• First place ($1,500) was awarded to Celes Buffard ’27 (School of Information Studies), founder of Return 2 Reality, an entertainment company focusing on a podcast for entrepreneurs around navigating and getting past the hurdles and challenges throughout the entrepreneurial journey.
• Second place ($1,000) was awarded to Olutosin (Tosin) Alabi G’25 (Whitman School of Management), founder of Diabetech, a med-tech venture for a diabetic foot ulcer wearable.
• Two third-place prizes ($500 each) were awarded to Alie Savane ’25 (College of Arts and Sciences), founder of Bete Kola, a health and wellness venture focusing on kola nut food and beverage products; and Mian Hamid ’26 (School of Information Studies), founder of Chai YEAH, a beverage venture offering authentic Indian chai tea to the U.S. market.

“This rise in the rankings is proof positive of the Whitman School’s continuing commitment to providing innovative programs in entrepreneurship at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Our success has been supported by the entrepreneurial spirit that runs throughout the entire university,” says Maria Minniti, Bantle Chair of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy and chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE). “This upward movement in the rankings is the result of the hard work and commitment of the Whitman School’s leadership, faculty and students, and we are proud to be acknowledged for this level of success.”

The graduate programs were also ranked at No. 24 this year. “T���se rankings are a quantifiable reflection of the quality of our program and our commitment to giving our students experiences that continue to spark their entrepreneurial spirit,” says John Torrens, deputy department chair and professor of entrepreneurial practice. “Our faculty are truly committed to helping our students bring their ideas to life through mentoring, coaching and sharing their own professional experiences in this space. In addition, students have many opportunities to obtain funding through our various competitions, like the Orange Tank business pitch competition and our Panasci Business Plan Competition, many of which are supported by generous alumni who appreciate the work we do at the Whitman School.”

The rankings are based on data collection that takes into account 40 points about schools’ entrepreneurship programs, faculties, students and alumni. The Princeton Review conducted the data collection in summer 2024 with administrators at nearly 300 schools.

“Since we debuted these rankings nearly two decades ago, the number of colleges and universities offering entrepreneurship courses has grown tremendously,” says , The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief. “We highly recommend the schools that made our lists for 2025. Their faculties are outstanding. Their programs have robust experiential components. Their students have access to extraordinary mentors as well as networking contacts that will serve them well into their careers.”

For more information on Whitman’s undergraduate entrepreneurship major visit: or for the graduate program visit:

Debbie and Ajay Nagpal

Ajay and Debbie Nagpal recently pledged a major donation to create the Nagpal Family Faculty Fellowship, which will support a faculty fellow in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

The Nagpals’ gift is part of the . The program was launched in 2022 to accelerate the creation of endowments for professorships, chairs and faculty support funds. It is part of the $1.5 billion .

“���ϲ����� is dedicated to excellence in the classroom that translates to the real world,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School and professor of entrepreneurship. “We are grateful to Debbie and Ajay Nagpal for this gift to support the research and scholarship for which the University is known.”

“Throughout our family’s experience with ���ϲ����� and the Whitman School of Business, we have been incredibly impressed with the faculty members that we have been fortunate to meet and engage with on campus,” Debbie and Ajay Nagpal say. “It is a privilege to support their work and we are excited to see the continued impact of the Forever Orange Faculty Excellence Program.”

are the parents of Alec Nagpal, a senior and a major in the finance program in the Whitman School. They have been active members of the ���ϲ����� Parents Council, which Ajay calls a “bridge” to connect parents to the University. The parents of four say ���ϲ����� was the right fit for their son, with the ability to specialize across the 13 schools and colleges and all-around spirit of the University. According to Debbie, her son was sold “from the minute he saw the school.”

Ajay Nagpal is president and chief operating officer of Millennium Management, a global investment firm. Debbie Nagpal also has a background in the financial industry, including a decade with Goldman Sachs.

“At Whitman, when you go to the classes and you listen to the professors, there’s such a wealth of resources, both from the academic and the practitioner’s perspective,” says Ajay, noting that beyond the academic side of business, the school teaches students how to conduct themselves in the workplace.

“Highly engaged families like the Nagpals are crucial to the ���ϲ����� community and mission,” said Whitman School Dean for Advancement and External Engagement Michael Paulus. “We cannot thank them enough not only for their support for the Forever Orange Faculty Excellence Program but also for their enthusiastic involvement in the intellectual, social and philanthropic life of the university and the Whitman School.”

The Nagpals have supported other University initiatives, including the Annual Fund, Student Experience Fund, Whitman School of Management Dean’s Fund and Hendricks Chapel Dean’s Discretionary Fund. They are active in philanthropy at a number of other universities and institutions and emphasize the importance of aligning their giving with their values. “We have to believe in the mission, we have to believe in the institution, we have to feel aligned with what they’re trying to accomplish,” Ajay says.

Throughout their son’s time at ���ϲ�����, Ajay and Debbie have been a regular presence at parents’ programs and other learning experiences like faculty lectures. Debbie notes that she has appreciated not only the communication between the Whitman School and parents about the student experience, but also the ability for parents to learn.

“We are both attracted to academic environments, the resources and interacting with faculty. That engagement is something that fuels both of us,” says Ajay.

It is fitting, then, that their gift will bolster the recruitment and retention of world-class faculty scholars.

About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is a private research university that advances knowledge across disciplines to drive breakthrough discoveries and breakout leadership. Our collection of 13 schools and colleges with over 200 customizable majors closes the gap between education and action, so students can take on the world. In and beyond the classroom, we connect people, perspectives and practices to solve interconnected challenges with interdisciplinary approaches. Together, we’re a powerful community that moves ideas, individuals and impact beyond what’s possible.

About Forever Orange: The Campaign for ���ϲ�����

Orange isn’t just our color. It’s our promise to leave the world better than we found it. Forever Orange: The Campaign for ���ϲ����� is poised to do just that. Fueled by more than 150 years of fearless firsts, together we can enhance academic excellence, transform the student experience and expand unique opportunities for learning and growth. Forever Orange endeavors to raise $1.5 billion in philanthropic support, inspire 125,000 individual donors to participate in the campaign, and actively engage one in five alumni in the life of the University. Now is the time to show the world what Orange can do. Visit����to learn more.

Story by Suzi Morales

The Salzberg Program is made possible by the support of the Whitman School’s H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management, co-directed by Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Practice Gary La Point and Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management Julie Niederhoff.

“We are honored to have some of the best industry leaders join us for the Salzberg Memorial Lecture Program to speak to our students and faculty about topics that are a timely intersection of supply chain management, continuous improvement, globalization, sustainability and well-being,” says Whitman School Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “In addition, we are privileged to present the Salzberg Medallion, which has come to be one of the most esteemed awards in the field of supply chain management since 1949. It is with great pride that the Whitman School, which has the oldest supply chain program in the country, dating back to 1919, showcases some of our top industry leaders, innovative scholars and talented students, who will surely help to inspire the next generation of supply chain leaders—many of whom I’m certain will be products of our own Whitman program.”

Award Recipients

This year’s recipients of the Salzberg Industry Medallion was Toyota Motor Corporation. From left are Whitman School Interim Dean Alex McKelvie; Steve Brown, vice president of parts and logistics and operations at Toyota Motor North America; and J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and executive dean of the Whitman School.

This year’s recipients of the Salzberg Industry Medallion was Toyota Motor Corporation, which has built a reputation as a global pioneer for the Toyota Production System (TPS), its manufacturing practices that set the standard for optimizing processes, reducing waste and creating a culture of continuous improvement that has essentially redefined manufacturing standards globally across multiple industries. Steve Brown, vice president of parts and logistics and operations at Toyota Motor North America, accepted the award on behalf of the company.

The Salzberg Academic Medallion was presented to Charles Corbett, Ph.D. Corbett is the IBM Chair in Management and professor of operation and management and sustainability at UCLA. He also holds a joint appointment at the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. His current research focuses on sustainable operations, time management and well-being, and his work has been featured in the media and through keynote lectures around the world.

The Salzberg Medallion award winners were selected from nominations received from past recipients and other highly regarded practitioners in the transportation and supply chain fields.

Five awards were also given to Whitman undergraduate students. Those students pursuing a supply chain management major were given the opportunity to submit a paper and video about their ideas for consideration by the members of the H.H. Franklin Supply Chain Advisory Board. This year’s recipients were the following:

• Taylor Nicole Feiden ’25, marketing management, real estate and supply chain management, who received the $10,000 Brethen Scholarship.
• Gabrielle Goldman ’25 (Whitman/School of Information Studies) ’25, supply chain management and information management and technology, who received the $10,000 Brethen Scholarship.
• Amelia K. Thorn ’25 (Whitman/Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs), finance and supply chain management, who received the $1,000 Zinsmeister Award.
• Connor McHugh ’25, business analytics and supply chain management, who received a $5,000 Recognition Award.
• Odette A. Sherk ’26 (Whitman/Maxwell School), supply chain management, marketing and environmental and sustainability policy, who received the Empowering Women in Supply Chain Award, presented on behalf of the Didier Family, who received a $1,000 award.

Industry Presentations

A number of speakers rounded out the event, sharing their perspectives on topics relevant to supply chain management.

Toyota’s Brown and Jeff Cawyer, group manager, Toyota Motor North America, outlined the history and methods of TPS, which has become the standard for the auto manufacturing industry through an organizational culture of highly engaged people solving problems or innovating to merge with the latest technology. TPS is focused on the idea that the customer comes first and that people are the company’s most important resource. The company follows the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, where problems are solved by going right to the shop floor or at the individual dealerships, and the role of managers is to motivate and develop people by building a greater organizational culture where employees feel empowered, supported and recognized.

Toyota is also strongly committed to one of today’s top supply chain challenges: carbon neutrality, which the company is aggressively targeting to reach by 2050. Cawyer also explained how his division handles planning and parts logistics with the Just in Time mindset of “building what people need right now only in the right quantity,” while also making sure that estimated delivery times are met at the dealership level.

The Salzberg Academic Medallion was presented to Charles Corbett, Ph.D. Corbett is the IBM Chair in Management and professor of operation and management and sustainability at UCLA. From left are Whitman School Interim Dean Alex McKelvie; Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and executive dean of the Whitman School; Corbett; and Julie Neiderhoff, associate professor of supply chain management.

Corbett presented “T��� Operations of Well-Being,” which outlined his research on how processes interact with happiness, equity and sustainability. He talked about “stimulating the best effort of all” and “helping individuals make the most of themselves,” while also addressing how individuals can waste valuable time or make “lazy decisions” that can impact safety and operations, as well as seemingly trivial decisions that can collectively impact whether a person is happy or unhappy.

Corbett emphasized that those who truly use lean manufacturing practices well and give their employees the tools they need to thrive, while those who don’t implement lean well often wind up in chaos. Corbett also addressed the impact of the “new” supply chain created by gig work, as well as the growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) on operations.

Adam B. Cunha, head of global key client sales-North America, for A.P. Moller-Maersk, addressed global logistic challenges due to political conflicts and environmental activities surrounding key shipping areas, such as safety concerns in the Suez Canal due to tensions in the Red Sea, fluctuating water levels in the Panama Canal, recent hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. and accidents like the bridge collapse blocking much of the Port of Baltimore. Not only limited to shipping, the company moves almost 20% of the world’s food, materials and goods every day to reach people across the globe. Today, it is creating “the network of the future” to find alternate ways to overcome delays and work around unexpected obstacles. He expressed his hope that Whitman students will remember Maersk not only for shipping “but as a company that is connecting and simplifying global supply chains.”

Sarah Day Kalloch, co-founder and executive director for the Good Jobs Institute, presented “Help Companies Thrive by Creating Good Jobs” based on 20 years of research from “T��� Good Job Strategy.”�� One topic she spoke about was how critical pay is for low-income, frontline workers—like those working in call centers, warehouses, retail or service.

The Good Jobs Institute has worked successfully with companies, like Costco and Trader Joe’s, to invest in their workers by offering wages greater than their competitors and creating great teams with stable schedules, pay that can support a family, benefits, clear career paths, security and safety. This, in turn, has minimized stress on employees and typically results in much lower turnover, which in itself is a huge cost saver. In addition to improving employee turnover, these employees offer better customer service, better store experiences, and overall higher performance with sales and other metrics, therefore giving a strong return on the investment.

The six recipients are the following:

• Dominique Camp ’24 (David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics), founder of clothing brand Camp Collective, will use the funds for the organization’s first collection inventory, photo shoot and mockup designs.
  

  Dominique Camp

• Olutosin (Tosin) Alabi G’25 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management), founder of Diabetech, will use the grant to develop a proof-of-concept prototype for the smart sensor/bandage for diabetic foot ulcer monitoring.
• Aidan Turner ’25 (School of Architecture), founder of clothing brand Grater Things, will use the grant for legal services, including project and membership agreements and privacy policy, as well as website development and product research expenses.
• Antonio (Tony) Goncalves ’27 (College of Engineering and Computer Science), founder of fitness app GymIn, will be using the grant to incorporate and other legal business processes.
• Lars Jendruschewitz ’27 (Whitman School and S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications), founder of Photos by Lars, will use the funds for equipment.
• Ania Kapllani ’25 (College of Visual and Performing Arts), founder of Sunset Music, will use the grant to register as an LLC and to create a logo and website.

Applications must specifically define the need with identified outcomes to be achieved within a set time. Initial money in the fund was provided by Jeffrey Rich L’67, partner at Rich Michaelson Magaliff LLP, and a member of the ���ϲ����� Libraries Advisory Board. Rich provided a multi-year pledge of $25,000 per year for five years from 2020 to 2025. “I wanted to contribute in a way that directly supports student new ventures and removes any obstacles to startup development,” Rich says.

Gartner sent out individualized request for information links to supply chain program contacts at universities in the U.S. and Canada. The ranking of university programs in Gartner’s relative comparison is based on a composite score of three categories: program scope, industry value and program size.

The report is intended to support chief supply chain officers, heads of supply chain strategy and supply chain HR partners to identify the programs best equipped to support their growing talent needs.

“We are proud of the educational excellence in our program, which offers plenty of experiential learning opportunities. Students engage with companies through internships, corporate partnerships, seminars and networking events,” says��, Steven R. Becker Professor of Supply Chain Management and Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence at the Whitman School. “Our program is known to be a leading institution in supply chain risk management, a skill set that became influential during disruptions that are caused by global health issues and during economic downturns. We are also the first program to institute supply chain finance as a required course and is one of the leading programs when it comes to the integration of financial and operational planning. Our students are trained rigorously in their analytical capabilities, which helps place our students.”

The Whitman School of Management is home to the nation’s first SCM program. A specialization in traffic and transportation was first offered in 1919 when the School of Management was founded. Currently, the SCM program offers rigorous degrees, as well as executive education. Whitman’s award-winning SCM faculty is renowned for teaching, research and outreach partnerships.

Whitman’s SCM program hosts two outstanding centers:�������Ի����ٳ��. The�� accomplished executives and scholars to campus in order to share their insights and expertise.

“Major corporations, such as Amazon,��BAE,��BASF, IBM��and��Pratt & Whitney,��look to Whitman for their companies’ future supply chain leaders,” says Kazaz, who is also director of the Robert H. Brethen Operations Management Institute.

Phloat co-founders Nathan Thor Brekke ’26 (left) and Malak Aljerari ’27 (right) with LaunchPad program manager J Wess (middle)

���ϲ����� Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad (LaunchPad) hosted its annual ’Cuse Tank entrepreneurial competition on Friday, Sept. 27, during Family Weekend in Bird Library. More than 35 student entrepreneur teams from various schools and colleges across campus participated in a “Shark-Tank” style business pitch to win $20,000 in cash prizes. The panel of judges consisted of University parents and affiliated family members. The judges selected two first-place teams, which each won $10,000 and two honorable mention runners-up:

• Iconnic.Cloud, founded by Waqar Hussain, G’25 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management), won first place for the second year in a row. Iconnic.Cloud is a fully managed cloud hosting platform, engineered with proprietary software, that crafts tailored hosting solutions.
  

  Iconnic.Cloud founder by Waqar Hussain G’25 (left) with LaunchPad program manager J Wess

• Phloat, founded by College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) students who participated in the 2024 Invent@SU program, Elijah Alexander ’27, Joshua John Varkey ’26, Malak Aljerari ’27 and Nathan Thor Brekke ’26, also tied for first place. Phloat is a phone case that has a super compact, deployable flotation feature that triggers in the event of a phone falling and sinking into deep water.
• Gym-In, another startup from Invent@SU and founded by ECS students Alexander Hamza ’26, Antonio Goncalves ’27, Jack Friedman ’27 and Armani Isonguyo ’25 tied for runner-up. Their invention provides gym users with an app to determine how full a gym is and what machines are being used in live time.
• Papa Box, co-founded by Aleks Djordjevic G’25 (Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs) and Amos Kiplimo Bungei G’25 (College of Engineering and Computer Science) was also tied for runner-up. The company aims to provide and scale a battery-charging infrastructure through its interoperable PAPA Boxes swapping stations in transportation hot zones in Kenya.

This year’s group of “family” judges included:

• Todd Arky, executive vice president, Sharebite and co-founder/CEO of TipOff Sports
• Anthony Campagiorni ’91, vice president, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Company
• Melinda Dermody, associate dean of academic success, ���ϲ����� Libraries
• Melissa Gwilt ’15, G’22, director of budget and administration, ���ϲ����� Libraries
• Corey Lieblein ’93 , CEO of CP8 Capital
• Ajay Nagpal, president and COO Millenium
• Alice Villafana, retired
• Tonya Villafana, global franchise head, research and development, for Astra-Zeneca
• Mark Wassersug, former COO Intercontinental Exchange

The undergraduate business program at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management is now ranked No. 40 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

The U.S. News & World Report undergraduate business rankings are based solely on a survey of deans and senior faculty members (the “peer ranking”) at each of the 532 undergraduate business programs accredited by AACSB International, all of which were ranked. ��These deans and faculty members—two at each AACSB-accredited business programs—were asked to rate the quality of all programs with which they were familiar on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished).

Whitman is currently tied with the University of Rochester, the University of Pittsburgh, South Carolina and George Washington University, among others. All of these schools received a peer ranking of 3.5 out of 5. Whitman was rated 3.4 last year.

In addition to Whitman’s strong undergraduate business ranking, peers have also ranked Whitman’s Entrepreneurship program as No. 21 this year, up from No. 27 last year. U.S. News & World Report polled the same above respondents to nominate up to 15 of the best programs in specialty areas.

“We are pleased with this latest achievement for the Whitman School and appreciate the further validation from our peers. The addition of this strongest ranking in more than a decade, along with our other programmatic rankings, are continued proof points that Whitman is a school on the rise,” says Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie.

Whitman’s Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Programs, Lindsay Quilty says, “Whitman is a school to watch. I’m confident that the investments we have made to our undergraduate program place our academic student community among the best in the nation. Our new placement in the U.S. News ranking is external validation of the success of our future-focused curriculum and high-impact student experience.”

The 2024 Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) Doctoral Consortium was held at ���ϲ����� and was co-sponsored by the Snyder Innovation Management Center, which is housed in the Department of Marketing at the Whitman School, and by the PDMA,

Leading scholars and doctoral students studying new product development and innovation management at universities in the U.S. and abroad gathered at ���ϲ����� from July 30 to Aug. 2 for the 2024 Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) Doctoral Consortium.

The consortium was co-sponsored by the , which is housed in the Department of Marketing, , and by the , which publishes the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM). The consortium is held every other year at an academic institution that is noted for scholarly excellence in the field of innovation management. According to event chair , director of the Snyder Center and distinguished professor of marketing at Whitman, the selection of Snyder as this year’s venue is a reflection of the prominence of the research happening in the areas of marketing and innovation at the Whitman School.

“T��� primary focus is grooming future thought leaders, particularly students researching emerging topics in market focused innovation,” says Raj. “This is consistent with the primary areas of focus of the Snyder Center. Traditionally, innovation is thought of as only developing new products. However, the Snyder Center and this consortium have a broadened innovation focus that expands into innovative new services; innovations in marketing as this business function is undergoing dramatic changes due to digital transformation technologies that enable innovations related to promotion, pricing, and distribution; and innovations in emerging economies, such as India.

The event began with an overview by Raj and a welcome from the University’s Vice Chancellor and Whitman Executive Dean J. Michael Haynie. After that, the doctoral student fellows broke into small groups to present and receive feedback on their dissertation proposals from assigned faculty scholars.

Doctoral students applied to be selected to the Consortium, and the selected students came from universities in the U.S., Europe and India. According to Raj, the event is purposefully limited to 25 students so that each student fellow has the opportunity to receive personalized feedback and mentoring.

Most of the student fellows at the Consortium were in the early stages of research for their dissertations, so feedback on their proposals, guidance on using a thematic agenda to build their research portfolios, and advice on career management are critical to their success and also help to build a “community of learning” among innovation scholars.

After the small group sessions, the faculty fellows selected seven��student fellows to present to the entire group of attendees on the next day. Arabella Pollack from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, won the Best Dissertation Proposal Award, and Chi Zhang from Texas A&M University was the runner-up.

In addition to the focus on providing doctoral fellows with feedback and mentoring, the consortium featured sessions on a variety of topics to help enrich students’ research. These topics included Future Directions in Innovation Research, Data and New Research Ideas; Emerging Methodologies and Tools in Innovation Research; and Developing a Research Paper and a Thematic Research Agenda and concluded with a workshop on Theory Building.

Participants also toured Baxter International, a global health care and medical technology provider, in nearby Skaneateles, New York. Organized through an invitation from Whitman alumna Michelle McGrath ’88, G’97, the group had the opportunity to walk through the innovation process from an industry perspective. Other events, designed to enhance networking and informal mentoring, included a cruise on Skaneateles Lake and a dinner at the renowned Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant in downtown ���ϲ�����.

Luigi M. DeLuca, professor of marketing and innovation at Cardiff University, says, “What an intense week of research discussions, ranging from future of innovation research to AI methods, theory building, career management, and excellent innovation teaching. A huge ‘Thank You’ to the Snyder Innovation Center and ���ϲ�����’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management for hosting this event!”

Holding the consortium at Whitman’s Snyder Center had special significance, according to Raj. Not only is the center celebrating its 30th year this year, but the late Professor David Wilemon, who founded the center, was also a co-founder of PDMA, which dates back to 1976.

Members of Whitman’s marketing faculty also participated in the consortium, as did alumni Gloria Barczak G’87, K. Sivakumar G’92 and Gerard Athaide G’94, G’95.

The four-day event received a great deal of positive feedback from both student fellows and faculty.

“I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to receive valuable feedback from esteemed professors and editors of the JPIM on my doctoral dissertation and future research scope,” says Mahak Bisen, a student fellow from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “T��� Consortium gave me an opportunity to interact with numerous professors and make new friends, further enriching the experience.”

The faculty fellows agreed. Frank Piller, professor of innovation management at RWTH Aachen University notes, “When S.P. Raj from the ���ϲ�����/Martin J. Whitman School of Management asked me to serve on the faculty of this year’s doctoral consortium, I volunteered, thinking I would be doing a service to our academic community. But, in the end, I was the recipient of the service. The consortium was a great experience, learning from 25 great doctoral students and the very ambitious work they are doing at the intersection of innovation, marketing and technology management. But, also being together with 25 other colleagues for three days with lots of panels, reflections and networking was really priceless.”

Alina Sorescu, professor of marketing at Texas A&M University, says, “T���re are so many conferences these days, that many become a blur as soon as they are finished, but this one will definitely stand in memory as a lovely and engaging event.”

Story by Caroline K. Reff

Buzard and her longtime research partners— (associate professor of economics at Tufts University) and (associate professor of economics at Brigham Young University)—received word this summer that they had been selected by the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute to conduct research as visiting scholars at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

They will spend two weeks furthering their studies on how women carry a disproportionate share of the mental load, but the exact dates for their residency were held up over child care concerns for Gee and Stoddard. The trio expects to convene at the Federal Reserve in the spring or early summer of 2025.

When it comes to these invisible tasks—which can include scheduling medical appointments, arranging child care and carpools and planning for other child-related extracurricular activities—this is par for the course, according to the preliminary findings of their research proposal.

Kristy Buzard

“T���re have been several times when one of my co-authors has been presenting the paper and they have to pause because their child’s school is calling and they have to stop what they’re doing to take the call,” says Buzard, a Melvin A. Eggers Economics Faculty Scholar and senior research associate for the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration.

“Our research strives to understand the disproportionate burden of the mental load that it seems women bear, but we’re also planning on going deeper to understand why that happens, and what the impacts are. Hopefully, this may help us better understand the wage gap between men and women.”

To study the inequality in external demands placed on women, Buzard, Gee and Stoddard ran a large, randomized control trial where they sent emails from fictitious parents in heterosexual relationships to school principals asking them to contact one of the parents. Recording which parent the principal contacted and their reaction to different messages parents might send, Buzard says the group set out to quantify why principals would insist on calling the woman even if she says she’s busy, while respecting the man’s stance that he was unavailable.

The research revealed that mothers are 1.4 times more likely to be contacted by their child’s school than fathers and that parents had a relatively difficult time getting schools, doctors’ offices, day care facilities, places of worship and other organizations to respect their wishes when it comes to which parent should be contacted when issues arise.

“T���se principals responded less strongly to the signals the moms were sending about being unavailable while largely not calling the men who say they’re unavailable,” says Buzard. “This asymmetry in how the principals behaved led us to ask about the mental load and why mothers end up taking on more of the responsibility when there are more external demands being asked of them?”

Buzard sat down with SU News to discuss the goals of this research, how being a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis will advance their efforts and why women have a larger parenting burden placed on them than men.

How will this residency help advance your research?

We’re hoping the Federal Reserve has data they can share that will shed light on our research. The Fed is not a monolith; there’s the Federal Reserve Board at the center as well as the twelve Reserve Banks and all their branches. There are research departments and community development departments. There are economists and people who are more policy and outreach focused who are also interested in these same issues. The more that we as academics, specifically economists, can do to be in touch with people on the policy front lines, the better our research is going to be. We need to be in touch with the policy landscape and I’m excited to connect with the Federal Reserve’s network.

How are you and your team incorporating the data you’ve collected and interpreting what it says about why women have a larger burden placed on them than men?

One of the early pieces of data we’re working with is taking transcripts from the voicemails that were left for us from principals—about 17,000 voicemails (out of the 80,000 principals we called)—and doing a sentiment analysis to quantify how nice or mean or happy the principals were in the voicemail. That is, we’re studying what sentiment was embodied in the way these people are talking when they leave the message.

We’re in the very early stage, but what we expect is that if the email sends a signal that says the mother’s unavailable—which goes against the social norm—and if there is pressure on women to always be available as parents, we’d see more negative sentiment from principals when the mother said she was unavailable. If that response is going to be judged negatively, we would hope we could pick that up in these voicemails. If the father is not available, our guess is that’s not really an issue for the principal.

There are these subtle and not-so-subtle social cues that tell women that this [always being available for your child] is your job and you’re bad if you don’t do it. Where does this come from? Why do women do more of this work? If the mother lets something fall through the cracks, is she treated differently than if dad lets something fall through the cracks? These are some of the questions we want to explore.

Why have we seen a slowdown in the closing of the wage gap between men and women?

It closed over time and now it’s kind of stubbornly sitting there, but we’re a bit puzzled at this point as a profession in being able to explain exactly why we don’t seem to be able to [fully] close the wage gap. I’m not sure we can say it has stopped closing, but if you look from the 1980s on, there was a big closing of the gap as more women came into the workforce and we shifted to dual-earner families.

It seems like we’ve hit some kind of limit and we’re not seeing the gap close at any appreciable rate and at this point, a big part of the gap can be explained by motherhood. There’s also a path dependency because child care is so expensive that unless you have two people who are both super-high earners, there is an economic incentive for one of them to step out of the labor force to take care of children when they’re young. Because historically women have made less than men, oftentimes the calculus says it’s better for the family if the mother is the one who steps out of the workforce. But none of this is in isolation—these are norms that developed over time and we’re kind of just stuck now.

What are some of the other intended or unintended results of this research as it pertains to the wage gap between men and women?

If we really want to understand the gender wage gap, we need to think about the ways that the anticipation of this gap has people making career decisions from very early on. We conducted a survey asking a range of questions, thinking about the fact that you might have extra demands coming from parenthood and how that might affect your choice of a college major.

We see twice as many women as men saying they thought hard about this when they chose their college major. We see a lot more people saying they chose to stay at home for some portion of the time [since becoming a mother versus becoming a father]. We see people saying they chose more flexible arrangements, or they might take less money in exchange for more flexibility. The reason all of this is important, aside from people’s health and happiness, is that this can place women at a real disadvantage in terms of long-term outcomes in the labor market.

Anthony J. Thomas and Fatim Cisse

Thomas’ entrepreneurial endeavors include building websites/web design, information security systems and home security systems. He has experience working in retail as a technology associate on both hardware and software.

Cisse’s entrepreneurial experience includes owning Womb’s Yoga, an organization that provides mindfulness workshops and support groups for Women of Color. Cisse is passionate about maternal health care and women’s wellness. She also previously served as a researcher in Health and Wellness Services through the office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The Todd B. Rubin Diversity and Innovation Scholars is funded by a multi-year gift from Todd B. Rubin ’04 (School of Architecture) to directly support employment of entrepreneurial students focused on innovation, diversity and inclusion at the LaunchPad. Rubin was the recipient of the University’s 2014 Generation Orange Award for philanthropy and is a member of the ���ϲ����� Libraries Advisory Board. Todd serves as the minister of evolution (president) for The Republic of Tea, founded in 1992 as a premium tea company dedicated to enriching people’s lives through great-tasting premium teas and herbs, education, and innovation.

Aidan Turner

Turner is a fifth-year architecture student minoring in real estate (Martin J. Whitman School of Management). A member of the Blackstone LaunchPad since 2021, Turner’s entrepreneurial endeavor includes a premium garment design and supply company called Grater Things Threads, which supports his two clothing brands. He was awarded Whitman’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2022 and 2024.

The LaunchPad Watson Scholar is a paid position for students passionate about innovation, entrepreneurship and venture development. Funded through a gift from the Hunter Brooks Watson Memorial Fund, the Watson Scholar honors the life, passion and entrepreneurial spirit of Hunter Brooks Watson, who passed away in 2016 after a car accident.

“Entrepreneurship is a centerpiece of academic excellence at ���ϲ�����. As entrepreneurship scholarship continues to grow globally, achieving this No. 2 in the world ranking is a significant acknowledgment of the standing of our entrepreneurship faculty and program at the Whitman School,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School and professor of entrepreneurship. “T��� productivity of our team represents important investments we have made over a number of years, as well as the team’s ability to work collaboratively and creatively. This latest ranking offers further validation of our commitment to rigorous scholarly work in the discipline of entrepreneurship. It’s a huge achievement for ���ϲ����� and the Whitman School.”

“I am delighted to see the department recognized for our collective research achievements. We have a fantastic group of dedicated scholars working on exciting, diverse and timely topics. Our research is rigorous and impactful, and we are being recognized for our thought leadership in the field. I couldn’t ask for a better group of colleagues,” says Maria Minniti, professor and L.A. Bantle Chair of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, and chair, Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises.

Launched in 2009 by the at Texas Christian University (TCU), the TCU Global University Entrepreneurship Research Productivity Rankings track research articles in entrepreneurship journals according to authorship and university affiliation. ���ϲ����� and the Whitman School were ranked based on publications by its faculty in three of the top-entrepreneurship journals—Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal—from 2019-2023.

The data for this ranking is not adjusted for faculty size. All counts are made at the university level; differentiations are not made between departments or other units. Only one affiliation per article is counted.

According to Bloomberg, its new, innovative����helps students determine whether pursuing an MBA is a financially viable path, and, if so, what are the best choices available to them. They based this on full-time MBA programs in the U.S.

The ROI calculator helps students make this decision using a standard measure of financial success: profit relative to initial principal, or ROI, built on the data reported to Bloomberg from surveys distributed for annual rankings. The calculator, which advances Bloomberg’s efforts to help potential MBA students make the best decision they can, is accompanied by reporting that considers the factors increasingly recognized as an important part of this assessment — though not easily quantifiable.

Whether or not an MBA will increase their earnings is a big concern for prospective students, since that is often a main reason for pursuing an MBA. The ROI Calculator demonstrates that the Whitman program does provide that return on investment, with an ROI of 22%. This is based on median cost (tuition and expenses), interest, net forgone income and the total MBA investment.

“Prospective MBA students often emphasize that ROI is crucial when selecting a business school,” says Mary Collier, Whitman’s executive director of graduate recruitment. “That’s why providing an exceptional educational experience and maximizing ROI for our students is a top priority at Whitman. We are delighted that our dedicated efforts have earned us the No. 1 national ranking among private schools for ROI among MBA programs. At Whitman, we embrace a holistic approach to student success with a strong focus on achieving outstanding career outcomes.”

“Whitman is thrilled to once again be recognized as an outstanding investment for our students to pursue an MBA,” says Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “Return on investment should be one of the main criteria for anyone considering an MBA, and our No. 1 national ranking for private schools and No. 2 overall reflects Whitman’s emphasis on high-quality education, personal touches, outstanding student experience, leveraging the strong ���ϲ����� network and our commitment to our students’ career success. It is these factors that really translate into this ROI measure. We are pleased that the student-focused investments into our MBA program are paying off for our MBA graduates.”

The ranking is based on a combination of institutional and student survey data, including career outcomes, technological infrastructure, academic rigor, cost and affordability, among others. The survey also incorporates student opinions that The Princeton Review collected through its online MBA student survey and institutional data reported by administrators at the business schools. This year, the data reflects surveys of administrators at 165 business schools offering online MBAs and more than 10,700 online MBA students.

According to The Princeton Review, online MBA programs have become as rigorous as their on-campus counterparts. For many business school candidates, an online degree might even be the smarter choice. Online programs offer flexibility, affordability, access to innovative technologies, students from a diverse career backgrounds and global opportunities.

Here are some of the highlights of what Whitman students said:

• The online MBA program provides “a solid educational and professional core,” “online interaction with classmates and the professor” and “flexibility of an online format instead of going part time attending classroom lectures.”
• The school also offers immersion events “so that online students still have the opportunity to network with their peers.” This makes them feel as though they are “a part of the institution and not just a number.”
• The majority of topics cover “current business practices and can be applied to current business problems.” While the amount of work can be “a lot to manage,” according to many students, “the way the classes are laid out makes it very easy for students to access, since there are many different days and hours students are able to choose from to accommodate their own work schedules.”
• The asynchronous and synchronous classes “are often taught by two different people.” This often “helps students hear the same information in two different ways.” Supplementary “resources and videos” are also provided as extra support.
• Discussions in class are “always thought-provoking” due to classmates who are “driven, intelligent and strive for excellence.”

“We are very happy to once again have validation of our programs from an outside rankings organization. This continues our school’s upward trajectory for being recognized as providing a highly valuable educational experience,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School. “We also appreciate the comments on the student-focused part of our program. Whitman has continuously concentrated on the online students’ experience, and we appreciate them highlighting this aspect.”

“This is the second ranking survey where students have highlighted the academic experience we provide. Whitman achieved an overall ranking of No. 29 this fall in the Poets&Quants ranking of online MBA programs. Recent alumni ranked us No. 15 overall on academic experience. Of particular note was alumni satisfaction with live synchronous classes (ranked No. 10 nationally) and professor quality (ranked No. 7 nationally),” says Amy McHale, assistant dean for graduate programs at Whitman.

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Lynne Vincent and Craig Nicols

The Whitman School of Management announced the appointment of two new department chairs, effective July 1. ��has been named chair of the Management Department, and����has been named chair of the Lubin School of Accounting at Whitman.

“I am honored to continue the progress the Management Department has made over the past years,” says Vincent of her new role as department chair. “T��� workplace is changing incredibly rapidly. How technology shapes our work, how and where employees work, how organizations engage with the environment and community, and how employees identify and engage with their work is shifting and will continue to do so. The Management Department is dedicated to examining these issues and preparing our students to manage these challenges and opportunities.”

Vincent joined the Whitman faculty in 2015. She earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and labor relations and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Cornell University. Vincent’s research examines the moral and social implications of creativity. In contrast to the status quo view of creativity as being inherently positive, she investigates the potential dark side and unexpected consequences of creativity. Her research reveals that creativity, and the perception of it, influences decisions to engage in dishonest behaviors, how people handle negative experiences and even how people judge others. Her research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal; Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Psychological Science.

“I’m looking forward to continuing the great work Professor Joe Comprix has done with the accounting team, and I look forward to supporting our faculty to help them reach their goals in research and teaching,” says Nichols of his new role as department chair of the Lubin School of Accounting. “In addition, I am eager to guide students in exploring the diverse career options within the accounting field that will be available to them after completing their Whitman education.”

Nichols, who joined the Whitman faculty in 2011, has worked as a tax accountant at Arthur Andersen, LLP. He holds a Ph.D. in accounting from Indiana University and taught MBA students at Cornell University before joining the Whitman School. He currently teaches financial accounting and financial statement analysis to undergraduate and graduate students at Whitman.�� Nichols has published in the Journal of Accounting Research; Journal of Accounting and Economics; Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis; Contemporary Accounting Research; Review of Accounting Studies; Accounting Horizons; Financial Analyst Journal, among others.

“I very much appreciate Lynne and Craig’s eagerness to take on these important leadership roles at the Whitman School. They are award-winning professors who care deeply about student success and I’m excited about the new ideas and approaches they will bring to their respective departments. The confidence that their colleagues have shown in them bodes well for their success in these leadership positions. I would like to thank Joe Comprix and Ravi Dharwadkar for their work as department chair over the past few years,” says Alexander McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School of Management.

Natarajan Balasubramanian

The Martin J. Whitman School of Management has recently named Professor Natarajan Balasubramanian the inaugural Albert & Betty Hill Professor, effective July 1.

With a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, Balasubramanian joined the Whitman School in 2009. His research focuses on understanding economic value creation by new and existing firms, using large-scale data to uncover generalizable facts and how competition, innovation and learning affect the entry and performance of firms. Balasubramanian’s teaching includes areas of strategic management, firm performance, technological change and industry evolution to undergraduate and graduate students at the Whitman School.

Balasubramanian has an impressive list of publications in leading journals, including Management Science, Review of Economics and Statistics and Strategic Management Journal. He has received a number of awards: the prestigious Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship, a finalist at the Outstanding Dissertation Award Competition of the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management, and several from the Whitman School, including the Edward Pettinella Associate Professorship of Business and the Whitman Research Fellow. Balasubramanian was recently named associate editor of Strategic Management Journal.

The professorship was established through a $1 million bequest from the late Robert S. Hill ’69, a graduate of the School of Management, in memory of his parents, Albert and Betty (Grossman) Hill, and in thanks for the personal attention he received from the University and his desire to continue to “elevate the stature and quality of the institution.”

“It is quite rare that a school installs a new endowed professorship, but when we do it’s to celebrate the outstanding accomplishments of our best scholars and world-class thinkers who are significantly influencing their field,” says McKelvie. “Professor Balasubramanian is very deserving of this achievement, and this professorship will provide him resources to further his research and positively impact the reputation of the Whitman School.”

In their varied pursuits, the four individuals above have represented the Maxwell School’s commitment to engaged citizenship and making the world better for all. For their efforts, Wally Bobkiewicz ’89, Cathy Daicoff ’79, Anuradha Gupta ’07 and Ken Pontarelli ’92 will be honored with centennial awards at the planned for Friday, May 31, in the Smithsonian Institution’s

The event will mark the Maxwell School’s 100th anniversary and serve as a gathering for alumni and friends to connect and celebrate. “We are thrilled to honor these four highly engaged and accomplished individuals who have, in a variety of ways and across sectors, demonstrated a commitment to Maxwell’s ideals,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke, who will serve as the event’s emcee.

The centennial celebration includes five additional honors: will go to alumni B. Ben Baldanza ’84, Carlisha Williams Bradley ’09, Mary Margaret Graham ’78, Lia Miller ’03 and Jessica Sun ’09.

The centennial award honorees are listed below.

Centennial Champion Award

Wally Bobkiewicz ’89

Wally Bobkiewicz

The Maxwell Centennial Champion Award recognizes dedicated volunteer engagement and philanthropy in support of the school, and there is no greater champion of the Maxwell School’s local government initiatives than Wally Bobkiewicz.

A career city manager who has worked in local government for more than 30 years, Bobkiewicz tirelessly channels his passion for public service to uplift communities as well as the careers of countless Maxwell students and alumni. For decades, Bobkiewicz has been a powerful force behind the scenes, working to nurture relationships, create professional opportunities and galvanize support among Maxwell alumni. He is de facto host and connector at annual local and city management conferences and networking events; and he inspires others to invest their time and money to support career development opportunities for students.

Since 2019, Bobkiewicz has served as city administrator of Issaquah, Washington. He was previously city manager of Evanston, Illinois, and Santa Paula, California, and worked in local government for Novato, California, and Long Beach, California. He is a former president of the ���ϲ����� Alumni Association and served on its board of directors from 2001-10. He is the recipient of the 2024 American Society for Public Administration National Public Service Award.

Centennial Steward Award

Cathy Daicoff ’79

Cathy Daicoff

For significant engagement, volunteer service and philanthropic support that have sustained the continued excellence of the school, Maxwell School Advisory Board Vice Chair Cathy Daicoff is the recipient of the Centennial Steward Award. A dedicated supporter of the school since earning an M.P.A. in 1979, Daicoff has served as a member of its advisory board for more than 25 years and maintained an increasingly generous level of giving throughout this time.

Daicoff’s gifts, including her $1.2 million endowment to establish the Marguerite Fisher Faculty Research Fund and a major gift for the creation of the Daicoff Faculty Scholars award, help the school attract and retain world-class faculty. In addition, she shares her expertise in domestic and international finance with the board and as a trusted career advisor to students and alumni interested in the field.

Daicoff retired in 2016 as a managing director at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services after 38 years with the company. Her career spanned management responsibility in U.S. domestic operations, Canada, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and global positions. She was the company’s first senior policy officer and director of policy training for Ratings Services, and she served for more than 20 years on the firm’s Analytics Policy Board.

Centennial Luminary Award for Global Health Equity

Anuradha Gupta ’07

Anuradha Gupta

For her profound impact in spearheading global initiatives that improve public health and increase equitable access to vaccines, Anuradha Gupta is the recipient of the Centennial Luminary Award for Global Health Equity.

Gupta’s work has helped to save and improve millions of lives. Currently, she is president of global immunization at Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington, D.C., an organization dedicated to strengthening immunization in communities most affected by infectious diseases, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Prior to this, she served as deputy CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2014-22) in Geneva, where she oversaw programs across 73 countries and partnerships with WHO, UNICEF and The World Bank. She introduced the pivotal concept of zero-dose children, bringing inequities into global focus.

Previously, Gupta served in the Indian Administrative Service for 30 years, holding leadership positions in a wide range of areas including health, education, nutrition and finance. As mission director of the National Health Mission of India (2010-14), she ran the largest public health program in the world, achieving several public health feats which include polio eradication and a steep reduction of maternal and child deaths in India.

Centennial Luminary Award for Sustainability

Ken Pontarelli ’92

Ken Pontarelli

For his leadership and dedication to developing solutions that balance the economic need for growth with environmental sustainability, Ken Pontarelli is the recipient of the Centennial Luminary Award for Sustainability.

As a ���ϲ����� trustee, Pontarelli lends his deep expertise in financial markets and sustainability investing, earned over a 30-year career at Goldman Sachs, to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, resulting in environmental policy research that is grounded in a realistic understanding of markets and financial mechanisms. Together with his spouse, Tracey, he established the Pontarelli Professorship of Environmental Sustainability and Finance at the Maxwell School, currently held by Professor Jay Golden, founder and director of the Dynamic Sustainability Lab.

Pontarelli graduated from ���ϲ����� with a dual degree in economics, from Maxwell, and finance, from the Whitman School of Management, where he now serves on the advisory board. In 2018, Pontarelli founded Mission Driven Capital Partners, a New York City-based firm focused on sustainability investing. Two years later, he returned to Goldman Sachs, where he serves as partner and managing director and leads its sustainable investing group.

From left to right: Gokdenis Ersoy and Aiden Robinson of Haynie’s Heroes; Emma Lueders, Jennie Bull and Julianna Hernandez of Moody Management LLC; Garv Prabhaker and Sarah Schoenecker of University Diaries; and Xiangyi Han, Jingjing Wu and Minna You of Boundless Why (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

Bandages that monitor for diabetic foot ulcers and creating safe spaces for conversations about sexual wellness and self-love were just some of the winning innovations presented at the Whitman School Dean’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Innovation Challenge on April 18.

The challenge was a semester-long initiative coordinated by Erin Draper, director of experiential programs, with Jude Azai G’24 and Aakanksha Maheshwari G’25, that encouraged interdisciplinary collaboration as students honed their problem-solving and critical thinking skills around the 17 . While each team was required to have one Whitman student, participants came from across the University and included undergraduate, graduate, online and doctoral students. The students received no academic credit for participating but did so because of their passion for innovation and sustainability.

Fourteen graduate and 17 undergraduate teams submitted reports in March, which resulted in the selection of the “Elite 8”–the top four undergraduate and graduate submissions thought to have the greatest potential to make an impact on sustainable development goals across disciplines.

On April 18, teams displayed posters and posted 45-second YouTube videos about their projects, while judges Mark Coleman, adjunct faculty, Whitman School; Anna Chernobai, professor of finance in the Whitman School; Brian Macrae G’01, managing partner, Synapse; Cary Mullin G’08, vice president and general manager, broadband solutions, Belden Inc.; Megan Quill ’05, vice president, finance, Smartest Energy; and Meg Tidd, CEO of VIP Structures; heard six-minute pitches from the “Elite 8” vying for $25,000 in cash prizes to help further their projects.

“Whitman is committed to creating leaders that understand the importance of sustainability for the future and where our students can use their innovative problem-solving skills to begin to address some of the grand challenges our society is facing,” says Whitman Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “By providing real-world solutions to issues listed among the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, our students have shown how we can come together as a community to make the world a better place. I’m also delighted to support our students’ efforts in experiential learning, where they emphasize teamwork, communication and developing innovative solutions that help to create the next generation of responsible business leaders and entrepreneurs.”

The following awards were presented at the event:

THE WHITMAN INNOVATION GRAND PRIZE:�� $5,000

Moody Management LLC: The undergraduate team of Jennie Bull ’24, Julianna Hernandez ’24 and Emma Lueders ’24 created a sex-positivity community media platform with a safe space for conversations about sexual wellness and self-love. It addresses the SDG of good health, gender and reducing inequalities.

DiabeTech: The team of Tosin Alabi G’25, Manjusha Baddipudi G’25 and Katayoon Faraji G’25 took the grand prize with an innovative “smart bandage” to prevent diabetic foot ulcers. The product looks much like an ordinary bandage but is equipped with sensors and uses artificial intelligence analytics to monitor wounds, signaling patients and doctors of signs of infection to prevent gangrene or amputation. DiabeTech addressed the SDG of good health, technology and reducing inequalities.

From left to right: Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie, Tosin Alabi, Katayoon Faraji and Erin Draper, director of experiential programs (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

FIRST RUNNER UP: $3,000

Haynie’s Heroes: The undergraduate team of Gokdenis Ersoy ’25, Aiden Robinson ’26, William Akerson ’24 and Nicholas Santangelo ’25 developed an innovative platform for convenient, fast and efficient refurbishing of e-waste covering the SDG of quality education, reduction of inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, and responsible consumption and production.

Eco Guardians: The graduate team of Aman Kumar G’25, Prashant Gautam ’25, Kushwanth Sai Chandu Meesala G’25 and Shivani Mangesh Sadare G’24 created a program for “climate literacy” in the education system to promote learning, awareness and self-incentivization of preserving the planet to help teachers and students have better understanding of the consequences of waste on the environment. The SDG were quality education and climate action.

SECOND RUNNER UP: $2,000

University Diaries: The undergraduate team of Sarah Schoenecker ’27 and Garv Prabhaker ’27 created an interactive online platform designed to help high school students through the college application process, particularly first-generation and underserved students who may lack resources, as well as newly enrolled college students. The SDG were quality education and reducing inequalities.

Circular Sages: The graduate student team of Trang Nguyen G’25, Akarsh Bhutani G’24 and Monthip Sonethavong G’24 created WasteWise, a digital platform for responsible consumption in the textile industry that identifies and manages resources through waste mapping and methods of eliminating excess materials in the marketplace. It addresses the SDG of responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water and life on land.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD: $1,000

Daredevils: The team of graduate students Natasha Lobo G’25, Dishant Bhansali G’25 and Bhavya Chheda G’25 designed a portal for the management of e-waste that connects customers, service centers and recyclers. This award was selected by audience vote at the event.

SDG BLACKBOARD DISCUSSION AWARD: $1,000

Eco Guardians (see project description above) was selected based on weekly discussions throughout the competition related to SDG.

MOST IMPACTFUL INNOVATION AWARD: $1,000

Boundless Why: The undergraduate team of ��Xiangyi Han ’26, Jingjing Wu ’25 and Minna You ’25 were selected for this award for creation of a global online community that provides art resources and therapy for teenagers with autism.

BEST CREATIVE VIDEO AWARD: $1,000

KG’s: The team of Ghonche Khalaj G’26; Ali Kozehgaran G’26; Adhadreza Safasinia G‘28; ��Seyed Babak Seyd Asadollah ’28 and Seyedehniloufar Mousavi ’27 was selected for a video presentation on AgriNect, an app designed to find and tip farmers whose products consumers enjoy.

BEST COLLABORATIVE DIVERSE TEAM: $1,000

Circular Sages: (see project description above) was selected for best representation of students from different backgrounds and various schools, as well as the contribution by each team member.

For more information, visit the Dean’s SDG Innovation Challenge page on our��.

Natasha Brao (left) and David Panasci (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

From delicious new food items to cloud management solutions and an innovative digital platform to connect local food producers and consumers, this year’s Panasci Business Plan Competition showcased outstanding ideas from the most innovative, business-minded students across ���ϲ�����. A campus-wide business plan event hosted annually by the at the , this year’s competition was held on April 5 and made possible by David Panasci ’80, president of DHP Consulting, and sponsor of the first, second and third place awards; Scott Friedberg ’14, founder and CEO of Gilded Social, sponsor of the Gilded Social Rising Entrepreneur Award; and Nick Monzi ’11, CEO and co-founder of Learn Fresh, sponsor of the Learn Fresh Award for Social Entrepreneurship—new this year.

“T��� annual Panasci competition is always an exciting day on campus, and this year’s event was no exception, as twice as many students competed this year than in 2023. Students from across the University came together to showcase their innovations and compete for prize money that will help them move their business plans forward,” says Cristiano Bellavitis, assistant professor of entrepreneurship, who managed this year’s event. ”Everyone who competed took away valuable feedback from our diverse group of judges, and this year’s winners are certainly on the fast track to making their entrepreneurial goals a reality.”

The 2024 Panasci competition awarded a total of $40,000 in prize money to the winning teams who demonstrated the best potential for growth and attracting outside financing. All competitors submitted written business plans in the semi-final round, and the top teams were brought together to compete in the finals. Whether or not they were selected as winners, every finalist was given specific and valuable feedback from industry professionals involved in the event.

First place and the Gilded Rising Social Entrepreneur Award went to Natasha Brao ’22, G’23, G’24, founder of Shooka. She received $20,000 for the first-place win and an additional $5,000 for the Gilded Rising Social Entrepreneur Award. Brao’s Shooka is a spiced tomato sauce based on the traditional Mediterranean dish shakshuka, which she first tasted on a trip overseas in 2019. Always one to love the “mixing and melding of cultures to promote creative cooking,” she developed Shooka, formalized her business in 2023 and started selling her product in March 2024.

“T��� Panasci Business Plan Competition at Whitman is one of the competitions that holds the most weight for me. I was looking forward to it the entire year, and it was amazing to compete alongside dear friends and talented entrepreneurs,” says Brao. “T��� prize money will help assist me with production, transportation and inventory holding costs, as well as allow me to focus on growing our sales in the next few months. My participation and success in this competition have also led to some valuable new connections in the industry. This gives me further validation for my product and myself as a founder, and I couldn’t be more excited to move forward!”

Second place went to Waqar Hussain G’25, Fulbright Scholar, founder of Iconnic.cloud, who was awarded $7,500. ��is a powerful cloud management solution designed for small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) aiming to scale and grow. This platform simplifies the transition of business and web solutions to the cloud, allowing for the effortless deployment and scaling of digital products with the cloud provider of choice. Iconnic.cloud eliminates the need for costly system administrators and IT managers, making cloud technology accessible and cost-effective. This solution not only reduces operational costs but also enhances efficiency, providing SMEs with the tools to innovate and thrive in a digital-first economy.����is a product of��,��a web wizarding team of designers and developers that “brews magic to power online businesses.”

Third place and $2,500, along with the Learn Fresh Award for Social Entrepreneurship of $5,000, went to Brielle Young ’27, co-founder and CEO of Aggregate, a digital platform that aims to bridge the gap between producers and consumers in local communities. Through its application, Aggregate empowers producers to share their goods, whether they are artisanal crafts or farm-fresh produce, as well as tell the stories behind their products. In addition, consumers can discover affordable and accessible local goods, all with just a few clicks. Its mission is to foster vibrant communities through local commerce while equipping local businesses with tools for growth and sustainability. Ezra James, an environmental engineering student at Cornell University, is a co-founder and chief operating officer of Aggregate. The Learn Fresh Award for Social Entrepreneurship is awarded to the innovation that demonstrates the greatest commitment to achieving social impact by addressing a persistent inequity or large-scale societal challenge. Learn Fresh is a nonprofit organization providing STEM learning to empower educators and inspire students.

Judges for this year’s Panasci Business Plan Competition included: Jack Adler ’23, Out2Win Sports; Eric Alderman L’75, adjunct professor, Whitman School; Nassim José Alemany ’09, Xolver; Haotian Bai, Patriot Conceptions; Logan Bonney G’17, West Gen LLC, and Stout Beard Brewing; Bill Brod, All Times Publishing; Blake Brossman ’98, PetCareRX; Salvatore (Tory) D’Amelio ’08, president, Selflock Screw Products; Alexander Deyhim, director Invent@SU, and iSchool faculty member; Cody Disch ’10, founder, Arias Advisors; Dustin Doucette, director of operations, Upstate Venture Connect; David Eilers ’80, ���ϲ����� College of Law Innovation Law Center; Jessica Falcone, Jessica Elizabeth Skincare Inc.; James Farrell G’19, East of Nowhere; Ben Ford ’23, Fundwurx; Meghan Florkowski, WISE Women’s Business Center; Scott Friedberg ’14, founder and CEO of Gilded Social; Linda Dickerson Hartsock, founder of ���ϲ����� Blackstone LaunchPad; Lekia Hill, Lekia Tech LLC; Sam Hollander ’21, co-founder and CEO, Share Club; Peter King ’08, Cayuga Economic Development Agency; David S. Klein ’92, owner and president, Greenwood Industries; Jeff Linowes ’77, chief branding officer, HALO Branded Solutions; Kelo Makelele, founder, RedTrace Technologies, Inc.; F. Jasper Massey, commercial loan officer, Empower Federal Credit Union; George Mazevski ’99, G’00, president and CEO, Govsphere Inc.; Nick Monzi ’11, founder and CEO, Learn Fresh; Emad Rahim, Surge entrepreneurship manager, ���ϲ����� Surge Accelerator/CenterState CEO; Joe Noll Jr. ’05, president, National Electronic Transit; Micah Shippee G’16, Samsung Electronics America; Don R. Stanton ’03, Tanglewood Gardens; and Vivek Sureddi ’15, owner president, VivCon LLC.

Visit Whitman’s website for more information on the��.

From left are the following: Whitney Krayer, Phoebe Gullingsrud and Fiona Connolly.

If you’ve noticed some additional content on the Whitman School’s social media platforms lately, it’s likely the work of POV Brand Management, a student-run digital marketing agency working with the school’s marketing and communications department this semester.

“Fostering emerging entrepreneurs and supporting their ideas are at the heart of the Whitman School. And, what better way to promote our commitment to entrepreneurship than to hire some of our own?” says Executive Dean J. Michael Haynie, who also is vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation for the University and a faculty member in Whitman’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE). “We identified a need in our efforts to market to Gen Z and filled that need this semester by hiring POV, a digital marketing agency founded by a Whitman/Newhouse student and run by other students across the University. It’s been a terrific partnership that has benefitted both Whitman and POV.”

POV was created by Phoebe Gullingsrud ’24, CEO. Her entrepreneurial talents date back to high school, but once she started her first year as a dual major in the Whitman School and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, her brain was racing with ideas on how her courses in business and communications could help her establish a real business. At the time, the pandemic was in full force, but Gullingsrud understood that companies were struggling, and there was an urgent need to adapt to online business. Knowing she couldn’t do it all herself, she brought on others with diverse skillsets, and by Gullingsrud’s sophomore year POV Marketing Consultancy was launched.

Gullingsrud continued to run POV, even while studying abroad in Barcelona in spring 2023. Upon her return, she thought about getting an internship but quickly realized what she really should be doing was building out her own company.

With the mentoring support of Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice Ken Walsleben, who encouraged her to take the summer to work on POV, she realigned her team and created a clear focus for the business. In fall 2024, Gullingsrud relaunched as POV Brand Management, a full-service digital marketing agency.

Today, Gullingsrud has a team of six other students: Whitney Krayer ’24, a psychology major in the College of Arts and Sciences and chief operations officer; Fiona Connolly ’24, an advertising major in the Newhouse School and chief creative officer; Heather McClure ’25, public relations major in the Newhouse School and director of public relations and copywriter; Lauren Diaz, chief financial officer, Boston College; Melissa Garcia, chief strategy officer, University of Rhode Island; and Sona Cyriac, integrated marketing specialist, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The opportunity to partner with the Whitman School was a fortunate coincidence. In the fall of 2023, Gullingsrud was strategizing with Walsleben in Whitman’s Couri Hatchery when Haynie stopped by and heard them talking about POV. Haynie asked Gullingsrud more about the agency and gave her the opportunity to pitch ideas for assisting the Whitman School’s efforts to reach the school’s target Gen Z population.

“After Mike (Haynie) stopped by, I told Phoebe that, if she did things right, she might have a new client,” Walsleben says. “T��� next thing I knew, I was giving her feedback as she polished up her pitch. Phoebe and her team are true digital natives, and that gives them a great advantage in this space. They may well find they have a niche in digital marketing in the higher education space.”

The pitch was a success, and POV was hired to run social media for the Whitman School for the Spring 2024 semester.

“It has been a benefit to our department and the Whitman School to have had the resources of POV available to us this semester in our continued efforts to share on social media some of the amazing things we do at this school,” says Dawn McWilliams, director of marketing and communications at the Whitman School. “Just over the past few months, the team has been doing an outstanding job highlighting students, alumni, speakers and events happening at the Whitman School, including a visit from celebrity baker Buddy Valastro in March and the Panasci Business Plan Competition held in early April.”

According to McWilliams, POV has helped the department create a more formalized system for social content, while also providing a GenZ perspective that is attracting Whitman’s target audience.

“POV has created a great partnership with Whitman. This has been transformative to our business goals and helped us show that we have the ability to operate with a client on the scale of the Whitman School,” says Krayer.

The POV team will graduate this May, but Gullingsrud is confident that the business will continue to adapt and grow to its full potential.

“We have realized the intrinsic value that the innovative digital approach holds in business growth, and our group of talented professionals has already helped 20 businesses, including the Whitman School,” she says. “We plan to continue to evolve as we anticipate business needs, produce unique and innovative digital solutions that will increase client value and grow POV into a full-time digital marketing service that is like no other.”

Story by Caroline K. Reff

Thomas Constable and John G. Dean IV

The at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management welcomes Thomas Constable G’04, G’04, as its director and Ltc. (ret) John G. Dean IV�� G’04 MBA, G’04, as associate director.

Both Constable and Dean are both graduates of the Defense Comptrollership Program (DCP) and earned dual master’s degrees—an MBA from the Whitman School and a master’s degree in public administration (MPA) from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs—as classmates in 2004.

Thomas Constable, director, Defense Programs

From 1987 to 2008, Constable was on active duty with the U.S. Army and is a retired civilian senior executive with the Department of Defense. He was the associate director of the Defense Program from August 2023 through February 2024 before moving into his current role.

Constable had a long career as a member of the senior executive service with the Department of Defense. Prior to joining the Whitman School, he was the principal assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs from 2022 to 2023 and the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for readiness from 2019 to 2022, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Constable also held the position of director of resource integration for the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence and as the associate director for military operations/comptroller for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, as well the senior financial official for the U.S. Army, Africa, and as a senior budget analyst for the Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller.

As he settles into his role as director of Whitman’s Defense Program, Constable says, “I loved my own experience with this program, and the opportunity came at a time when I had 35 years with the Department of Defense,” he says. “I really wanted to teach but never had the chance. So, it all came together beautifully, and I haven’t looked back.”

Ltc. (ret) John G. Dean, associate director, Defense Programs

Dean started in his new role as associate director of Defense Programs in the Whitman School on April 1. He retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of active duty service. Before joining the Whitman School, he was the chief of the Agency Contingency and Coordination branch of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in Alexandria, Virginia, from 2002 to 2024.

He worked for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as a regional chief of regulatory compliance and chief of chemical security in New York City from 2017 to 2022.�� Before DHS, he served as the regional program manager for the Radiological Assistance Program, National Nuclear Security Agency in Idaho Falls, Idaho, from 2013 to 2017. He is also a freelance writer, organizational consultant and training developer.

“I am very pleased to come back to ���ϲ����� and the Whitman Defense Programs after 20 years,” says Dean. “I’m thankful for the knowledge I received here, and I’m eager to share my years of military and federal experience with students and Defense Program future leaders.”

“T��� Whitman School is fortunate to welcome Tom and John to the Defense Programs,” says J. Michael Haynie, executive dean at the Whitman School and the University’s vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, as well as a 14-year veteran as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. “T���ir collective experience both as active duty military and with various agencies within the Department of Defense will not only greatly benefit our students but will help our programs continue to reach a broader audience across the DOD and the national security community.”

Frank Marin, Natasha Brao, Tosin Alabi, Motolani Oladitan and Jessica Grace McGhee

This semester, five University students working at the Couri Hatchery Student Business Incubator at the Whitman School of Management made it through the regional level of the New York State Business Plan Competition (NYBPC), an intercollegiate event designed to help prepare the next generation of entrepreneurs in New York state.

The hatchery, led by Program Manager and supported by faculty from the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE), assists students in preparing for this highly competitive event. They will compete for up to $100,000 in cash prizes to support their ventures.

The following students are currently competing for a place in the statewide competition to be held in Albany, New York, on April 25:

Tosin Alabi G’25 (MBA) is an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Couri Hatchery and a student in Whitman’s MBA program. She is competing with her business venture DiabeTech, an electronic bandage created for diabetic foot ulcers.

The bandage not only protects the wound but has sensors that check temperature and glucose levels in real time, providing vital information for the patient and physician. This information can be used to ward off dangerous consequences of diabetic foot ulcers like gangrene or amputation.

From Nigeria, Alabi appreciates the support she has been given at the Hatchery, particularly as an international student.

“International students are already dealing with acclimating to both the culture and the rigors of the education here. Sometimes I feel like an octopus juggling so many things at once,” she says. “It took courage for me to go to the hatchery, but the resources there have helped me understand the rules, legalities, licenses and visa limitations that impact my business. And, I could not go a day without the support of Indaria. She has put a light in the Couri Hatchery and made it the place for me. DiabeTech is not just a business idea for me. It’s helping people have a better life, even those in my own family who are diabetic.”

Natasha Brao ’22 (College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)), G’23, G’24 (MBA) first discovered the deliciousness of the classic Mediterranean dish Shakshuka on a trip overseas in 2019 and soon realized it was a compilation of many Mediterranean backgrounds and cultures. Having always loved experimenting with cooking, she created , a spiced tomato sauce with the idea of “mixing and melding cultures to promote creative cooking” and formalized her business in 2023. The product quickly gained attention this March when she started selling the sauce. Brao recently acquired a spot at New York State’s International Taste Festival where upwards of 7,000 attended and had the chance to try Shooka.

“My entrepreneurial side comes from my creative background [Brao earned a bachelor’s degree in design]. I was an idea machine and very passionate about food and culinary businesses,” she says. “I’ve been hanging out at the hatchery for quite a while, planning the future of the business, considering strategic partnerships and creating a road map so I can stay on track as a busy student and entrepreneur. I have weekly meetings with the advisors at the hatchery and that has kept a fire under me to keep progressing week to week.”

Frank Marin ’23 (College of Engineering and Computer Science), G’24 (MBA) is enrolled in a dual program earning an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and an MBA with concentrations in entrepreneurship and supply chain management. He is working on a business opportunity called , which involves the removal of debris in space through innovative techniques. Marin is creating a general process for the spacecraft to follow that will give it maximum efficiency in debris removal.

“I am incredibly passionate about science and its growing importance, and I have a lot of ideas on how to make the world a better place, starting with removing debris,” he says. “T��� Couri Hatchery has been a place for me to talk with like-minded, entrepreneurial people, including members of the EEE faculty who challenge me and also help me stay on track. I hope that one day my ideas can make a difference in people’s lives.”

Jessica Grace McGhee ’19 (VPA), G’24 (VPA) is a fine artist with her own online gallery, who is also a creative arts therapy graduate student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She is entering her business venture Sacred Art of Rising (SAOR) in the competition. will engage survivors of chronic and complex trauma on three different platforms: the Resource Center in ���ϲ�����’s South Side, an area of the city with a high poverty level; the Retreat Center, a safe space with a myriad of nonverbal and verbal therapeutic platforms with access to restorative rest; and the Sacred Art of Rising mobile app with sliding scale access to psychoeducational, motivational and self-care content with a platform for telehealth therapy.

As a survivor of complex and chronic trauma, McGhee has created SOAR as an alternative, non-verbal therapeutic platform to help others recover, especially those who are underserved, as a means of “symbolic investment.” She wants SOAR to create a full-circle investment in marginalized communities that heals and uplifts people to reach their own self-directed goals. And, McGhee hopes it will be a place to provide safe outdoor space for individuals and families to build healthy attachments, get social rest and also reach people in need of a place to heal and decrease the chronic toxic stress that accompanies poverty.

“I knew SOAR would be amazingly helpful but, financially, I couldn’t see how I could make it happen. Linda Hartsock just lit up that path for me,” she says. “I moved from Los Angeles to ���ϲ����� in 2008 and was promised a very healthy existence but then endured several kinds of abuse before I got up the courage to leave. But, ���ϲ����� and the people at the Couri Hatchery have rooted for me and done their best to uplift me and help me reach my dreams.”

Motolani Oladitan ’24 (A&S), a psychology major, has created , an online marketplace for African entrepreneurs to sell their beauty products collectively online. From Nigeria, Oladitan is starting with six to eight products and hopes to expand from there, becoming the premier destination for African beauty and wellness by helping get these brands into mainstream U.S. markets. She has tested and used every product she offers, and when people kept asking to borrow her products, Oladitan knew she was on to something.

“Traci Giesler, Indaria Jones, Linda Dickerson Hartsock and all the mentors at the Couri Hatchery and the Blackstone LaunchPad have been so good to me and are always ready to help me practice my pitch or offer recommendations on how to tackle the things I’m facing,” she says. “I’m looking to put together a marketing plan, and even if I don’t win the competition, I know it’s a learning experience. ���ϲ����� has been a learning experience, too, and I will take the feedback and implement that into the future of the business. I am in this for the long run.”

The Couri Hatchery is named for John Couri ’63, co-founder of Duty-Free International and president of the Couri Foundation.

“This provides a smooth pathway for SUNY Morrisville students to enter the exciting fields of data science, librarianship and information sciences,” says Zachary Schuster, the iSchool’s director of admissions and recruitment. Schuster previously worked for SUNY Morrisville as an admissions counselor from 2008 to 2012.��“I am really excited to offer this opportunity to their graduates,” says Schuster. “���ϲ����� is in close proximity to SUNY Morrisville, making our programs attractive and convenient. Students will enter in-demand career areas with outstanding placement and salary outcomes.”

As an added incentive, the iSchool will waive application fees for students applying from SUNY Morrisville. Students who are selected will receive a guaranteed scholarship ranging from 25% to 50% of tuition charges, with the possibility of further consideration for additional scholarships on a case-by-case basis.

Tony Contento, dean for the School of Agriculture, Business and Technology at SUNY Morrisville, says the partnership “is a testament to our shared vision of nurturing excellence in Information Science.”

“We’re both driven by a passion for cutting-edge education and equipping students with the skills they need to thrive in the digital age,” Contento says. “We’re delighted to offer SUNY Morrisville’s Computer and Information Science students a seamless path to graduate studies in these spectacular programs at ���ϲ�����, and we anticipate fruitful collaborations as we work together to shape the future of technology education.”

SUNY Morrisville is a public college with two locations in New York, one in Morrisville and one in Norwich. It is part of the State University of New York system.

More information about the graduate application process can be found on the��. If you are considering applying to the iSchool, contact the����for advising and assistance.

Administered by Empire State Development, the Entrepreneurship Assistance Centers program aims to support aspiring and existing entrepreneurs by providing essential resources and fostering a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. These centers act as catalysts for economic development, offering educational programs, training, and mentorship opportunities to empower businesses across the state.

In addition to its affiliation with the Whitman School, the WISE Women’s Business Center is designated as a Women’s Business Center through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). This recognition underscores the center’s commitment to serving women entrepreneurs by providing impactful programs, resources, and one-on-one tailored support in reaching their business goals.

WISE Women’s Business Center is deeply invested in collaborative efforts with community partners to maximize its impact and deliver comprehensive services to women entrepreneurs. By forging strategic alliances with local organizations, educational institutions and business support entities, WISE ensures a network of resources that goes beyond its individual capabilities.

The grant from Empire State Development will support the WISE Women’s Business Center’s Accelerate: Business Plan Intensive. Currently in its fourth year, and kicking off the seventh cohort on April 9, this low-cost, 8-week intensive program provides women entrepreneurs in the early stages of their business with expert guidance, peer collaboration and personalized support in developing and refining business plans which can be used for loan applications, finding business partners and more.

“We are honored to be selected as an Entrepreneurship Assistance Center and are excited about the opportunities this presents for women entrepreneurs in our region,” says Meghan Florkowski, director at the WISE Women’s Business Center. “This grant will enable us to enhance our commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs, fostering economic growth, collaborating with community partners, and contributing to the vibrancy of the Central New York small business community.”

Story by Jennifer McGee

The Inspiring Programs in Business Award honors colleges and universities that encourage and assist students from underrepresented groups to enter the field of business. The Whitman School will be featured, along with 27 other recipients, in the April 2024 issue of Insight Into Diversity magazine.

Inspiring Programs in Business Award winners were selected by Insight Into Diversity based on efforts to inspire and encourage a new generation of young people to consider careers in business through mentoring, teaching, research and successful programs and initiatives.

”Whitman has made tremendous inroads in supporting our students of all backgrounds over the past few years. We’ve provided financial support to allow our students to maximize their experience while at Whitman. We have impressive work in the community, and we’ve created new programs to engage, mentor and support our diverse student body. We also welcomed our most ethnically diverse and largest female incoming class ever this fall. This award from Insight into Diversity magazine is a tangible recognition that we’re developing a more inclusive environment at Whitman,” says interim Whitman School Dean Alex McKelvie.

Insight Into Diversity magazine selected the Whitman School’s Multicultural and First-Generation Student and Parent Resource groups for this award. The goal of these resource groups is to ensure that both students and parents are aware of all the opportunities available to them to help break down barriers and foster greater inclusion.

The Multicultural and First-Generation Student Resource Group meets bimonthly throughout the academic year to provide programming to students. These include opportunities for community building, learning from and supporting each other and accessing professional development from faculty and alums of color.

To further support students, Whitman launched the Parents Resource Group, which meets virtually once a month. Parents are presented with information on topics related to undergraduate advising services/tutoring information, career services, study abroad, financial aid, campus housing and health and well-being services. This helps ensure that parents are equipped to assist their students in navigating their academic journey.

Diane Crawford, the executive director of institutional culture at Whitman, says, “T���se programs are beneficial for our underrepresented and first-generation students and their parents. The resources provided assist the first-gen parents with necessary information and the knowledge to be able to coach and support their student. The students have an opportunity to build community and have access to professional development and mentorships in ways that help them navigate their academic careers and beyond. The programs help our student to overcome some of the knowledge gaps that might exist and to ensure equitable access to what the Whitman School has to offer.”

“We know that many business programs are not always recognized for their success, dedication and mentorship for underrepresented students,” says Lenore Pearlstein, owner and publisher of Insight Into Diversity magazine. “We want to honor the schools and organizations that have created programs that inspire and encourage young people who may currently be in or are interested in a future career in business. We are proud to honor these programs as role models to other institutions of higher education and beyond.”

Joe Comprix

In the role of associate dean for faculty affairs, Comprix will provide leadership of faculty issues and efforts, including faculty development and mentoring, workloads, and reviews, leaves and contract renewals. He will work closely with Academic Affairs, department chairs, Human Resources and the Office of Research, among other offices. Comprix previously held the role of interim associate dean and has been the long-standing chair of the accounting department. He is also an award-winning teacher.

Willie Reddic

In the role of associate dean for business education, Reddic will provide leadership over the residential and online undergraduate and master’s programs, including student attraction, coordination of instructional needs, programmatic innovation and feasibility studies, and oversight of assurance of learning processes and teaching effectiveness. He will work closely with the faculty curriculum and teaching committees, department chairs, students and staff. Reddic is also one the Faculty Oversight Committee for Athletics and is a highly accomplished teacher and administrator. He held a similar position to this current role at DePaul University.

“I am very appreciative to both Joe and Willie for their willingness to take on these additional service roles for Whitman. Both have outstanding track records in these areas. Having them both as associate deans will help Whitman pursue our bold goals and expectations,” says Alexander McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School of Management.

The competition was organized by two students in the , Motolani Oladitan ’24 and Brandon Henry ’24, with support from other Blackstone LaunchPad student employees and founders.

Tosin Alabi took first place in the recent Afropreneurship Pitch Competition. (Photo by Mariah Brown)

Olutosin “Tosin” Alabi G’25, an MBA student in the , won first place in the 90-second pitch competition with her proposed health tech startup, DiabeTech Nexus, a sensor-detecting diabetes wound bandage.

Whitman undergraduate student Mariah Brown ’26 won second place with Dormbank, a proposed reseller of college residence hall items like appliances and small electronics. Third place winner Justin Diaz ’24, also a student in the Whitman School, is founder of Eco Bamboo Living, a company that would create tiny homes made of bamboo for more sustainable living.

Judges for the pitch competition also spoke to students during a panel discussion on being an innovator, entrepreneur and creative of color. Panelists/judges included:

• Brianna Howard G’21, founder of Faithful Works, which offers virtual assistant and grant consulting services to nonprofits, small business owners and startup;
• Derrell Smith ’10, retired NFL player turned chef and founder of a meatball company named Amazeballs, who has cooked on stages around the world and stars in his own TV show on Tastemade;
• Damaris “Koi” Munyua G’22, founder of the marketing agency Koi and Company, which specializes in copywriting, graphic and website design;
• Ana Catalina Rodriguez Botello, a diversity and social impact professional with a master’s degree in public and social Policy from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and a LEAD Certificate from Stanford University, currently serving as global social impact senior manager at Marsh McLennan;
• Phahsa Ras, co-founder of UMi, the world’s first “Conscious Attention Economy,” capitalizing on the impact of such emergent technologies as generative AI on jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities; and
• Kofi Addai, associate director of bias education and response in .

Katy Arons

Katy Arons ’24, founder of Continual Consent and a student in the School of Information Studies, won first place at the 2024 campus qualifier competition for the on Feb. 1 held at ���ϲ����� Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad. She and her team will now advance to the national competition being held March 26-27 at Florida State University and televised on PBS.

Continual Consent is a health and safety mobile application designed to revolutionize conversations about consent and intimacy. As the winner of the ���ϲ����� competition, Arons will receive an expense paid trip to compete in the ACC InVenture Prize finals from March 26-28 in Tallahassee, Florida. The televised finals feature one team from each of the 15 colleges and universities in the ACC Academic Consortium who compete for ��$30,000 in prizes.

ACC InVenture campus qualifier runners up included Justin Diaz ’24, founder of EcoBamboo and a student in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and Brendan Murty ’24, Ryan Mussaw ’24 and Ian Storrs ’24, founders of Concurrent and students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The ���ϲ����� ACC InVenture Prize is supported by the Provost’s Office and is hosted by ���ϲ����� Libraries and the .

Poets&Quants’ methodology relies on three equally weighted (33.3%) sources of data: Admissions Standards (e.g., acceptance rate, SAT scores, diversity), Career Outcomes (e.g., placement at 90 days, compensation, internships) and Academic Experience (e.g., survey of recent alumni across a variety of satisfaction and experience scores).

Whitman’s rankings in each of these categories is:

• Admissions Standards—No. 39 (No. 41 in 2022)
• Career Outcomes—No. 38 (No. 32 in 2022)
• Academic Experience—No. 53 (No. 56 in 2022)

Poets&Quants slightly altered its calculations this year, taking into consideration three years of data to help smooth out year-over-year fluctuations.

“We are proud to maintain our top 40 ranking of the best undergraduate business programs. It’s another tangible acknowledgement of Whitman’s strong national reputation and where there is evidence of our solid progress in priority areas to us,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School. “While we fell slightly in the rankings from our highest on record last year, we were excited that some of the metrics used this year in the final rankings were at an all-time high for Whitman. This shows that we’re in a very competitive space. Overall, this top-tier national ranking is another notable accomplishment for Whitman’s faculty, staff and students.”

“T��� Whitman School has made incredible investments in the academic experience over the past several years through curricular innovations, opportunities for leadership development and an emphasis on providing an inclusive environment to all,” says Lindsay Quilty, assistant dean of undergraduate programs. “We continue to see a rise in applications and our current first-year class represents the largest female cohort in program history. The Poets&Quants survey results are further validation that we are investing in areas that resonate with our alumni well beyond graduation.”

According to Poets&Quants, 91 schools participated in 2024’s ranking, including two schools that have not been previously ranked. They go on to say that, all 91 undergraduate business programs ranked by��Poets&Quants��are at the leading edge of business education, delivering a learning experience that transforms students’ sense of who they are and what they can do in the world. In fact, the ranked schools in this report reflect the top 12% of the more than 840 business schools accredited by AACSB International, the main accrediting body for business education.

Learn more about the Whitman School’s undergraduate programs on its .

Members are:

• , professor of accounting, Whitman J. Whitman School of Management
• , professor and associate chair of psychology, College of Arts and Sciences (A&S)
• , professor of practice, Whitman School
• , professor of public affairs and international affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
• , professor of magazine, news and digital journalism, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
• , associate professor of women’s and gender studies and director of undergraduate studies, A&S
• , professor of electrical engineering and computer science, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• , associate teaching professor of writing studies, rhetoric and composition and director of undergraduate studies, A&S
• , associate teaching professor of public relations and graduate program director, Newhouse School
• , professor of public health, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics
• , associate professor of architecture, School of Architecture
• , teaching professor of nutrition and graduate director, Falk College
• , professor of art education and teaching and leadership, College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) and School of Education
• , professor of anthropology, Maxwell School
• , associate teaching professor and executive director of the Center for Online and Digital Learning, College of Professional Studies
• , associate professor of acting, VPA

“T��� PFSAC is tasked with providing key feedback and advice on faculty salary appeals and plays an important role in our efforts around salary transparency and equity,” Winders says. Members are jointly selected by Winders and the chair of the University Senate from a pool of nominees brought forward by deans and the senate agenda committee.

A for full-time faculty members seeking to appeal their current salary was recently established by the Office of Academic Affairs.

For each salary appeal, Winders will convene a subcommittee of nine PFSAC members based on disciplinary closeness with the faculty member whose case is under review. The subcommittee will not include faculty members who have had a prior role in a particular faculty salary appeals case or who come from the faculty member’s home department or unit.

The deadline for submitting faculty salary appeals for consideration by the PFSAC in this academic year is Friday, March 1. Appeals must first have been reviewed by the dean of the faculty member’s school or college.

is available online or by contacting the Office of Faculty Affairs at facultyaffairs@syr.edu.

This joint program leverages the national reputations and programmatic strengths of both schools in preparing students to be versatile, multidisciplinary, forward-looking experts and leaders ready to take on the important challenges across the globe related to sustainability.

This program can be completed in one year as a full-time student and is composed of a minimum of 30 credits. Central to this program is that students take courses from both the Whitman and Maxwell schools, ensuring that students learn about sustainability from a variety of perspectives, such as economics, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, international affairs, public administration, political science, statistics, sociology and supply chain management.

Students also have great flexibility in their elective course choices, allowing them to customize their own unique approach to sustainability by sector, industry or policy area. The first student cohort will be on campus in the fall of 2024. Applications to the program opened earlier this month.

Whitman School Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie says, “T��� world is increasing its appreciation for a multidisciplinary approach to sustainability that embraces the importance of private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Our students and their future employers also recognize the benefits of well-rounded students who possess the skills and abilities to navigate the complex topic of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and that requires students to understand both business and policy.”

This program is designed for those who are passionate about sustainability and seek an interdisciplinary approach that features experts in business, policy, governance and entrepreneurship and will prepare students with the knowledge and skills to manage programs and lead organizations in addressing the challenging issues of sustainability in a complex global environment.

Students will come from a variety of undergraduate and professional backgrounds, including from the social sciences, humanities, sciences, engineering and business. This is a STEM-designated program, allowing international students to have 36 months of Optional Practical Training (OPT) upon completion of the program.

David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School says, “Sustainability is one of the great challenges of our time and requires understanding across disciplines, with economic, social, environmental and business considerations at its core. Graduates will be well-prepared to work in a global community where sustainable business practice and policy are intertwined across many career pathways and industries.”

Core courses will be taught by world-renowned faculty from both schools, which includes Whitman’s Maria Minniti, director of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society (IES) and Louis A. Bantle Chair in Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, and Maxwell’s Jay S. Golden, Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance and founding director of the Dynamic Sustainability Lab.

An important aspect of sustainability education is experiential learning, a need recognized and met in the For the required capstone course, students will work directly with clients in related industries.

Career placement rates and starting salaries for graduates in comparable programs are high. There is a significant increase in jobs in both the private and public sectors related to sustainability.

Admission requirements are the same as other master’s degree programs in the Maxwell School and Whitman School. Competitive scholarships are available based on merit.

See the M.S. in sustainable organizations and policy for more detailed information about this new joint program.

Alexis Peña ’16 (Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine)

Despite the dominance of cheap, quick clothing production among modern retailers, ���ϲ����� biomedical engineering alumna Alexis Peña ’16, and her colleague, Lauren Blake, are determined to revolutionize the textile industry with their start-up, Good Fibes.

“Since summer 2022, Lauren and I have embarked on understanding the fashion industry ecosystem to provide innovative solutions for the current challenges,” says Peña. “At Good Fibes, we’re developing methods for biomanufacturing natural textile fibers using biological building blocks. Our mission is to enable a circular textile economy through material innovation.”

The biotech startup aims to produce lab-grown fibers through cellular agriculture and use engineered molecules to create renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic fibers. They hope this will offer alternatives to synthetic fibers such as polyester, which currently make up over 50% of clothing material. Synthetic fibers can also take hundreds of years to degrade and shed microplastics and chemical pollutants into the environment.

Though fibers like cotton, silk or wool are natural fibers, their production processes don’t align with sustainability goals or meet the industry’s needs. Cotton processing demands extensive amounts of water and silk production requires a considerable amount of energy. Wool products may also contain harsh chemicals and dyes that make them less biodegradable.

Alexis Peña ’16 and Lauren Blake present a pitch for Chain Reaction Innovations (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

Natural materials can also be unpredictable in supply due to weather, humidity, animal diet or plant soil, which can cause variations in harvest seasons and batch-to-batch quality. Additionally, the industry faces challenges related to performance criteria and variability in quality, which ultimately leads to a reliance on synthetic fibers.

Good Fibes’ bioengineered fibers solve these issues by providing environmentally conscious production and better-quality materials compared to current synthetic textiles.

“T��� lack of reliable alternatives to synthetic fibers is a major pain point in the textile industry. Our bioengineered fibers not only provide an alternative to petroleum-based fibers, but also address limitations of cotton, silk and wool by having year-round production and tunable properties such as elasticity, tensile strength and dye affinity” says Peña.

Peña and Blake recently completed their Ph.D.s in May 2023 at Johns Hopkins University. The co-founders also taught a course called “Future Fashion Innovation” to material scientists and engineering undergraduates at Johns Hopkins during intersession and adapted the course into a webinar for Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni during Earth Week in 2023.

Additionally, Good Fibes has been selected as a participant in a lab-embedded entrepreneurship program (LEEP), Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) program at Argonne National Laboratory.��The CRI program is designed to support entrepreneurs and their innovative research with a focus on clean energy.

“Fashion should allow people to feel good about their clothing, but also feel good about what happens to their clothing after they wear it,” says Peña. “We believe this can truly innovate the textile industry and bring a much-needed change to fashion’s monolithic infrastructure.”

InclusiveU students meet prospective employers at the spring 2023 “reverse job fair” in downtown ���ϲ�����.

The School of Education’s Center on Disability and Inclusion has been awarded a five-year, $1.7 million New York State Education Department (NYSED) Core Rehabilitation Services contract to support individuals with disabilities interested in obtaining, maintaining or advancing in employment.

The contract is administered through NYSED’s (ACCES-VR) program.

The agreement will enable to continue and enhance two initiatives it already offers to students, youth, and adults with disabilities. Firstly, CDI provides no-cost (Pre-ETS) for students with disabilities in Central New York aged 14 to 21, including career and college exploration and training on workplace readiness and self-advocacy. Currently, CDI serves more than 300 students through Pre-ETS each year.

In addition to Pre-ETS services, the contract also includes services that will provide increased support to InclusiveU students participating in the initiative’s internship program, traditionally done in a student’s senior year.

InclusiveU brings students with intellectual disability to ���ϲ����� for a full college experience, including inclusive living, inclusive coursework, and career exploration and development. The additional employment support services will enable job coaching mentors to be used directly by students at their internship sites and work experience training to support career development prior to graduation. Each year, approximately 15 InclusiveU students complete an internship.

“T��� and InclusiveU are excited about the expansion of supports and resources we are able to offer students and individuals with disabilities with the ACCES-VR contract,” says InclusiveU Director . “We are looking forward to partnering with ACCES-VR in a renewed way to continue strengthening and improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities on campus and in our community.”

The Poets&Quants’ rankings methodology relies on three categories equally relating to admissions standards, employment outcomes at graduation and academic experience, the latter two of which are based on a survey of recent alumni. In each of these alumni-based categories, Whitman was rated higher than in the last two years and ranked No. 15 overall on academic experience. Of particular note was alumni satisfaction with live synchronous classes (ranked No. 10 nationally) and professor quality (ranked No. 7 nationally).�� Whitman was ranked No. 23 overall for career impact, with one-third of alumni reporting a promotion and an average 56% salary increase as a result of the program.

“We are very proud to be in the top tier of online MBA programs this year, especially as this is a quickly growing and highly competitive industry. The feedback shows that the Whitman School places a tremendous emphasis on high-quality teaching, dynamic and interactive classes and overall student experience. Seeing this play out in the rankings validates our efforts and investments in these areas,” says Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “Our recent alumni also show significant career benefits as a result of our MBA program. Receiving promotions and salary increases are key decision factors for prospective MBA students, so it is pleasing that we also scored so well nationally in this regard. It’s clear that we are a student-first program that makes a positive difference in students’ lives.”

“In addition to the demonstrated career impacts that our alumni have seen, 70% of graduates we surveyed said they have applied what they learned to their current position,” adds Amy McHale, assistant dean for master’s programs. “Many of our courses have experiential learning opportunities, and our residencies also allow students to spend a weekend diving into a specific topic. Together, these opportunities provide the knowledge and skills that can be immediately applied.”

From left: Edward Raff, Natalie Howell, Nicholas Graham and Pulak Jain

A team of Whitman School of Management students took first place over more than 500 teams from universities across the nation in the , held at the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University in November.

Whitman’s Nicholas Graham G’23 (MBA), L’23; Natalie Howell G’24 (MBA); Pulak Jain G’24 (MBA) and Edward Raff ’23 took home the $50,000 prize in the competition that challenges master’s level students to use their analytical skills, data and innovative ideas to solve real-world problems for . The competition has become one of the top health care analytics case competitions in the country.

This year’s competition revolved around cancer patients and drug adherence to a new medication that has proven highly effective if a patient can complete a full course. However, many discontinue treatment due to side effects. The competition’s challenge was for teams of two to four master’s level students to build a model that would predict which patients would have an adverse drug event that would result in stopping the medication before the treatment is complete, while also making the model fair in treatment with regard to race and gender.

The competition was completed in multiple phases starting with 500 teams—750 master’s level students representing 75 major U.S. universities—beginning on Aug. 1. Of those, 50 were invited to submit a written business case about how Humana could improve business using the information in their models.

The top five finalists were announced on Oct. 27, which included the Whitman team named “Cross-Functional Counter-Factual Claims,” an alliteration on the team’s diverse background and planned strategy for analyzing what would have happened “counter” to the facts in the data.

On Nov. 8, the five teams traveled to Texas A&M, where they had only 30 minutes each to pitch and explain their business plans, as well as answer questions from data scientists, pharmacologists and executives from Humana and professors from Texas A&M. Whitman’s first-place win was announced at the awards ceremony on Nov. 9.

To secure first place, the Whitman team members developed a custom algorithm to advise Humana on how to improve business using the information learned from their model, according to Raff. Then, they researched medical journals for interventions that can improve patient drug adherence, what services Humana provides and how they are offered. Their final business plan focused on combining the current and recommended services into a single unified portal to provide medically sound guidance on improving patient incomes.

“I truly enjoyed this opportunity for hands-on learning through the Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Competition. Working to develop a solution with the potential to make a real difference in patients’ lives was an incredible experience,” says Howell. “We each have very different strengths and professional backgrounds, and we work together well, which allowed us to challenge each other and succeed as a team. Winning this competition is a reflection of our collective experience and our continued learning at the Whitman School of Management, empowering us to approach real-world challenges with confidence.”

For more information on the Whitman School of Management’s MBA program, visit the .

• 

  Emma Leuders (left) and Jennie Bull

  1st Place: $5,000 awarded to Moody Mag, founders Emma Lueders ’24 (College of Visual and Performing Arts [VPA]) and Jennie Bull ’24 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management). As first prize winner, Moody Mag will be representing the University at the in Boston.

• 2nd Place: $4,000 awarded to EcoBamboo Living, founders Justin Diaz ’24 (Whitman School) and Keif Timmins ’25 (SUNY ESF).
• 3rd Place: $3,000 awarded to Continual, founder Katy Arons ’24 (School of Information Studies).
• Runner-Ups: $1,000 awarded to each of the following: Marhold Space Systems, founder Frank Marin G’24 (Whitman School); Ta, founder Motolani Oladitan ’25 (College of Arts and Sciences); and Scale Sense, founders Oliver Raycroft ’25 (College of Engineering and Computer Science [ECS]) and Adya Parida ’25 (ECS).
• Up and Coming Awards: $250 each awarded to: Queen’s Wellness Institute, founder Fatim Cisse G’24 (David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics); Dormbank, founder Mariah Brown ’26 (Whitman School); Shelstie, founder Shelstie Dastinot ’24 (VPA); and GbaAôndo (GBA) Energy, founders MoAde Jagusah ’24 (Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs), Adam Youngs ’26 (Whitman School), Court Watson ’26 (Whitman School), Nicole Mazzeo ’25 (Maxwell School) and Semirat (Bushrah) Balogun G’24 (School of Information Studies).

The Direct Transfer Admission Program Agreement guarantees eligible OCC graduates’ admission to the Whitman School, and enables eligible OCC graduates the ability to complete a bachelor’s degree within four academic semesters. To leverage the Direct Transfer Admission Program, OCC graduates must have earned a minimum GPA of 3.4 in the business administration program. All admitted students with a 3.4 or higher will be awarded a merit-based scholarship of at least $10,000. The Whitman School will begin admitting students for this program beginning in fall 2024.

“We are excited to provide our students with this seamless pathway into ���ϲ�����’s prestigious Whitman School of Management. It is among the top 6% of business schools worldwide that have earned accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. We are extremely grateful for the tireless work done by our colleagues at ���ϲ����� and our leadership here at OCC to make this life-changing opportunity a reality for our students,” says Michael P. O’Connor, Onondaga Community College dean of business, arts and sciences.

The Whitman Direct Transfer Admission Program acknowledges the high-quality business and management curriculum provided by OCC and is purposefully designed to ensure that admitted transfer students are successful and supported throughout their Whitman School experience.

Whitman and OCC have jointly established student advising standards and course transfer requirements designed to support degree completion for eligible students within four academic semesters.

“T��� Whitman School is committed to welcoming students at all stages of their learning journey. This new partnership with OCC allows us to work collaboratively with a great local partner to enact a pathway to a business-related bachelor’s degree for residents of our Central New York community. The initiative is also aligned with positioning students for exciting new careers stemming from our region’s partnership with Micron. We’re very pleased to finalize this exciting new partnership,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School.

For more information about the new agreement, or if you are interested in learning more, visit the or contact Whitman Assistant Dean Lindsay Quilty at lquilty@syr.edu.

About the Whitman School

The Martin J. Whitman School of Management inspires students for a world of accelerating change. Offering B.S., MBA, M.S. and Ph.D. programs, all accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Whitman School’s faculty includes internationally known scholars and researchers, as well as successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. Whitman continues to be ranked among the nation’s top business schools by U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek. To learn more about the Whitman School of Management, visit .

About ���ϲ�����

���ϲ����� is an independent research university that advances knowledge across disciplines to drive breakthrough discoveries and breakout leadership. Our 13 schools and colleges and over 200 majors close the gap between education and action, so graduates are equipped to be resourceful, responsive and real-world ready. In and beyond the classroom, we connect people, perspectives and practices to solve interconnected issues with innovative approaches. Together, we’re a powerful community of game changers that moves ideas, individuals and impact forward.

About Onondaga Community College

Onondaga Community College, Central New York’s partner in education for success, is a two-year college located on a 280-acre campus in ���ϲ�����. OCC is a SUNY (State University of New York) school and is locally sponsored by Onondaga County. We are the first public college in the nation to partner with Barnes & Noble College on the “Box of Books” program which provides students with flat-rate, predictable pricing for textbooks and technology. OCC is an Achieving the Dream college and was named “Military Friendly” and “Best For Vets” for our service to student veterans. We are proud to be partners in education with , and�� which gives its employees a tuition-free path to the associate degree of their choosing. A report titled “T��� Economic Value of Onondaga Community College” shows students enjoy an attractive 21.7% rate of return on their educational investment. For every dollar of support from state and local governments, taxpayers see a return of $3.90 on their investments. The average annual rate of return for taxpayers is 9.3%. OCC’s 17 athletics teams have won 16 national championships. Learn more about the college at��.

Cjala Surratt ’22 in her shop, Black Citizens Brigade. Photos by Hope Alvarez

On a recent trip to visit extended family, Cjala Surratt ’22, founder of the , was presented with a gift—her late grandmother’s boiler room jacket. Surratt’s grandmother had been a ship-fitter in Norfolk, Virginia, and the clothing item had been a welcome surprise for Surratt, a vintage clothing fanatic.

Even more surprising than the jacket, however, was the history behind the woman who wore it.

“Did you know she was the first Black female union leader for the shipyard?” a relative asked Surratt during her visit. Surratt’s grandmother, who had stepped up to do the job no one else wanted, had been trailed by a security detail at the time, as the owners of the commercial port were against unionization.

“I was like, wait, what?” says Surratt. “This is exactly what I mean—that clothes can be the prompt for these broader stories.”

For Surratt, clothes have always been a conduit for storytelling. Following her graduation from ���ϲ����� and ten subsequent years spent as the director of marketing for , the University’s nonprofit photography studio, Suratt opened the Black Citizens Brigade, a downtown storefront dedicated to amplifying Black history through clothes, books and art.

Surratt’s grandmother’s jacket is displayed at the Black Citizens Brigade.

“For Black and brown people, or those who’ve historically experienced economic disparity, upcycling has always been an economic imperative,” says Surratt. “I think I’m part of continuing that legacy.”

Legacy is the through line of Surratt’s work. Her love of vintage clothing came from growing up in a family of seamstresses, milliners and creatives. During the early days of COVID-19, Surratt and her daughter would peruse the racks of Goodwill, one of the few businesses open at the time. With many elderly people going into nursing homes, the pandemic made thrift stores abundant with discarded clothes from families cleaning out their parents’ closets, says Surratt.

Once her home began overflowing with garments from thrifting trips, she decided it was time to finally take the leap and pursue establishing her own shop. After months of working with the ���ϲ����� Downtown Committee, scouring listings for vacant storefronts and organizing her collection, Surratt opened the Black Citizens Brigade in June of 2023 and has been providing downtown ���ϲ����� with an eclectic mix of clothing, culture and community ever since.

Today, Black Citizens Brigade sells hard-to-find items that center on Black history, specializing in clothes from the 1980s, along with vintage books, magazines and records. The time period of the clothes is an ode to Surratt’s fascination with the aesthetics of that time, while the book selections represent her commitment to education.

“T��� clothes and the books are prompts for larger conversations about race, culture, history and gender,” says Surratt. “And so, the books all center on Black community, Black history, Black culture.”

Surratt’s blending of learning through culture stretches back to her time at ���ϲ�����, where she studied stage theater through the and minored in cultural anthropology and psychology. Later on, she came back as a continuing education student to finish credits part-time through the . She credits specific parts of her education, such as doing character studies that involved thinking about the history of trends, as helping her in her current career.

“T��� common thread is understanding people—a desire to know why people arrive at the choices they make, and also a deep curiosity about culture and community,” she says.

Since its opening, Black Citizens Brigade has Surratt’s community to thank for the store’s success. She’s leveraged her upbringing in ���ϲ����� and attendance and former job at the University to bring more attention to her space.

Downtown, where businesses founded by people of color statistically don’t last as long as businesses with white business owners, is where the physical storefront is located, Surratt says. However, Surratt knows that being a visible part of the community beyond the brick-and-mortar is crucial, as it shares the message that Black and brown businesses are here to stay.

“We’re at a very pivotal time in our city to bring the message,” says Surratt.

Looking forward, Surratt hopes to expand her storefront and host interactive events, such as poetry workshops and listening sessions. In her store lined with archival photos of Black domestic life, Surratt is aiming to cultivate a feeling of homecoming for all who enter.

“I want it to feel like you’re coming into a Black family photo album.”

Story by Isabel Bekele, communications assistant in the College of Professional Studies

Ford was part of an inaugural cohort of twelve innovative startups selected from a pool of more than 1,000 global applicants and will begin the program later this month.

Ben Ford

Ford began the program at in San Francisco in early October and then transitioned into the hybrid accelerator program based in Oakland, California. During the three-month accelerator program, founders are supported through a global network to prepare for a Demo Day with top Silicon Valley investors on January 11, 2024.

The program connects founders to successful entrepreneurs, other founders, mentors, universities and potential investors to foster connections. It focuses on transformative technologies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, financial technology, health technology, education technology, climate technology and social impact.

Ford is the sixth ���ϲ����� alumni founder to bridge into Techstars, considered the most prestigious accelerator program in the world. He joins Josh Aviv ’15 G’17, founder of SparkCharge (Techstars Boston); AJ Damiano ’18, co-founder of Dropyacht and Michael Paris ’20, product leader at Everyrealm, both former co-founders of PowerSpike before it was acquired by Live Current Media Inc. (Techstars Atlanta); Kelsey Davis ’19 G’20, founder of CLLCTVE (Techstars LA); and Shawn Gaetano ’20, founder of Solace Vision (Techstars LA). Both Aviv and Davis were recently named inaugural , recognizing the top 50 fastest growing ���ϲ����� alumni companies.

“Selection into the Techstars program is a very high bar,” said , Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Executive Dean of the Whitman School. “That said, I know firsthand that Ben Ford is someone who understands that successful entrepreneurs seek out and embrace opportunities to have their ideas challenged and tested by others who have navigated the entrepreneurial journey, and this is exactly what the Techstars initiative is all about. I couldn’t be prouder of Ben for his selection into this prestigious program and more excited for what’s ahead for Fundwurx.”

“I am grateful for the support we received through ���ϲ�����. We are appreciative of our advisors, mentors and close supporters who have been with us on this journey from the beginning and who have played a role in helping us reach this milestone. We’re so excited to become part of the Techstars family,” Ford says. “Being accepted into Techstars has been a goal of ours for quite some time. We are most excited to learn new frameworks and ways to think about the business when it comes to customers, product and financials, as well as to collaborate with a cohort of other great founders from around the world.”

Ford’s company Fundwurx is a business-to-business software platform that empowers human resources and social impact teams within companies to create and manage their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives more efficiently, as well as engage employees with nonprofits to donate and volunteer. Fundwurx enables businesses to streamline and automate outdated, decentralized and time-consuming CSR processes, such as conducting nonprofit due diligence, approving corporate gift match requests, and tracking and reporting on key social impact data. The platform provides a robust product suite that includes a real-time analytics dashboard as well as a tool to make it easier for company administrators to approve gift match requests in one click through their innovative backend payment infrastructure.

“At Fundwurx, we believe that every company can and should be a positive force for good in the world. That is why we are on a mission to empower companies with the tools and technology to drive positive impact easier than ever before. We fundamentally believe that CSR can be accessible for every business to implement and are excited to begin integrating the solution with real businesses,” Ford says.

Ford launched Fundwurx as a ���ϲ����� student studying marketing and data analytics, while working closely with the Blackstone LaunchPad at ���ϲ����� Libraries and LaunchPad founder Linda Dickerson-Hartsock. He also worked in the LaunchPad as Rubin Family Innovation Mentor, providing insight and support for other University startups throughout his college career. Ford is a member of the LaunchPad’s Founders Circle, an alumni group of ���ϲ����� students who started ventures as students and give back as alumni mentors.

Ford’s entrepreneurial journey started when he was eighteen with his first company, Jersey Boy Apparel. Jersey Boy Apparel was a clothing brand that sold sports jerseys to male and female college students across the country. The products infused the traditional sports jersey aesthetic with a new modern approach. As a solopreneur, Ford designed a product with foreign and domestic manufacturing and supply chains, managed a brand ambassador program of over 150 college students throughout the country, and collaborated with small celebrity influencers.

After embracing his enthusiasm for startups, Ford transitioned to working for an advertising technology startup based in San Fransisco called Omneky. While still in college, he worked with the sales and marketing team, helping source and close customers and lead various corporate strategy projects with other team members.

After these two enriching experiences, Ford then worked as a summer analyst for the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. This provided him with a firsthand view of the significant impact that a for-profit company can have in effecting positive change at a large scale.

While at ���ϲ�����, Ford won over $35,000 in non-dilutive funding for Fundwurx from business pitch competitions, including first place in the 2023 Whitman Panasci Business Plan Competition and top wins in ‘Cuse Tank, Impact Prize, Raymond vonDran iPrize, Intelligence ++ and the statewide finals of the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards. He also secured two LaunchPad Innovation Fund awards to help incorporate his venture and build his platform to test.

“Ben Ford is an outstanding example of what the Blackstone LaunchPad at ���ϲ����� Libraries was designed to do, namely provide an opportunity for students to launch into the world as engaged citizens and leaders,” says , Dean of the Libraries and University Librarian. “Ben is the sixth student and LaunchPad alumni accepted into the competitive Techstars program. We’re thrilled to see his success and delighted we had a part in his and his company’s development.”

As he developed his venture, Ford grew by raising angel investment to develop his prototype, which officially launched in September 2023, and onboarded several pilot companies including , one of the nation’s leading providers of mission-driven capital. He currently has a waitlist of more than 550 nonprofit organizations and has officially signed up over 100 nonprofits on the platform.

“I had the privilege to meet Ben about two years ago and become his advisor. His passion, creativity, work ethic and intelligence has created the foundation for an amazing company. I’m so proud to support and be an investor in this company. I can’t wait for the next chapter,” says Marc Synderman, one of Ford’s external advisors, a Philadelphia-based attorney, investor and entrepreneur.

Techstars Silicon Valley programs are led by Neal Sáles-Griffin, an entrepreneur, investor and educator who is managing director of Techstars San Francisco (), Oakland ( and Techstars . Over the past four years, he has made 100+ investments in early-stage technology startups. Ford will be working closely with Sáles-Griffin on the next stages of Fundwurx.

“This academic year, we have 100 first-generation undergraduates, including true first-year students and transfers. This reflects about 19% of our fall 2023 incoming class,” says Whitman Interim Dean Alex McKelvie, noting that is an increase from 12% in fall 2022. “First-generation status—where neither parent attended a university—come from a variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. And, it is a testament to one of Whitman’s core values—inclusion—by ensuring that those who are the first in their families to navigate the college experience have our support to do so successfully.”

From the first interaction, the goal of the Whitman First Program is to make students feel that they belong here, according to Lindsay Quilty, assistant dean of undergraduate programs and creator of this program. While attendance is not mandatory, more than a third of the first-generation students enrolled at the Whitman School this year signed on to participate.

According to Quilty, college students who have at least one mentor statistically have a greater chance of moving from their first year to their sophomore year and ultimately have a higher graduation rate. Consequently, one of the key components of the Whitman First Program is pairing students with faculty and staff mentors, most of whom were first-generation college students themselves.

Sebastian Tideman-Frappart, assistant professor of accounting, was a first-generation college student when he enrolled at the University of Bremen in his native Germany. “At the time, I didn’t know how to ask for help. I questioned what major to choose and even if I had what it took to study there,” he explains. “Everything was quite overwhelming, and it would have saved me a lot of struggles and stress if I had had someone to reach out to for help. So, when I heard about the opportunity to mentor a first-generation college student here at the Whitman School, I was very enthusiastic to help. I’ve already connected with my mentee, and I hope to be a resource to him and develop an open door relationship where I can assure him it’s normal to face some struggles and OK to ask plenty of questions.”

Doris Dai ’27, a student in the Whitman School and the Newhouse School of Public Communications, joined the program. “I almost wasn’t going to sign up for the Whitman First Program, but I’m glad I did, and I’m very happy to have Dawn McWilliams, director of marketing and communications—who also was a first-generation college student—as my mentor,” Dai says. “Being that I’m from all the way across the country, having a mentor feels like a safety net I can fall back on if I ever need help navigating anything to appears to be a challenge.”

In addition to providing mentors, the Whitman First Program will also hold formal sessions throughout the academic years to cover “just in time topics” suggested by Whitman faculty and staff. These address ideas like financial awareness, an introduction to the various clubs and organizations that can help students build upon their business experience, and information on how and why to pursue an internship or consider study abroad. The program also has sessions that teach students the necessary technology used in Whitman classes, familiarize them with business lingo and help to match their skills and interests when choosing a major.

“T��� University already does a great deal to support first-generation students, so we’re not trying to duplicate those efforts. But Whitman is committed to student success and being able to tailor our program, specifically help our first-year students thrive in the business school environment, is important for the Whitman School,” explains Quilty. “We know that first-generation college students tend to be naturally resourceful, determined and creative—which are often some of the best qualities found in great business leaders—and we hope to harness that energy and dedication.”

“Being accepted into the Whitman School is a huge milestone in the first place, as we have a very competitive acceptance rate. Our goal, of course, is ensuring our students earn their degrees,” she adds. “Our Whitman First Program not only helps first-generation students realize it’s OK to ask for support over their four years here but is also an intentional way of giving them the skills, confidence and resources they need to succeed both now and well into their business careers.”

“This is a huge achievement for ���ϲ����� and the Whitman School,” says J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and executive dean at the Whitman School. “This ranking further validates our commitment to the rigorous pursuit of entrepreneurship and the type of research productivity necessary to advance this important strategic priority. This type of productivity represents the depth of our entrepreneurship programs and of our faculty who demonstrate scholarly excellence through their dynamic research and findings in the discipline.”

“We are proud of the academic excellence and research productivity at ���ϲ����� and in the Whitman School by our outstanding group of faculty,” says Alexander McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School. “This ranking has grown in importance in recent years given it’s the only global research ranking of its kind. Not only does our position on this ranking highlight our thought leadership in the competitive entrepreneurship space, it also affirms that the University’s strategic focus on leveraging our entrepreneurial spirit in everything we do continues to serve us well–from both an academic and research perspective. We don’t just talk about entrepreneurship at ���ϲ�����, we live it every day.”

Launched in 2009 by the at Texas Christian University (TCU), the TCU Global University Entrepreneurship Research Productivity Rankings track research articles in entrepreneurship journals according to authorship and university affiliation. ���ϲ����� and the Whitman School were ranked based on publications by its faculty in three of the top entrepreneurship journals—Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal—over five years from 2018-2022.

The data for this ranking is not adjusted for faculty size. All counts are made at the university level; differentiations are not made between departments or other units. Only one affiliation per article is counted.

Jack Adler ’23, G’24 (far right) was awarded the $25,000 first-place prize for Out2Win sports. From left are Derrell Smith ’10, G’13; Maria Minniti, chair of Whitman’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises and Bantle Chair in Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, and Adler.

Held Sept. 29 at the Whitman School, this “Shark Tank”-like competition showcased the ideas of Whitman students and alumni as they competed for cash prizes and valuable feedback from alumni entrepreneurs and business professionals judging the event.

Forty-one ventures were submitted for initial consideration this year with five selected to pitch at the competition based on a variety of criteria that ranged from market potential and sound execution strategy to the ability to protect the intellectual property and the scalability of the business.

Thanks to the continued generosity of Whitman Advisory Council (WAC) member and University Life Trustee John Couri ’63 (College of Arts and Sciences (A&S)), H’08, $35,000 in cash prizes for first, second and third place were awarded at the competition.

New this year was the inaugural Scrub Daddy Jumpstart Innovation Award of $10,000 presented by Aaron Krause ’92 (A&S), founder, president and CEO of Scrub Daddy, who also served as one of the Orange Tank judges at this year’s competition.

The five finalists presented a 5-minute pitch followed by a Q&A from the judges, who, along with Krause, included Blake Brossman ’98 (), founder of PetCareRx; Molly Fisher ’08, G’12, head of finance for Skiptown and a member of the Young Whitman Advisory Council; and Keir Weimer ’11, founder and CEO of Weekender Hotels.

While the judges deliberated behind closed doors, Maria Minniti, chair of Whitman’s Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE), thanked the competition’s sponsors and gave the audience an overview of the outstanding work going on within the EEE department.

Event emcee and former ���ϲ����� and NFL football player Derrell Smith ’10 (), G’13 (), now an entrepreneur, executive producer and host of “Mad Good Food” on Tastemade and CEO of 99EATS, then had a Q&A with Sam Hollander ’21 (Whitman/Newhouse). Hollander was one of last year’s Orange Tank winners with ShareClub, an entrepreneurial venture that enhances the ownership experience for the everyday investor by providing the tools and resources to achieve their financial goals.

After much anticipation, the judges announced their decision with Jack Adler ’23, G’24 walking away with a $25,000 first-place prize for Out2Win sports, a platform designed to streamline the way brands connect with athletes for marketing partnerships. Eric Marcarian ’06 received a $7,500 second place prize for Mission Focused Ethos, a digital solution designed for the military that offers a modernized method of aircraft inspection, resulting in more on-time flights; and Xheneta Sopjani G’24 was awarded third place and $2,500 for Revive by Deinde, an at-home anti-aging device using science-based, non-invasive technology.

“I was honored to come away with the grand prize from among such a competitive pool of startups,” says Adler. “T��� winning prize money is legitimately going to help me take Out2Win Sports to the next level.”

Krause presented the Scrub Daddy Jumpstart Innovation Award to Natasha Brao ’22 (VPA), G’23, G’24�� for Shooka, a spicy tomato sauce based on the classic North African and Middle Eastern dish Shakshuka. According to Krause, he selected Brao and her distinctive product because he “saw the potential to get the product to market quickly.”

“Once again this year, the Orange Tank pitch competition was an opportunity to witness the level of innovative thinkers and amazing ideas coming out of the Whitman School,” says Minniti. “It is to the credit of the Whitman School’s EEE department faculty, our students, the judges and our generous donors that Orange Tank continues to be so successful. It’s exciting to see those with such an enthusiastic entrepreneurial mindset take yet another step forward into turning good ideas into great ones.”

Story by Caroline Reff

“We are pleased by the external validation that the Whitman School and our MBA program continue to receive through the rise in national rankings. This is another piece of evidence that our investments in ensuring that our students receive an outstanding education is valuable,” says Interim Dean Alex McKelvie. “While we recognize that rankings are not ends to themselves, the fact that the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings take into consideration a variety of factors that matter to us helps to reinforce that what we are doing is making an impact.”

Bloomberg Businessweek rankings rely on incoming student data (including diversity), placement success at graduation and surveys of the most recent graduating class, MBA alumni from 2015-17 and recruiters. The recent graduates and alumni evaluated Whitman on topics such as their learning experience, opportunities to network and emphasis on entrepreneurial skills in their programs.

“T���se rankings also continue to show Whitman’s upward trend over the past few years, as Whitman has improved from No. 82. These accomplishments further reflect the great team effort of the staff and faculty at Whitman to recruit top talent and support its students,” says McKelvie.

With the help of the business schools, Bloomberg Businessweek surveyed 6,574 students, 10,347 alumni and 713 employers for this year’s ranking.

The complete 2023-24 rankings of 110 full-time MBA programs can be found here:

The complete methodology is available at��

Michael Veley, the Department of Sport Management’s founding director and chair, speaks at the news conference announcing the launch of the groundbreaking Sports, Entertainment & Innovation Conference.

On July 14, and ���ϲ�������University’s , in collaboration with the Las Vegas-based guest experience agency , proudly announced the launch of a first-of-it-kind Sports, Entertainment and Innovation Conference��(SEI-Con) hosting thought leaders and subject matter experts from across the globe to educate, collaborate and create dynamic ventures together.

The inaugural conference will be held in Las Vegas with an opening reception on July 15, 2024, and the three-day conference from July 16-18. The event will include exhibitor pods, innovation labs, daily keynotes, seminars/sessions, roundtables and daily wrap parties with music.

“T���re has been momentum building in the area of professional sports throughout Southern Nevada in recent years, and the economic growth that comes along with it is undeniable,” says University of Nevada, Las Vegas President��. “Through business and workforce development, and of course innovation, UNLV is a key partner in this growth, and SEI-Con is the latest example of our collaborative work to reinforce Las Vegas’ reputation as the world leader in tourism, sports and entertainment.”

Analysts predict the global sports market to reach $2 trillion, which is 2% of the $100 trillion world economy, bolstered by an influx of money from new sources, emerging technologies and growing demand. Already the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas has become an emerging sports destination and is perfectly positioned to host an annual conference focused on the intersection of sports, entertainment and innovation.

“T��� opportunity for our students to work on this world-class event captures the essence of our experiential-based academic programs,” says , founding director and chair and Rhonda S. Falk Endowed Professor in the in Falk College. “We, along with our nationally acclaimed advisory council of industry executives, fully embrace the collaboration with UNLV’s premier programs, the creative genius of Circle, and business partners and sports entities in one of the most dynamic sports and entertainment markets in the world.”

From left to right, Shawn Garrity (Circle), Rodney Paul (���ϲ�����), Michael Veley (���ϲ�����), Sport Management alum Chris Sotiropulos ’09 (vice president of stadium operations for the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders), Jay Vickers (UNLV Sports Innovation) and Vickers’ daughter, Juliana, gather to celebrate the launch of SEI-Con starting in July 2024.

Attendees will have opportunities to meet industry executives and explore the latest innovations in sports and entertainment, esports and gaming, sports sociology and diversity, broadcast brands and media, research and development and more.

“Through collaborations with academic partners and the sports and entertainment industry, we are training the next generation of sports scientists and sports business professionals through interdisciplinary education and research,” says UNLV Sports Innovation Chief Operating Officer . “SEI-Con will produce opportunities for education and collaboration that will result in unprecedented deal-making that will undeniably have a positive impact for our universities, students and the sports and entertainment industry.”

The event will also recognize leadership in sports, entertainment and academia, and connect audiences dedicated to the future of these industries.

“We are eager to display the work being done by our faculty directly in sports, including innovative programs in sport management, sport analytics and our newest program in esports, plus other elements of the college such as sports-related research in exercise science, nutrition and other areas,” says , director of the program and a professor in the Department of Sport Management at Falk College. “We are most excited, however, to show off our greatest asset, our students, on the world stage in the great city of Las Vegas.”

The July 14 kickoff news conference was covered by several media outlets, including the and . from the SEI-Con announcement featuring Veley and Vickers.

The impressive list of SEI-Con speakers for next summer’s conference includes David Falk, Falk College benefactor and one of the sports industry’s leading figures as an NBA player agent; Brandon Steiner, Falk College Department of Sport Management Advisory Council president and a sports marketing expert; ���ϲ����� Director of Athletics John Wildhack; Sport Management Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director Gina Pauline; and Veley and Paul.

For more information about SEI-Con, including a FAQ and how to register, visit the .

The prepare learners for in-demand fields including cybersecurity, data analytics, IT support, project management and UX design—with no experience required. This offering will equip students with job-ready skills as they pursue their degree, while also connecting them to career resources and a network of over through the program’s employer consortium.

“T��� certificate programs from Google are structured to address the skills gap being experienced by a number of employers,” says Arthur Thomas, executive director of the Office of Professional Acceleration and Microcredentials in the College of Professional Studies. “What we’ve created is a hybrid learning experience that builds on the excellent foundations established by Google by adding a dimension of live online sessions with instructors, specific readings, additional videos and discussion groups guided by our faculty. This added perspective and interaction will give our students a distinct advantage as they approach the job market.”

The certificate in cybersecurity is the first of six Google Career Certificates that will be available through ���ϲ�����.

Students who enroll in the Google Career Certificates through ���ϲ����� will unlock access to ���ϲ����� services, including personalized student support, career services and one-on-one instructor support. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to directly discuss course content through virtual live sessions that offer moments to engage with classmates and learn from industry experts who help illustrate how concepts are applied in real-life experiences.

When taking a Google Certificate through ���ϲ�����, students get the full Orange experience. The Google and ���ϲ����� partnership brings together two industry leaders to create a fully immersive professional development experience.

Originally designed and taught by Google employees, ���ϲ����� has added perspectives and information from both faculty and practitioners to build an even more comprehensive foundation in these areas. Each certificate program includes over 150+ practice and graded assessments, quizzes or writing assignments to ensure rigor and mastery. To help prepare learners for jobs, the program provides resources including resume templates, coaching from Career Circle and interview practice with Big Interview. Graduates are also connected with an of over 150 companies—including American Express, Colgate, T-Mobile, Walmart and Google—that considers them for relevant roles.

“Global interest in cybersecurity jobs among job seekers has reached an all-time high on Google Search this year, yet businesses continue to report a large cybersecurity skills gap,” says Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google. “T��� data is clear: we must create more pathways for people to enter the cybersecurity field and build a lasting career. Google is combining our industry-leading expertise in cybersecurity with our proven approach to training people for in-demand jobs to help create a solution. The Google Cybersecurity Certificate will help businesses fill cybersecurity roles and enable people to earn an industry-recognized credential that will qualify them for a great job.”

A Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) will be available for students who complete the Google Career Certificates through the University. This assessment awards college credits based on prior learning and experiences by identifying direct course overlaps in a specific for-credit program at ���ϲ����� to which the student is applying. The PLA allows students to personalize their learning pathway into a for-credit degree or certificate program.

Since Google launched the original Grow with Google program in 2018, over 200,000 people have graduated in the U.S. Seventy-five percent of them report a positive career impact—such as a new job, higher pay or a promotion—within six months of completion, and over 50% of graduates identify as Asian, Black or Latino.

To learn more about this program, visit .

Whitman Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie, left, and David Panasci ’80.

This new initiative is made possible by Whitman supporter David Panasci ’80. Students will follow a program offered in collaboration with Leadership Greater ���ϲ�����, an organization with the mission to inspire current and future leaders to make a difference in the ���ϲ����� community. The program will include topics related to regional leadership, economic development, discovering and impacting local businesses, how to lead and serve, and envisioning the future of ���ϲ�����. Students will be paired with local business leaders, who will act as personal mentors, and the students will complete a community project.

“���ϲ����� has a rich history of business innovation and success. The emergence of new opportunities locally, such as the arrival of Micron, increasingly makes ���ϲ����� an outstanding place to live and work,” says Whitman School Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie. “Our hope is that this program will inform students about what they can accomplish here after graduation, inspire students about a thriving life here in this community and connect them to local opportunities so that they can hit the ground running once they graduate.”

“As Whitman prepares students to be more engaged citizens, being able to cultivate and connect our local talent in Central New York is something we value highly,” McKelvie says. “We are very grateful to David Panasci for helping the Whitman School make this possible.”

“In recent years, I have met a number of very impressive students via the annual business plan competition at the Whitman School. The level of determination, entrepreneurial spirit and brainpower that I have witnessed has been nothing short of inspirational. We have been fortunate to have a number of these individuals launch their careers here in the ���ϲ����� area,” says Panasci. “It is my expectation that this initiative will not only give participants the chance to learn about leadership and the local community, but will also help them recognize that Central New York can provide solid career opportunities along with an exceptional quality of life. I believe those who do stay and take leadership roles will have a profound impact on the future of the region.”

The program will be launched in the fall. Students who are interested in pursuing the program can apply via the Handshake application through Whitman’s Career Center. A formal launch event will take place early in the fall 2023 semester.

“As we prepare students for a lifetime of professional success, we want to ensure that students have the mentoring, guidance and knowledge of the bountiful opportunities in ���ϲ�����,” says McKelvie. “T��� Whitman School already offers a number of impactful community programs, such as the , , and . Specifically investing in growing our local leadership talent is the next big step in our commitment to the local community. We’re excited about launching this new initiative.”

Published by the Pearson IT Certification on May 23, the textbook is an independent study guide authorized by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

“We all have taught project management for many years, and PMI allowed us the freedom to include what we thought was needed to make this book suitable for a college class in project management, while still providing the needed information for the certification exam,” Thomas says. “This textbook gave us an opportunity to include what we always considered essential, while also functioning as a self-teaching guide for students.��Due to its timing, we tailored the book to the new PMI exam that was just announced, so we’re already up to date with the focus of the new CAPM certification.”

To learn more about the project management resource, visit or

Dina ’91 and David Nass ’91

According to Whitman School Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie, “This kind of support for mental health-related issues is something we haven’t seen at many other business schools, despite it being increasingly important for young professionals to understand. The programming we are creating through the generosity of the Nass family is forward-thinking and rare. It’s asking our students: ‘What does happiness look like to you?,’ ‘How will you prioritize the important things in your life?’ and ‘How will you deal with the challenges?’”

“At the end of the day, our goal is to better prepare our students for professional and personal success that allows them to thrive,” McKelvie adds. “Creating this signature initiative, which will leverage expertise from across campus, will help students do just that. And, we are very grateful to the Nass family for helping the Whitman School make this possible.”

The development of this new initiative also supports the recent of dual undergraduate and master’s public health and business programs with the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. Given the new dual programming, creating a tighter relationship between the two schools was central to the Nass family.

As managing director and head of real estate finance at UBS Investment Bank in New York City, David knows all too well the stresses and long hours involved in rising through the banking industry. Dina, who majored in psychology, and for a time worked as a substance abuse counselor, also understands the pressures and stigma attached to mental health issues in the workplace.

“We believe that mental health awareness is a key ingredient to being healthy and happy. Therefore, it is critical to educate students and business professionals about mental health awareness and to destigmatize mental health issues,” says David. “Our goal with this program is to provide students and graduates with tools and resources to manage daily stressors, maintain healthy relationships and be able to recognize if and when they need to seek support. These skills, combined with the ability to make informed decisions, can provide the opportunity to live healthy and happy lives while still enjoying a thriving career.”

The initiative will encompass more than coursework and include expert guest speakers, symposiums, technology and the introduction of a variety of mental health topics for both graduate and undergraduate students. A formal launch event will take place early in the Fall 2023 semester.

“As we prepare students for a lifetime of professional success, I can’t think of a more important skill we can provide them with than one that will aid in dealing with the personal challenges that they—or their friends, family members and teammates—are going to face,” says McKelvie. “Addressing issues related to mental health, such as work-life balance, stress, anxiety, dealing with rejection or burnout, can lead to more fulfilling lives and potentially a more reasonable view of success for our students.”

About the Whitman School

The Martin J. Whitman School of Management at ���ϲ����� inspires students for a world of accelerating change. Offering B.S., MBA, M.S. and Ph.D. programs, all accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Whitman School’s faculty includes internationally known scholars and researchers, as well as successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. Whitman continues to be ranked among the nation’s top business schools by U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek. To learn more about the Whitman School of Management, visit .

About ���ϲ���������

���ϲ����� is a private research university that advances knowledge across disciplines to drive breakthrough discoveries and breakout leadership. Our collection of 13 schools and colleges with over 200 customizable majors close the gap between education and action, so students can take on the world. In and beyond the classroom, we connect people, perspectives and practices to solve interconnected challenges with interdisciplinary approaches. Together, we’re a powerful community that moves ideas, individuals and impact beyond what’s possible.��

About Forever Orange: The Campaign for ���ϲ�������

Orange isn’t just our color. It’s our promise to leave the world better than we found it. Forever Orange: The Campaign for ���ϲ����� is poised to do just that. Fueled by more than 150 years of fearless firsts, together we can enhance academic excellence, transform the student experience and expand unique opportunities for learning and growth. Forever Orange endeavors to raise $1.5 billion in philanthropic support, inspire 125,000 individual donors to participate in the campaign, and actively engage one in five alumni in the life of the University. Now is the time to show the world what Orange can do. Visit to learn more.��

Aidan Mickleburgh ’23 G’23 holding the second place prize in the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) InVenture Prize competition.

Mickleburgh is founder of Intervea, an AI-powered patient medication compliance platform that can help avoid recurrent and preventable emergency room visits. “Over 700,000 patients are readmitted to the hospital each year due to prescription compliance problems like access, affordability and the ability to get answers to questions about usage,” says Mickleburgh. “T���se readmissions cost hospitals over $58 billion a year and are largely preventable but happen because of a lack of continuity and follow-ups after discharge. Intervea creates a unified platform between previously siloed components of the American healthcare system, lowering healthcare compliance barriers for patients of all demographics. These innovations are all possible because of the recent advancements in natural language processing models and economical last-mile delivery services which can allow for a more cohesive patient experience.”

Intervea provides three core services: facilitating prescription delivery so that patients can get their medication delivered the same day they are discharged; using artificial intelligence to create a 24/7 SMS service that can answer patient questions about medication use with regular follow up to ensure that the patient is following treatment protocol; and accessing available patient records and prescription data to help prevent conflicting medication interactions.

Mickleburgh is commercializing his idea with assistance from Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad (LaunchPad). He is supported by an advisory team of alumni and community mentors who include Health Protection and Promotion Act (HPPA) and data security experts, hospital and pharmacy professionals, and product and business development executives. Mickleburgh is also pursuing a Certificate in Technology Licensing and Entrepreneurship through the College of Law. He is a Rubin Family Innovation Mentor at the LaunchPad, where he helps other student startups with the venture development. He is also a graduate of the Invent@SU summer accelerator program offered by the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to have been able to represent ���ϲ����� on a televised national stage. Receiving this award is a validation of the importance of this problem to millions of patients just like me and a catalyst to push Intervea to new heights as we work to deliver our new care model to hospitals nationwide. Thank you to all my incredible advisors and mentors and to the LaunchPad Community. This is our win!” says Mickleburgh.

The LaunchPad coordinates the campus qualifier and mentors teams that compete for the coveted title of top ACC innovator. LaunchPad teams have been to the finals each year of the program. ���ϲ�����’s participation is supported by the Office of Academic Affairs.

WISE is funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration and hosted by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Designated by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) as a Women’s Business Center in 2006, WISE has supported thousands of women reach their small business goals. In 2022 alone, WISE supported over 600 women with no-cost programs and services. This included over 1,000 hours of no-cost technical assistance in areas ranging from business planning and financial projections, to creating a plan for strategic growth. Over 40% served were minority women.

As one of nearly 150 women business centers across the nation, WISE is funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration and hosted by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

The unprecedented impacts of the pandemic continue to take their toll on the economy and our community. The challenges women business owners face often require a unique approach. This special funding will allow WISE to support women with the technical assistance they need when they need it and position the counseling program for the future. This work will include hiring a Spanish-speaking small business counselor.

“The demand for expert technical assistance has risen significantly. We’re incredibly grateful to ���ϲ����� for recognizing the importance of equitable access to trusted small business resources. We take our role in the community seriously and will do all we can to stand behind and beside CNY women as partners in their success,” says Meghan Florkowski, director of the WISE WBC.

“Over the past decade, women have represented one of the fastest growing segments of the community business owners across the U.S. Here in Central New York, the WISE Women’s Business Center has fueled that growth locally and empowered countless women in pursuit of their business ownership aspirations. For that reason, ���ϲ����� is proud to support and advance the work of the WISE Women’s Business Center,” says Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship.

The new undergraduate dual degree program will prepare students to be versatile, multidisciplinary and future-leading thinkers in careers related to sport management and business.

The new undergraduate sport management/business dual degree program is an innovative program that combines rigorous business training with in-depth knowledge of the high-growth area of sport management. This new dual degree program will prepare students to be versatile, multidisciplinary and future-leading thinkers well-prepared for careers related to various aspects of sport management and business.

This dual degree program is offered in a streamlined format. For the undergraduate dual program, students can complete the degree with a minimum of 148 credits and can graduate in four years.

“T���re is so much potential for this new dual-degree program as the areas of sports and business continue to overlap. We have seen this recently as part of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) regulations for student-athletes; the commercial aspects of sports and related events, merchandising, marketing and entrepreneurship; and the emergence of the business side of esports, among other areas. Having our students become stronger interdisciplinary thinkers about these issues is truly beneficial,” Whitman School Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie says. “We’re also delighted to partner with Falk and its outstanding sport management program. We hope that this will continue to pay dividends for preparing our students for the future.”

“Falk College has been a national leader in educating future industry professionals in sport business, marketing and analytics for two decades,” says Falk College Dean Diane Lyden Murphy. “T��� new undergraduate dual degree program between Falk’s sport management program and the highly regarded Whitman School capitalizes on synergies between sport management and business disciplines to give students a competitive edge in the job market. By gaining specialized skillsets in both sport management and business, students will be well-equipped to meet new emerging and evolving sectors of the thriving global business of sport.”

“We are confident that this new dual degree sport management and business program will attract highly qualified and diverse students based on the quality and unique approaches of both schools. We hear with great regularity from students and their families about the demand for this type of program,” McKelvie says.

Admission requirements will remain similar for both programs and emphasize both academic credentials and leadership potential. Dual degree programs are highly demanding, and students should possess both strong analytical abilities and the soft skills needed for leadership positions.

For more detailed information about new dual programs, visit the .

Sport analytics major Hett ’23 and sport analytics alumnus Klaus ’22, G’23 recently finished second at the (TPBNC) in New Orleans, Louisiana. The competition annually attracts competitors from top law schools across the United States and high-profile judges from the NBA.

“I was thrilled to place second overall in the competition,” says Hett, who’s from North Berwick, Maine. “In a field of over 40 teams, my goal was to make the final round. As the event progressed, I did believe that we could win. We gave it our best effort, but came up just short.”

alumnus Chris Robinson ’15 created the event while he was a student at Tulane Law School. The competition randomly assigns students to act as an agent or a team to represent an active NBA player who is eligible for free agency in the summer.

Jackson Hett (left) and Preston Klaus display their runner-up plaque after earning the highest finish by a non-law school team in the history of the Tulane Pro Basketball Negotiation Competition.

Both sides negotiated, seeking to come to a legal contract under the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. The competitors were judged on Negotiation Ability/Strategy, Basketball/NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement Knowledge and Strength of the Deal.

“We were told this year’s negotiations were the most competitive and that we were just a few votes shy of winning it all,” says Klaus, a Palm City, Florida, native who graduated with a degree in sport analytics last year and is now studying finance at ���ϲ�����. “Even in defeat, we knew we made a positive impression and exceeded expectations.”

In the first two rounds, Hett and Klaus faced off against law students from Loyola University Chicago/Chicago-Kent College of Law and University of California (UC), Berkeley. After negotiating against the University of Massachusetts, ���ϲ�����’s Hett and Klaus were one of four teams to reach the final round, where they negotiated against third-year law students from Tulane in front of 32 NBA executives.

In the final negotiation, Hett and Klaus placed second by two votes.��It was the highest finish by a non-law school team in the competition’s history, and they were the youngest team in the event this year.

“T��� department is very proud of Jackson and Preston for not only taking the chance to enter this top-notch competition, knowing it was stacked with law students and graduate students, but to then finish second is unbelievable,” says Sport Analytics Director . “It truly shows how talented they are and how the Falk College’s sport analytics program is making a name for itself around the country in these types of competitions and conferences. Jackson and Preston are destined for success in the sport industry.”

To learn more about their performance at the TPBNC, we asked Hett and Klaus about their passion for sport analytics, their negotiating strategy and what it was like to reach the finals.

Winning team and judges from Hult Prize Competition Qualifier: Chris Thomas, a judge; Tree-Spun team members Nicole Byrnes, Rob Goldblatt and Paul Sausville; Caeresa Richardson, a judge; Cjala Surratt, a judge; and organizer Sasha Temerte

, a student in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and co-founder of Tree-Spun, and his teammates, Paul Sausville and Nicole Byrnes, both from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, won the 2023 ���ϲ����� Libraries’ Blackstone LaunchPad Hult Prize campus qualifier competition. The competition was held at the LaunchPad in Bird Library on Feb. 17.

��is a prestigious global business competition started by a partnership between the����and the��. The competition challenges students to present products, services, technologies and other solutions to societal problems.

This year’s challenge is Redesigning Fashion, which asks student teams to pitch a for-profit business venture in the fashion/clothing industry that positively impacts people and the planet.

Rabia Razzaq ’23, a student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and founder of Re-mend, and Sahitya Sampath ’25, a student in the Whitman School and founder of Block Threads, were runners-up.

Winners of the campus competition will advance to a regional competition for a chance to compete with international student teams for the opportunity to work with world class mentors and pitch at the United Nations for $1 million in investment. Past ���ϲ����� winners have gone on to compete in Toronto, Boston and San Francisco.

This year’s Hult Prize Competition qualifier was organized by Alesandra (Sasha) Temerte ’23, a student in the College of Arts and Sciences and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a LaunchPad Global Fellow.

Fabiola Lara ’13 and her husband, Sabith Khan G’11, have launched a business that sells artisan goods from Mexico. Its name, Tlali Pani, translates to earth in Nahuatl and water in Hindi and Urdu.

But the married Maxwell alumni pair were troubled by the artisans’ lack of access to platforms to sell their goods and by customers’ apparent lack of knowledge about the items they were buying.

Last year, Khan and Lara launched a business, Tlali Pani, that offers handmade goods from the community they visited. They work directly with women-led artisan families who set their own prices based on the pieces they design together. Khan and Lara are committed to sustainable processes and materials, and they work to educate their customers about the traditions connected to their wares.

Both say their education and experiences at the Maxwell School have been foundational in the business endeavor. Lara earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 2013, while Khan earned master’s degrees in public administration and international relations in 2011.

“We both had a life-transformative educational experience,” says Khan, who attended Maxwell after finishing undergraduate studies in his home country, India.

Lara says, “For me, it was being exposed to global issues and perspectives around cultural exchange, empathy, and deep understanding of systemic inequalities that keep people from having equitable access to resources that can be transformative for future generations.”

The pair likely crossed paths in the halls of Maxwell while both were students, but they didn’t meet until the summer of 2011, just after Khan graduated. He had relocated to Washington, D.C., for work but returned to New York to attend and help facilitate a peace-building retreat co-organized by the Maxwell School. Lara also decided to attend. She was in her junior year; in addition to international relations, she was majoring in French and francophone studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Khan and Lara have now been married seven years and have laid roots in southern California, near Lara’s hometown.

In addition to the business venture, Khan is a professor of public policy at California Lutheran University. He recently published a book that harnesses research conducted in Oaxaca during a 2019 visit.

Lara continued graduate studies after Maxwell, earning a master’s degree in international education development at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014.

“Sabith and I both come from families that value the art of the handcrafting process as well as the knowledge and craft traditions of artisans,” says Lara. “It’s exciting that we’ve started our work in Mexico, Oaxaca specifically, and can offer these premium goods to the public while promoting the economic empowerment of the communities that we partner with.”

Story by Jewell Bohlinger

Ray Wimer

is an assistant professor of retail practice at ���ϲ�����’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

He predicts holiday sales growth (November – December) will be up 6 to 8% this year. He points to several positive signs for growth including expectations that consumers will spend more this year, increased hourly wages and low unemployment numbers. But he says there are some factors pushing against that growth including high inflation, drops in disposable income, and higher energy costs and interest rates.

He provides additional expectations below, which you are welcome to quote. He is also available for interviews.

Professor Wimer says:

“Holiday shopping started in early October with Amazon’s Prime Day. Target and Walmart sales, as well as others, have offered early discounts and sale days. Many retailers are still dealing with too much inventory from delayed orders and/or softening consumer demand over the summer and fall. Retailers are also trying to slow down the ever-increasing flow of returns. Retailers are shortening the return window, charging for online returns and giving refunds as store credit.

“T��� value holiday shopper maybe rewarded this year as the inventory issues have led to retailers discounting earlier (note not in all categories). Promotions will be at the same level or higher than last year. The consumer must be willing to compare prices to get the best deal. The consumer will also want to understand updated return policies, especially if purchased online.”

To request interviews or get more information:

Daryl Lovell
Associate Director of Media Relations
M��315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu |

���ϲ�����

2022 Panasci Business Plan Competition winners

The 2023 competition will be held on April 14. The Panasci Business Plan Competition, hosted at the Whitman School of Management at ���ϲ�����, is a campuswide student event made possible by a longtime Whitman supporter, the late , founder of Fay’s Drugs.

Competing gives collegiate entrepreneurs real-world experience to pitch their startups, enhance their business strategies and learn what it takes to launch successful companies. The Panasci competition is open to all students at ���ϲ�����. Applicants will write and submit a business plan for the chance to advance to the finals on April 14, 2023, at the Whitman School.

Key Dates

• Dec. 2, 2022, 7-8 p.m.: First information session, Q&A to learn about the competition and hear from past winning teams. .
• Jan. 30, 2023, 7-8 p.m.: Second information session, Q&A to learn about the competition and hear from past winning teams. .
• Jan. 31, 2023, midnight: Submission of due—not mandatory to compete but useful to stay up-to-date on the competition.
• Feb. 18-19, 2023: Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises 458—Business Plan Laboratory weekend course offered to learn how to write a business plan (1 credit). It is not a pre-requirement to compete but useful to write a better business plan. For information about the course, email Professor of Entrepreneurial Practice Ken Walsleben at kpwalsle@syr.edu.
• March 26, 2023: Deadline to submit business plan��to compete.
• April 14, 2023: , Whitman School of Management.

A Few Items to Get You Started

• Review the .
• If you need help preparing for the competition, reach out to the Blackstone LaunchPad at ���ϲ����� Libraries by email.
• .

The Newhouse School’s has been by Billboard magazine. The program has been included on the publication’s “Top Music Business Schools” list every time it has run.

The Bandier program combines the study of the business of music, media, marketing and entrepreneurship with hands-on experiences to prepare students for a successful career in the music industry. It was made possible through a generous gift from ���ϲ����� Trustee and Sony/ATV Music Publishing Chairman and CEO Martin Bandier ’62.

The Billboard announcement notes the 10-year run of the program’s David M. Rezak Music Business Lecture Series, which has allowed students to hear from and network with major industry figures, including Tat Tong, head of A&R for Sony Music in Greater China, and Jacqueline Saturn ’90, president of Virgin Music Label and Artist Services.

“It’s just one of the ways the program, a creative community housed within the larger, high-spirited student body of ���ϲ�����, fortifies its industry-facing curriculum.”

���ϲ����� was the site of a historic announcement today by Micron Technology, which will invest $100 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication facility in the Town of Clay. From left are Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, Chancellor Kent Syverud, New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul and Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. (Photo by Ross Knight)

Earlier today, ���ϲ����� was the site of a historic announcement of a transformational investment by Micron Technology in the Central New York region: a $100 billion semiconductor fabrication facility in the Town of Clay—the largest investment and facility of its kind in the United States. Officials with Micron announced plans to build a leading-edge memory fab in New York state this morning during an event in the K.G. Tan Auditorium, at the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Building, home of the National Veterans Resource Center.

Micron Technology Inc. is one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies and the only U.S.-based manufacturer of memory. The new megafab will increase domestic supply of leading-edge memory and create tens of thousands of new jobs. It is the largest private investment in New York state history.

Chancellor Kent Syverud welcomed Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and several local, state and federal government representatives for this significant announcement that will impact the region and state for generations to come. The investment will create the largest-ever cleanroom space announced in the U.S., creating nearly 50,000 New York jobs over more than 20 years. Those include 9,000 new high-paying Micron jobs and over 40,000 community jobs, including suppliers, contractors and other supporting roles.

In August, President Joe Biden L’68 signed off on the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which will increase the country’s production of semiconductors while fueling efforts to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers.

“I am grateful to President Biden and his administration for making the CHIPS and Science Act a priority, to Senator Schumer and a bipartisan coalition in Congress for passing the legislation, and to Governor Hochul and County Executive McMahon for the local and state partnerships that made this investment possible. Micron will leverage the diverse, highly educated and skilled talent in New York as we look to build our workforce in the Empire State,” said Mehrotra in a . “This historic leading-edge memory megafab in central New York will deliver benefits beyond the semiconductor industry by strengthening U.S. technology leadership as well as economic and national security, driving American innovation and competitiveness for decades to come.”

At today’s event with Micron Technology, Chancellor Syverud recognized the critical efforts of local and state leaders to help bring Micron to the area. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

At today’s event, Chancellor Syverud recognized the critical efforts of U.S. Sen.��Charles E. Schumer, New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul ’80 and County Executive Ryan McMahon, all of whom participated in the event’s speaking program, to help bring Micron to the area. Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. John Katko, ���ϲ����� Mayor Ben Walsh and CenterState CEO President Rob Simpson.

“Micron’s $100 billion investment in New York marks the start of something transformative in scale and possibility for our state’s economic future. I promised that we would jumpstart the economy by being the most business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation, and thanks to our State Green CHIPS legislation, the federal CHIPS and Science Act, and extraordinary partnerships with business, labor, and local and federal leaders, this project will do exactly that,” Gov. Hochul said in a . “Together, we are leveraging this investment—the largest private-sector investment in state history—to secure our economic future, solidify New York’s standing as a global manufacturing hub, and usher the state into another Industrial Revolution.”

���ϲ����� was chosen as the site of today’s announcement because of the University’s deep connections and commitment to the Central New York region.

In a message to the Orange community, Chancellor Syverud said: “This is a proud moment for our University. ���ϲ�����’s academic, economic, cultural and civic contributions to Central New York are among the factors that attracted Micron to our area. The opportunity for collaboration—across all facets of our University—is significant. From internship and career opportunities for our students and alumni, respectively, to interdisciplinary research opportunities, educational programs, veterans initiatives, community building, engagement and investment, and economic development, Micron will quickly become one of our region’s greatest partners and a key driver of Central New York’s long-term prosperity.”

Micron selected the New York site based on the state’s leading higher education institutions, access to talent traditionally underrepresented in technology jobs and a significant military population aligned with Micron’s commitment to veteran hiring. The site also offers access to water and clean, reliable power to enable a project of this scale while achieving the company’s long-term environmental goals.

Micron and the state of New York will also invest a historic $500 million in community and workforce development with a focus on disadvantaged populations over the duration of the project. Reflecting the company’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, Micron’s New York plans include initiatives to address economic disparities and accelerate economic opportunity for underserved communities in the semiconductor industry. Micron aims to hire a diverse workforce for both direct roles as well as broader construction ecosystem jobs.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is an associate professor of Nutrition and Food Studies and the Food Studies graduate director in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.

, an associate professor of in , says the focus of her field—food system sustainability and fair access to healthy food—often overlooks one key element: The people who labor to grow that food.

“In order to have a truly sustainable food system, both locally and globally, I argue food labor, and relatedly, racial justice and immigration policy, must be central to our understanding of how to change the food system,” says Minkoff-Zern, the Food Studies graduate director.

“In addition to addressing working conditions on farms and other parts of the food chain, food systems scholars and practitioners—and really anyone who eats—can and should be looking to the people who do the work to maintain our food system every day as holders of knowledge and leaders in making the changes themselves,” she adds.

Minkoff-Zern, an affiliated faculty member in the departments of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Women’s and Gender Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, has concentrated much of her research on immigrant farmers. Her 2019 book, “,” offered new perspectives on racial inequity and sustainable farming.

Minkoff-Zern’s 2019 book, “T��� New American Farmer: Immigration, Race and the Struggle for Sustainability,” offered new perspectives on racial inequity and sustainable farming.

Minkoff-Zern’s recently published research with Falk College colleagues and , Cornell University Farmworker Program Director , and Falk Food Studies graduate students Anna Zoodsma and Michelle Tynan explores topics related to reforms proposed by the that’s being considered by Congress.

We asked Minkoff-Zern to explain her recent research, how food security and immigration are related, and why what happens to farmworkers matters to you and me. Here’s that conversation:

Q: Can you summarize the focus of your research and the subsequent articles published in the “” and the “?”

A: This research project looks at the federal program and how it functions on the ground. This program is essentially a work visa program for farmworkers who come to the U.S. primarily from Mexico and the Caribbean and work for up to 10 months before they are required to return to their home country.

Our team at ���ϲ����� worked with the Cornell Farmworker Program to better understand the conditions for both workers and farmers engaged in the program, with a focus on mid-sized farms. This was a mixed methods project, where we utilized interviews with farmers, workers, and intermediary agents; U.S. Department of Labor data; and media sources for our analysis. This study is one of the first to look at the work and usage conditions on small- to medium-size farms using this rapidly growing farm labor program.

Q: What stood out to you during your research?

A: We found that the program is challenging for mid-size farmers and problematic for workers. Yet it is often promoted as a bi-partisan, farmer-friendly, and worker-approved approach to address the lack of experienced and willing farm labor in the U.S.

Politicians, media, and lobbying organizations that promote the H-2A program assume it functions the same at all farm scales, ignoring the lack of resources on small- and medium-sized farms to manage and pay for the additional human resources, paperwork, and requirements to use the program. For workers, the program provides a legal entry to the U.S. but mostly limits them to one farm/employer, making it difficult to speak up if things are not safe or fair at work.

The program also overlooks experienced undocumented workers, who have been working for low wages and under difficult conditions in U.S. agriculture for decades yet are unable to apply for these jobs and gain the potential benefits of the program.

Q: What conclusions did you draw?

A: We found that the program is not designed to support the small and middle-sized farmers who grow seasonally available fresh food, nor does it provide a just option for farmworkers. Yet, despite their critique, most farmers do say they still want access to the program, due to a lack of better options.

Ultimately, this program and the related bill (Farm Workforce Modernization Act) are band-aid solutions to a much broader structural problem: producers and laborers in the food system get a smaller percentage of the food dollar, and workers operate within a broken immigration system, forcing them to settle for highly problematic employment options.

Q: The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which has been passed by the House but not yet by Congress, involves changes to the H-2A program. Can you explain the changes that have been proposed?

A: Although this program generally has made up a small portion of the overall agricultural workforce since its inception in 1952, program usage tripled over the past seven years. This growing popularity has prompted heated debates about potential reforms, most recently regarding the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

If this bill were to pass, the H-2A program would be expanded to include year-round agricultural industries, provide a pathway to citizenship for some workers, and temporarily cap the potential for wage increases for workers. It would also force the e-verify system on all agricultural producers, which checks the documentation status of workers. If passed, this would leave a large majority of the experienced farmworkers in the industry out of a job, pushing farmers into using the controversial H-2A program.

Q: What changes would you recommend based on your research?

A: There are no silver-bullet solutions to the problem of farm labor in the U.S. today. As fewer people in the U.S. grow up in rural areas and on farms, we lack an experienced, domestically-born workforce. Additionally, farm labor has a long-rooted history in racial exploitation and relatedly, low wages and poor conditions.

To create a sustainable food system for both workers and farmers, the U.S. needs a more comprehensive agricultural immigration reform strategy, which includes workers that are already in the U.S. working in agriculture and allows for upward mobility for farmworkers.

Farmworkers come to the U.S. with agricultural knowledge and skills, including sustainable practices and how to grow biodiverse food systems. Instead of relegating them to a migrating labor force, a better program would help provide current workers–most of whom are not currently authorized to work in the U.S.–legal access to work and citizenship, so they can live and work without fear. This would also help farm owners, who would not have to fear losing their workforce to an immigration raid and avoid the expensive and bureaucratic process of working with the H-2A program.

Minkoff-Zern says the focus of the food studies field often overlooks one key element: The people who labor to grow that food. (Photo courtesy of the Cornell Farmworker Program)

Q: What can be done to connect your research and recommendations to the lawmakers who are making the decisions?

A: As I mentioned, this project was a partnership with The Cornell Farmworker Program and its director, Mary Jo Dudley. The Cornell Farmworker Program works to disseminate research projects such as ours to a broader policy-making and practitioner audience. We are still working on publishing our third article from this research, and plan to make more formal recommendations to policymakers as all our findings become public.

Q: Why should people care about what happens with the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and the H-2A program? How does it impact our everyday lives?

A: Anyone that cares about access to fresh and healthy food should care about farm labor and related immigration policy. Farmworkers do the labor every day to bring food to our plates. Without a functioning system to justly and safely support workers on a regional and national scale, we risk a food system more vulnerable to climatic shifts and global upheaval.

Q: You worked closely with Food Studies graduate students on your recent research. Can you describe the perspectives they brought to this work?

A: Both Anna Zoodsma G’22 and Michelle Tynan G’23 have been essential to the research on this project and are co-authors on the papers. Students bring unique perspectives, based on their own professional experience, when looking at interview data, literature, and media.

For example, Michelle worked at the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) before starting graduate school in Food Studies, and Anna was doing practicum work on a local project with refugee farmers. Anna took the lead in conducting the media analysis and was the first author on our most policy-relevant paper recently published in the “Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.”