 Marketing Coffee, Cafés, and the LSC Last semester, students from Kelly Martin’s Marketing class teamed up with the Lory Student Center, Exdecaf Universal Coffee, a Mexican coffee company and Next Door Food and Drink, a local café. The students were challenged to create exceptional marketing plans.
Martin explains, “The marketing capstone course provides a great opportunity for students to apply all that they have learned throughout their marketing education and put it into practice. The marketing plan project experience helps students transition from the role of student to the role of marketing manager and decision maker.” College of Business Maintains Prestigious AACSB Accreditation  The College of Business at Colorado State University has maintained its business accreditation by AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Only 643 schools of business, or less than 5 percent worldwide, have earned this distinguished hallmark of excellence in management education. To maintain accreditation, a business program must undergo rigorous internal review every five years, during which a program must demonstrate its continued commitment to the 21 quality standards relating to faculty qualification, strategic management of resources, interactions of faculty and students, and a commitment to continuous improvement and achievement of learning goals in degree programs.
“It takes a great deal of self-evaluation and determination to earn and maintain AACSB accreditation,” says Jerry Trapnell, vice president and chief accreditation officer of AACSB International. “Schools not only must meet specific standards of excellence, but their deans, faculty, and staff must make a commitment to ongoing improvement to ensure continued delivery of high-quality education to students.” Mark Carleton Meets With MAcc Students Mark Carleton, senior vice president at Liberty Media Corporation, recently met with CSU accounting students and provided valuable insights about his career and experiences.
Carleton’s advice to current students and recent graduates is to be patient and focus on how to communicate effectively. Communication is a more important skill than any of the technical skills he learned in college, Carleton says. He offers that being able to communicate at all levels, with management, family, and even yourself about what boundaries you want, will allow one to manage their own career and be more satisfied with the effort they put forth. Supply Chain Launches New Forum The Supply Chain program is excited to launch a partnership-based company forum. The purpose is to enable stronger interactions and to provide resources for companies, the Supply Chain Management faculty, and students. Inaugural partners currently include Coca-Cola, Micro Motion, Otterbox, and Stolle Machinery. These companies will have the opportunity to participate in specially designed symposia, to sponsor practicum projects, and to have early access to faculty research.
Entrepreneurship Encouraged by Venture Adventure Competition Business students and aspiring entrepreneurs presented their ideas for new business ventures to a panel of business leaders, inventors, and experts in entrepreneurship at the annual Venture Adventure Colorado competition in December.
Awards were given to the teams with the best ideas, based on the quality of the students’ presentation, business viability, and economic potential.
The two first-place awards went to Ary Diamond Grinding and Grooving – a heavy highway construction company that specializes in diamond grinding – and to the Fort Theatre – a large scale venue in Northern Colorado with a seated capacity for 3,500. Congratulations to this year’s CSU Entrepreneurship Center Venture Adventure award winners! Supply Chain Students Pass CSCA Exam Last fall, 26 supply chain students took the CSCA exam offered by APICS Northern Colorado, and those 26 students are now certified supply chain analysts. This brings the total number to more than 125 certified students and maintains the program’s 100 percent pass rate. Special congratulations to all of these students. College of Business Offers Another New Distance Learning Technology In today’s rapidly evolving world of technology, the way that students learn is expanding far beyond the typical classroom experience. Take, for example, the College of Business’s new synchronous classroom technology. Students taking graduate-level computer information systems courses now have the option of signing in via webcam and experiencing a live classroom setting, right from the convenience of their homes or offices.
“It doesn’t matter if they are halfway across the country or across the world – if students are available during the class’s meeting time, they can log in and be a part of the live classroom setting from a remote location,” says Susan Meyer, director of department-based graduate programs for CSU’s College of Business. Beverage Business Institute Completes Two Workshops, Two Yet to Come The recently formed Beverage Business Institute at Colorado State University’s College of Business has hosted an exceptional group of executive speakers and facilitators at its first two workshops. The Inaugural Workshop in Beverage Business Management included two and a half days of interactive courses, speakers, and tours of local breweries, while the second workshop focused on the essentials of supply chain management. To complete the certificate in Beverage Business Management, participants must complete all four workshops offered by the BBI.
To learn more about the programs and the workshops, visit www.csubbi.com. Accounting Students Compete in PWC’s xtreme Games Twenty CSU students participated in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PWC) xtax competition.
Their assignment was to provide advice to a hypothetical company in a fictitious country regarding state income tax and sales tax issues involved in delivering their gaming software via “cloud computing.” One of the biggest challenges the students faced was finding time to meet as a group to analyze the problem and develop their solutions. The assignment provides valuable opportunities for student collaboration.
The winning team from CSU was awarded $1,000, and their presentation will be submitted to the national competition. This year’s winning team was called Cloud 9 and the team members consisted of Alex Bervik, Joshua Bennett, Alana Botdorf, Erin Nuland, and Amber Reese. CSU Executive MBA Students From Russia Visit U.S.  Colorado State University’s Executive MBA students from Tatarstan, Russia, recently completed a whirlwind visit to New York City and Washington, D.C., where they explored key leadership issues for U.S.-Russian business relations.
The Executive MBA students from Tatarstan are enrolled in Colorado State University’s innovative leadership-based MBA program offered to select government and business leaders in the Republic of Tatarstan. The program, established in July 2009, combines the Online Professional MBA curriculum with several on-site specialized courses delivered in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan.
“Course work for a class, whether on campus or via our Online Professional MBA program, can only take a student so far,” says John Hoxmeier, associate dean for the College of Business. “A trip such as this allows our Russian students to examine and critically question traditional Russian leadership styles and to focus on the importance of international relations driven by trust, integrity, and the rule of law.” New Kermit L. Allard Accounting Scholarship Fund A new scholarship named for Kermit L. Allard, one of the most distinguished graduates of the Colorado State University Department of Accounting, has been established. The scholarship honors Allard for his long and distinguished career in accounting, as well as his loyal association with CSU. The Kermit L. Allard Scholarship is a tangible tribute to recognize all that Kermit accomplished, and we are honored to have his name attached to this fund. Seniors Get Hands-On Education Through Service Learning Paul Mallette has been teaching business students at Colorado State University for more than 20 years. This semester, the students in his Strategic Management capstone class are getting some hands-on experience working with nonprofit organizations in the Fort Collins community.
As part of their course work students in the class each chose a local organization with which they worked on a volunteer basis. The students performed various services for the nonprofits, from business consulting and management functions to actually doing the work of an average employee or working as a volunteer within the organization.
“I would encourage anyone to make time and give back to the community they live in,” says Daniel Filbert, a student who volunteered at Animal House, a local dog shelter. “The one thing I regret is not starting this volunteer assignment sooner because I truly enjoyed it.” GSSE Students Place Second at the Camino Real Venture Competition Timamu Food Solutions, a team of social entrepreneurs currently enrolled in the College of Business’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program, finished second out of 10 schools at the annual Camino Real Venture Competition March 9 and 10 at the University of Texas-El Paso.
The competition focused on new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages, and all ventures presented were seeking outside equity capital. Team members Laura Arendacs, Meghan Coleman, and Liz Gicharu presented their business plan to a panel of judges consisting of successful business leaders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and other business experts. Timamu Food Solutions’ main goal is to prevent chronic child malnutrition from micronutrient deficiencies throughout Kenya by improving access to affordable, nutritious foods specifically tailored to meet local needs.
Gicharu says Timamu Food Solutions hopes to accomplish their mission by developing, producing and distributing innovative, nutrient-dense food products that are made locally by Kenyan workers and, when possible, using locally available raw materials. GSSE Alumni Advance to Finals at Walmart’s Better Living Business Plan Challenge  Two graduates from the Colorado State University College of Business’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise MBA program have won the regional round of Walmart’s Better Living Business Plan Challenge, coordinated by Net Impact.
Akafia Esther and Afrane Forson are the founders of Access Academies International, a business with the goal of providing affordable, high quality, and accessible elementary education for Ghana’s emerging middle class.
The plans for the venture were created while Akafia and Forson were enrolled in the GSSE MBA, and their business model was selected for further development after the pair graduated from the New Economy Venture Accelerator at CSU’s Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Enterprise.
“A challenge for Ghana and for much of sub-Saharan Africa is that quality education is not accessible in the early years of children’s development. This lack of access means that these children start out life with a disadvantage, and this has profound implications for social welfare, human development, and economic growth. Our business model provides this access, is sustainable, and is funded through cash generated by the schools rather than being continuously funded by outside charities,” says Forson. |
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