduate students. It looks like we’re growing in two directions: advisees and advisors. Even more advisors would be nice!

As we make changes to the advising structure and the business communication areas, I welcome input from faculty, staff, students and others. Please let me know if you have insight or suggestions.

Written By: Janet Olson, Assistant Dean, College of Business and Economics

Spring Forward

Posted on January 24, 2013 by John Chenoweth

While the weather reminds us that it is still winter, our Spring 2013 semester is officially under way. For the past few weeks, things have been a bit quieter in terms of the number of students on campus but CoBE continues to move forward. I’d like to share some of the announcements we’ve made since the fall semester ended.

Entrepreneurship News
Over the winterim break, we received official news that the largest organization related to the discipline of entrepreneurship will be moving its headquarters to UW-Whitewater. The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship will be moving into Hyland Hall during this spring semester. We look forward to collaborative opportunities that can benefit both organizations.

Record MBA Admissions for Spring
Our MBA program continues to grow with the largest admission class for a spring term. We welcomed 112 students from 15 states and 6 countries. Approximately 50% of those students will complete the program primarily via our exceptional online classes.

New MBA Announced
We also officially announced the new version of our MBA. The program will maintain its high quality online and face-to-face in Whitewater and Madison. And continue to help participants reach their professional and personal goals. The program adds a stronger focus on leadership and strategy. While continuing our existing 7 emphases in Finance, HR Management, International Business, IT Management, Management, Marketing, and Supply Chain Management , we’ve added an emphasis in Project Management and an option to customize an emphasis.

New Graduate Business Foundations Certificate
We have also announced a new Graduate Business Foundations Certificate program. The certificate can be completed by itself or in conjunction with the MBA. The program provides a business foundation to students who did not complete an undergraduate business degree and want to expand their knowledge in that area.

Enjoy the semester – warmer weather is on the way!

Written By: Dr. John Chenoweth, Associate Dean, College of Business and Economics

CoBE vs. The Nation

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Lois Smith

How do CoBE seniors stack up against national norms?

Very well, it turns out.

Each semester since 2005, CoBE seniors enrolled in Administrative Policy have been taking quizzes on each of the business core courses they completed in their sophomore and junior years. They complete quizzes on everything from accounting and statistics to marketing and finance, five different quizzes each semester.

How do the CoBE quizzes work?

Faculty within each department wrote the quiz questions for their subjects and revised them over time. The faculty knew what they wanted CoBE students to learn and remember, and the quizzes reflected what they felt were the most important concepts in their subject areas. Results, based on percent of answers correct, are shown here.

Results of the CoBE exams showed students were performing less strongly on the more quantitative courses, as might be expected. Students took most of these courses in their sophomore years, leaving more time to forget the quantitative material.

Earlier this semester, 214 students in Administrative Policy classes did something different from the usual exams: they took the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test Exam in business. The reason for using this exam rather than the usual in-house exams was that we could compare CoBE students’ performance with scores from students across the nation.

So how did CoBE students perform on a national basis?

Well, 65% of business schools’ average scores across the nation were below CoBE students’ scores! Not bad. But even more impressive was how CoBE students performed on accounting, information systems and quantitative business analysis. For accounting, 84% of business schools’ mean scores were below those of Whitewater students. And 76% of the means fell below UW-W students on information systems. For quantitative analysis, 75% of business schools fell below UW-W. While the percent correct scores for these exams were not as exciting (52% for accounting, 44% correct for quantitative analysis), because students across the US have challenges with these more quantitative courses too, UW-W students were able to outshine others across the nation.

CoBE students and faculty should be proud of their performance. Of course, there’s always more to do, but these exams gave us the opportunity to see the quality of our education and our student body here at UW-Whitewater.

Written By: Dr. Lois Smith, Associate Dean, College of Business and Economics

Points of Pride

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Chris Clements

I often tell people I am CoBE’s biggest cheerleader, and it’s true. I’m so proud of the many amazing accomplishments of our students, faculty and staff! This week, I’d like to focus on a few of them.

Water Business

One area of entrepreneurial leadership is our Water Business Program. Did you know we have the only water business program in the world? The world’s fastest depleting natural resource is water. Companies across the globe depend on and impact the quality and quantity of the water supply, and this dependence and impact has economic costs that significantly determine environmental, economic and social sustainability. In partnership with the Milwaukee Water Council, our faculty, staff and students are committed to building the capacity to provide global solutions to one of the future’s greatest challenges. Stay tuned for our new Institute for Water Business expected to roll out this spring.

Entrepreneurship Major

And speaking of being entrepreneurial, I am very proud of our Entrepreneurship Program! The program is in its third year and has already grown to 143 majors and a new minor. Our Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) regularly sweeps awards at the annual national conference, resulting in two of our students being invited to the White House last year for an entrepreneurship summit. Our students consistently walk away either winning or in the highest ranks of the regions’ business plan competitions, including our own Warhawk CEO-sponsored competition, the Mason Wells business plan competition and the Governor’s business plan competition. Several of our outstanding entrepreneurship students have attracted substantial venture capital funding. This program boasts amazing, creative students and a committed, hard-working and talented faculty and staff of i-mentors.

Online Business Degrees

One final area in which we have long provided national leadership is in high quality, online business education. Our college has offered fully online business programs since 1998, with a constant commitment to the incorporation of new technologies and best practice to maximize student learning outcomes. Business schools across the country have contacted us for assistance, often resulting in visits to Whitewater or outreach consulting by our faculty and staff, because of our reputation for strength and quality in this area. And, of course, all of our initiatives are grounded in AACSB accreditation, an accreditation that holds us to the highest standards.

For all of these reasons and so many more, when we say a degree from CoBE is A Degree Above, we know it’s more than talk. It’s a way of life.

Written by: Dr. Christine Clements, Dean, College of Business and Economics

Masters of Professional Accountancy

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Robert Schramm

Did you know UW-Whitewater is the only regional Wisconsin university with a Masters of Professional Accountancy Program?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the employment opportunities for accountants will rise by approximately 16% between 2010-2020. The average annual salary for entry-level accounting graduates is $44,000-$56,000.

Many students wonder how to pursue an accounting degree. Most states require certified public accountants (CPA) to complete 150 credits of course work to qualify to sit for the CPA Exam. While students at many schools complete a double major to earn 150 credits, most UW-Whitewater students earn a Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) and better prepare themselves for the CPA exam in the same time period. The MPA degree will help you extend your knowledge in accounting, business law, and professional ethics while meeting your advanced coursework requirements.

The combination of undergraduate and graduate program coursework has paid off for many accounting students at UW-Whitewater. Student success has been consistently proven through its high pass rates on the Uniform CPA Examination.

Candidates must complete four CPA exam sections before they can be licensed to practice as CPAs; auditing, business environment, regulation, and financial accounting. The CPA Exam is currently a computer-based exam; the four sections can be taken separately and in any order.

According to the results from the 2011 CPA Exam, UW-Whitewater students taking the CPA exam for the first time earned a 58.7% pass rate compared to a 49.8% for all candidates nationwide. In addition, UW-Whitewater’s scores for first-timers were higher than other regional Wisconsin universities.

UW-Whitewater MPA Program Director and Accounting Professor, Dr. Robert Gruber, believes one reason for UW-Whitewater’s successful students is the direct result of the unique preparation provided by the MPA program. Dr. Gruber explained, “The MPA program is tightly integrated and coordinated with the bachelor’s degree program in accounting (BBA). It builds upon and expands the BBA degree, culminating with the Comprehensive MPA Examination, which simulates and mimics the CPA Exam. Thus our students are provided a detailed self-assessment before they actually take the CPA Exam.”

The Uniform CPA exam is the only licensed qualification in accounting. All individuals seeking to become Certified Public Accountants (CPA) are required to pass the CPA exam.

Written By: Dr. Robert M. Schramm, Assistant Dean, College of Business and Economic

Semester to Semester

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Janet Olson

Whew! It’s the eighth week of the semester already! This means that things are heating up as the weather cools down. Students are at least knee-deep in projects, exams, and papers. The semester isn’t so new anymore and if students haven’t gotten down to business yet, they can scramble and put all their energy into what should have been done before, and maybe catch up.

We’ve also reached the point of preparing for next semester. The Winterim and spring schedules are posted, advising meetings have begun, students have planned their study abroad courses for spring, applications for May graduation are coming in, and so before we’re half-way through one semester, we’re moving on to the next. We’re accustomed to life in academia where everything is cyclical. I don’t know if it’s more so than in other professions, but I suspect that it is. I recall a time when I wasn’t working at the university, and I had to think a bit to figure out where the university might be in its schedule. Semesters don’t have the same impact when they aren’t dictating your workflow.

It’s time to advise or to be advised. In just two weeks, students can register for Winterim courses, and priority registration for spring starts on November 12. Having all holds released before one’s registration time increases the likelihood of getting the first choice of classes and the most favorable schedule. In addition, students who need to apply for admission should do so as soon as possible to be ready for enrollment in their first upper division business courses.

I hope that everyone is balancing work, school, family, and friends, and that you’re setting yourself up for success in the last eight weeks. After that, we can shake off the fall semester and start again in January. The fall semester timetable will be due shortly after that.