Hearty congratulations to Annabelle Suddreth (’97 EMBA), executive director of A Child’s Place, which won the 2013 Community Service Award at the annual Leadership Charlotte Legacy Awards breakfast this week.

A Child’s Place received more good news this week when it learned that the American Honda Foundation is providing a $75,000 grant for My Place Summer Day Camp. Yessss!

Well deserved, Annabelle; we are proud of you!

A Child’s Place helps children from homeless families in our community gain access to education and emotional support. For more information click on this link:

A Child’s Place homepage

RS

Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) is the international honor society for students majoring in business. Only AACSB-accredited business schools are permitted to sponsor a BGS chapter. Because we are AACSB-accredited, we have Beta Gamma Sigma chapter.

Each year juniors and seniors whose overall grade point average places them in the top 10 percent of their class are invited to join BGS.  Full-time faculty are also invited to join.

This year we held a luncheon to induct our new members and invited family and friends to attend as well.  We are pleased to recognize the following new members of BGS:

Maria Barriga, Kristin Diemer, Kyle House, Jason Krogulski, John Lambert, Melissa Phillips, Emily Poulton, Lauren Price, Alexandra Restrepo Osorio, Le’Asia Wright, and Dr. Charlene Geiger (faculty).

Undergraduate student inductees

Dr. Charlene Geiger

Congratulations to our newest Beta Gamma Sigma members!

RS

EMBA students in the Class of 2013 presented their business plans last night in the annual Business Plan Competition to a panel of judges and a room-full of interested onlookers at Ketner Auditorium.

Students self-selected into four fledgling “companies” to develop business plans around patented intellectual property from Enventys. The nouveau companies included:

Track Tunes, an interactive musical game for children that combines color, motion,music and design;
SnacDaddy, a serving tray that solves the problem of snack food residuals (think chicken bones or shrimp tails);
HeadPro, a sports helmet designed to lessen the effects of head injuries; and,
Easy Flow, a bottle design to eliminate spills when pouring liquids from large containers.

After each team made a short presentation about its product, anticipated sales, marketing strategies and the like, the judges then weighed in with questions and comments. We thank Louis Foreman, Rajeev Kulkarni, Melissa McGuire, and Paul Solitario who volunteered their time and expertise to read the business plans in advance and then to offer constructive criticism to the company founders.

In the end, the Track Tunes team of Aaron Harper, Tim O’Boyle, Matt Ventimiglia, Steve Sawyer, and Rafat Khader emerged victorious. Congratulations, gentlemen!!

And, a big thank you to Dr. Chuck Bamford who organized the event and coached the students, and to Riley Clark for event logistics.

Last week the McColl School welcomed Ann Caulkins, president and publisher of The Charlotte Observer to campus as the featured guest for our Leaders in Action lecture series.

Dr. Will Sparks facilitated the one-hour interview with Ms. Caulkins and invited questions from the audience.  Ann was energetic and inspiring, and handled every question straight on. She encouraged everyone to follow their passions. Good advice!

One benefit of hosting the publisher of The Charlotte Observer is that we received great press coverage in the Sunday newspaper. Check out this link:

on-journalism-resilience-and-leadership.html#storylink=misearch

Thanks to Will and Ann for making the event special and educational!

RS

Thanks to the fine work of EMBA Director Nancy McNelis and colleagues in the marketing and community relations division of Queens, many McColl EMBA alums are included in the latest edition of the Quarterly Online Newsletter of the Executive MBA Council.

The Executive MBA Council is a national organization of schools and universities that offer an EMBA degree. EMBA directors (such as Nancy) are invited to participate in the organization through attendance at meetings, submission of columns and news about their programs, and other news and information of interest to all EMBA programs.

Last fall Rebecca Anderson, vice president of marketing and community relations at Queens, suggested we gather information about career transitions and successes of our EMBA grads. (For those of you who have heard me talk about the “ABCs of being a McColl School alum,” this is an example of the “B.”) Rebecca’s team put together a nice PR piece, which Nancy submitted to the Executive MBA Council.

And, in the latest edition of the newsletter from the Executive MBA Council, we are featured under the section called “School News!”

Look down the left side of the screen and click on “Queens University of Charlotte” in the following link:

Online Newsletter of the Executive MBA Council

Way to go, team!!

RS

The 2013 U.S. News & World Report rankings have just been released and we are delighted to report that Queens University of Charlotte made the Top 20 in the Regional University South category!!

Each year U.S. News compiles and summarizes information about colleges and universities in a book titled “2013 College Guidebook,” which will be available in hard copy in early April. Included in the book are the annual rankings — overall, by region, by type of school, by program, etc.

Queens tied for 20th overall and was described with this blurb:

#20 Queens University of Charlotte
Charlotte, NC

Queens University of Charlotte is a private institution that was founded in 1857. The school has 60.1 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students, and the student-faculty ratio at Queens University of Charlotte is 12:1.

YEA!

RS

Mark Blankenship (’03 EMBA), Mike Gill (’02 PMBA) and Craig Murden (’06 EMBA) joined Jamie Grauel and me at FABO’s this morning for another edition of the McColl Coffee Klatch.

They shared information about the professors who made a big difference in their MBA programs — Don Wallace, Bill Berry, Bob Finley and others — and related how attending an information session was key in their decision to choose the McColl School for their MBA.

I shared the new McColl vision to become more well-known outside the Charlotte area and outlined three strategies (encouraging faculty to present their research at national conferences, the post card awareness campaign we are launching aimed at AACSB deans, and the new online MBA program).

We talked about the idea of “virutal mentors” for those new McColl students who will be enrolling in the online MBA program and all agreed that this could be a differentiating feature of our program.

As usuall the coffee was good at FABO’s, the conversation was great and the McColl spirit among our alums was sky high.

RS

Last week, the McColl School faculty, staff and friends from all over campus converged on the Time Warner conference room to give Lisa Newman a rousing farewell as she heads off to retirement.

Many of you interacted with Lisa when you called or stopped by our office. She was always the upbeat, happy voice or personality who greeted you. We will miss her, but wish her the best. She has five grandchildren who are growing up fast and she doesn’t want to miss any more special days with them.

Her departure means that we will be short-staffed for several weeks as we open a search for her replacement.

RS

Last weekend we hosted eight high school seniors and their parents on campus for our 3rd Annual Undergraduate Scholarship Case Competition.

The case competition is open to any high school senior interested in attending Queens University of Charlotte. After being admitted to Queens, the freshmen-to-be are invited to participate in the case competition. The case and rules of the competition are sent to them; in turn, they submit a written case analysis of their due diligence and recommendations. This work is completed by the students at home.

To complete round 1 of the competition the written cases are scored by a panel of alumni who recommend eight finalists to advance to round 2 on campus.

Round 2 consists of each student making an oral presentation to a new panel of judges. Each contestant has eight minutes to present followed by a four-minute question-and-answer session from the judges. Judges include students (previous case competition winners), faculty, and yours truly.

After all students have presented the judges discuss the presentations and combine their scoring sheets with the scoring sheets from round 1 to determine first, second, and third place winners.

This year’s contestants included:
Ross Brydon (who traveled from Scotland for the competition!)
Josh Halter (Fairport, NY)
James McGuinness (Rockville Center, NY)
Nicholas Meredith (Dublin, OH)
Charlie Michelin (Boca Raton, FL)
Mitchell Newell (Delaware, OH)
Kelly Spencer (Summerville, SC)
John Suther (Mooresville, NC)

Congratulations to first place winner, Ross Brydon ($7,500 scholarship), second place winner Kelly Spencer ($5,000 scholarship), and third place winner Josh Halter ($2,500 scholarship)!! The remaining contestants were awarded an Honorable Mention scholarship of $1,000 each.

Many thanks to Christina Pak, who handled event logistics, to Steve Cox, who founded the competition and coordinated with the students from beginning to end, and to our many judges for their time and talent.

RS

Thanks to the fine organizing efforts of Reggie Willis (’03 EMBA) and Charlie Lieske (’03 EMBA), the inaugural meeting of the Ally McColl Affinity Group kicked off with a luncheon today in the executive boardroom at the Ally Bank building.

Charlie explained the reason for forming this group and some of the intended benefits. The Ally McColl Affinity Group plans to meet quarterly.

Launching affinity groups of alumni is an initiative of the Alumni Connections Committee of the McColl School Alumni Association.

Ally turnout was strong and included: Khalifa Abdallah (’11 PMBA), Justin Derby (’11 PMBA), Jon Elliot (’07 EMBA), Chris Halmy (MSB adjunct professor), Sean Leary (’12 EMBA), Eric Lovell (’09 EMBA), Shaun Rangel (’99 PMBA), Steve Schang (’09 EMBA), and Bob Woods (’01 EMBA), in addition to Charlie and Reggie.

Reggie invited me to make a presentation about the McColl online MBA initiative, which generated lively discussion from the group.

Special thanks to Jamie Grauel and Josalyn Petko (Ally) for help with logistics and arrangements.

RS