Mays Impacts

Bruce D. Broussard ’84 has been selected as a laureate of the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award. The president and CEO of Humana – an accounting and finance graduate from Texas A&M University – accepted the award at the Ripple of Hope Awards Dinner in New York on Dec. 12. His fellow laureates are President Barack Obama, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, and Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav. Robert Kennedy’s daughter Kerry Kennedy presented the awards.

The Ripple of Hope Award Award celebrates influential leaders from all communities who are committed to social change, equality, justice, and basic human rights. Past laureates include President Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bono, George Clooney, and Vice President Al Gore.

“I’m honored to receive the Ripple of Hope Award,” said Broussard in an article from GlobeNewswire. “Robert F. Kennedy inspired our nation to rededicate itself to social and economic justice for all Americans, and that critical work continues today.”

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Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and health and well-being company Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) are launching the Humana-Mays Health Care Analytics 2018 Case Competition to showcase students’ analytical abilities to solve a real-world business problem. The case competition is open to all accredited colleges in the United States.

Students enrolled full-time in accredited Master of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Information Systems, Master of Public Health, or Master of Business Administration programs at an educational institution based in the United States are eligible to enter. Students are invited to join in groups of two to three students—from the same school—to tackle a real-world case that will be announced in September. …Read more

Mays graduate Charles L. Pence ’51 has been recognized as one of the 10 recipients of the 2018 Distinguished Alumnus Award. This is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a former student of Texas A&M University. A full list of the recipients is available from the Association of Former Students. 

The Association of Former Students will further honor all recipients of this award during its annual Distinguished Alumni Gala on Oct. 5. For information about the gala, go to this page or contact Hannah Johnston ’11, Director of Events, at 979-845-7514 or Gala@AggieNetwork.com. In addition, the 2018 recipients will be recognized during the Oct. 6 Texas A&M football game against Kentucky. …Read more

The Mays MS Business program gives students who completed an undergraduate degree in a non-business field an opportunity to develop the necessary skills to be successful in the business world. For Bailey Glenewinkel and Ryan Wendt, it has been a game-changing opportunity.

What started as a group project in the MS Business program is now a career for Bailey Glenewinkel. Bailey, a competitive shotgun shooter armed with an undergraduate degree in Agriculture Business, had a yearning to pursue entrepreneurship. While searching for ways to create her own business, a class within the MS Business program gave her the opportunity she was looking for. In the Integrated Business Experience course (IBE), students create a business and organize a service entity that will enable them “to learn business by doing business.” The business that Glenewinkel and her team created, SKNZ Studios, has become her full-time job.

Ryan Wendt was also a part of the first MS Business class in 2017. Before he was admitted into the program, Wendt completed his undergraduate degree in genetics, but was looking to obtain core business knowledge and skills. After completing the MS Business program, Wendt went to work for Keyence and has found success in his role – and was recently named “Employee of the Month” for June 2018.

Mays Business School offers this 36-credit hour program as a single-cohort, action-based, purposely-designed curriculum intended to help students develop core business acumen, cultivate leadership skills, and dynamically enhance professional marketability in an increasingly competitive job market. The MS Business program is 11 months long and is designed for students with less than 12 months of work experience after completing their undergraduate degree. Students coming directly from their undergraduate degree programs can earn their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in five years.

Note: The MS Business application process will start on Sept. 4.

The percentage of women enrolling in Mays Business School’s Professional MBA Program continues to grow in a sustained effort to increase the number of women leaders in the business world. Over the first five years of the program, female students made up on average 22 percent of each cohort, with a high of 31 percent and a low of 14 percent. The enrollments of the two most recent cohorts (Classes of 2019 and 2020) average 40 percent women, exceeding the national average of 36.8 percent.

This increase is part of the Professional MBA Program’s effort to fulfill Mays Business School’s mission to advance the world’s prosperity. A Morgan Stanley analysis points out that having more gender diversity in businesses results in increased productivity and innovation, better products and decision-making, and higher employee retention and satisfaction. However, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, women – who make up almost half of the U.S. workforce – comprise only 27 percent of chief executives and 27 percent of computer and information systems managers. Furthermore, 24/7 Wall Street found that only 14 of the top 234 companies that own many of the world’s top brands had a female CEO; nine of these companies did not have a woman serving in an executive position or on the board. …Read more

Retailers are stocking fewer goods on their shelves, but have companies taken inventory reduction too far? A number of academic studies of U.S. retailers have revealed an overall decrease in product inventories.

Rogelio Oliva and Gregory Heim, professors in the Department of Information & Operations Management at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, are two of the researchers behind a study that examines this issue using data from 114 U.S. retailers during 2000 to 2013. …Read more

If you entered the Grand Stafford Theater on the evening of August 13, you would have been surrounded by some of the biggest proponents of entrepreneurship in Bryan/College Station. Business owners, Texas A&M University faculty, and members of local agencies such as the Brazos Valley Economic Development Corporation came together around one common interest: Startup Aggieland.

The McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship hosted the Startup Aggieland Reveal Party after hinting that those in attendance would have a chance to “meet the new Startup Aggieland.” Attendees were treated to canapés provided by Chef Tai Lee and enjoyed the industrial-chic atmosphere of the historic downtown Bryan concert venue. Conversations drifted among clusters of attendees, each of them buzzing about what exciting new plans the McFerrin Center had in store for Startup Aggieland. …Read more

Chelsea Anderson recently traveled with 42 other members of the Professional MBA Class of 2019. Stops included Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa.

July 30, 2018:

Every so often in life, an opportunity arises that cannot be missed. For me, that opportunity is the international trip with my Professional MBA program at Texas A&M University. Each cohort is able to select their trip destination and my class picked South Africa. I’ve only been here three days and I can already say that we couldn’t have come to a better place.

As I begin my trip, a recurring thought has been: why am I here?Arvind Mahajan, associate dean of graduate programs, put it best when he asked us to reexamine our own biases and integrate this information to determine: What is my truth? Sunday provided our first chance to determine our truth when we attended the Apartheid Museum and afterward visited the Kliptown township in Soweto. We spent time at the Kliptown Youth Program which provides much-needed education and computer training for the youth of the township. We even got to play a quick soccer game with the KYP students.

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’Jon (Sean) Jasperson has been appointed to the newly-created position of Assistant Dean of Learning Transformation and Academic Technology to be the keeper of data for Mays Business School. Jasperson is uniquely qualified for this position, as he has served as a clinical professor in the Department of Information and Operations Management and as the academic director of the MS-Business program.

“This appointment has been made in the spirit of Strategic Initiative #3, Goal 2 of the Strategic Plan for Mays Business School,” Mays Dean Eli Jones wrote in an email to the faculty and staff of Mays.

Jasperson’s main objectives in his new role will be to:

• Provide strategic oversight for digital technology and learning pedagogies
• Provide leadership in learning design and distance education
• Serve as the IT liaison with Texas A&M University …Read more

Award-winning research publisher and prolific scholar David A. Griffith has joined Mays Business School as its new Marketing Department Head. From Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, he was inaugurated as the Hallie Vanderhider Chair in Business and named the recipient of this year’s Hans B. Thorelli Award by the American Marketing Association.

“In terms of choosing to come to A&M, there were many draws,” said Griffith. “The outstanding faculty in Mays, Dean Jones’ vision and passion for A&M, former colleagues who have joined Mays and love it here. The core values of the institution were also a big draw for me, and of course the outstanding reputation of Texas A&M in both academics and athletics.” …Read more