Business Briefs SPRING 2021
Black School of Business DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Greetings from the Black School of Business! We are pleased to present Business Briefs, which highlights just Dr. Greg Filbeck some of the great work of our students, faculty and staff, and alumni. Despite the pandemic, our curricular, co-curricular, and outreach efforts remained robust—and all of our mentoring and professional development programs went virtual, which expanded opportunities for our students. With more than 150 professionals guiding the advisory boards of our school, our majors, and our programs and with nearly 400 strategic corporate partnerships, we have many of you to thank for another great year! We are especially proud to be launching two new centers this year and introducing a new resource website for high school teachers and students. This year, we also presented our first-ever business showcase, featuring the Open Lab work of our students. We hope you enjoy this issue of Business Briefs.
Student-Managed Fund Surpasses $1M The Intrieri Family Student-Managed Fund, which began in 2012 with a $100,000 gift from alumnus Vincent Intrieri ’84 and his wife, Joanne, has grown to more than $1 million! Reaching this milestone means funds gained beyond the million-dollar mark will help fund student scholarships. “The original plan was to start offering scholarships in two years to allow us to build up a cushion,” said Dr. Timothy Krause, associate professor of finance and director of the fund. “However, the market has done so well that we are looking at offering a few scholarships starting this fall.” While the scholarships are a nice bonus, the value of the student-managed fund is evident for upper-level Finance students who have the opportunity to actively manage the fund. Many business alumni have told Krause that their experience with the fund has directly contributed to their career trajectory.
CONSIDERING A MASTER’S? In these uncertain times, many recent (and not so recent) graduates and professionals may be looking at ways to better secure their place in the business world. Penn State Behrend’s Black School of Business offers master’s degrees in Business Administration (M.B.A.), Professional Accounting (M.P.Acc.), and Project Management (M.P.M.). If you are considering taking your career to the next level, visit behrend.psu.edu/grad to learn more or to get in touch with our Graduate Admissions staff. Information sessions are held throughout the year.
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BEHREND’S ONLINE PROGRAMS EARN TOP-10 RANKINGS IN U.S. NEWS New rankings by U.S. News & World Report place Penn State’s online degrees — including programs developed and taught by Black School of Business faculty members — among the best in the nation. The programs — undergraduate finance degree and graduate MBA and project management degrees—are offered through Penn State World Campus. U.S. News bases the rankings on statistical and peer-reputation surveys that measure engagement, faculty credentials and student excellence, among other factors. More than 350 institutions participated. In the online finance program, students learn analytical and conceptual skills in capital management, investment and portfolio management, and personal finance. The online master’s degree in project management includes the study of commercial and procurement law, corporate and business strategy, cost control, human relations, and organization theory. In addition to the online MBA option, the Black School of Business offers a 30-credit MBA with full- or part-time study in Erie or at the Regional Learning Alliance in Cranberry Township. All three programs are delivered in a hybrid format of online and in-class instruction. To learn more about online education at Penn State, visit worldcampus.psu.edu.
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O’Mard Receives Alumni Achievement Award Jeremy O’Mard, a 2013 Management Information Systems graduate, was one of sixteen alumni chosen to receive a 2021 Penn State Alumni Achievement award, which honors alumni 35 years of age and younger for extraordinary professional accomplishments. About 100 alumni—eight of them Penn State Behrend graduates—have received the award since it was established in 2005. As a managing consultant and systems engineer with IBM, O’Mard is responsible for the installation, maintenance, and security of the company’s Commissary Advance Resale Transaction Jeremy O’Mard System, a hardware/software solution used at Department of Defense Commissaries around the world. O’Mard is treasurer of Behrend’s new Black Leadership Alumni Coalition Affiliate Programming Group. He also is president of the University’s African-American Alumni Organization of D.C. Alumni Interest Group. In 2018, he served as the programming committee chair for Penn State’s Black Alumni Reunion and is the current Black Alumni Reunion co-chair. He also volunteers with the Maryland Defense Force, a volunteer uniformed state military agency and one of the four components of the Maryland Military Department. O’Mard, who lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was honored in an April ceremony.
Demirag Recognized for Advising Excellence Dr. Ozgun Caliskan Demirag, associate professor of operations and supply chain management, has received the 2021 Penn State Excellence in Advising Award in the faculty adviser category. She was honored in a virtual ceremony this spring. Demirag was chosen for her commitment to academic advising. Selection committee members noted that they were impressed with Demirag’s “commitment to building relationships with students by being available, attentive, and proactive while also bringing in qualities of her research in working with students.” Dr. Ozgun Demirag “Effective academic advising is an essential element of student success and the impact faculty members can have in guiding students cannot be underestimated,” said Penn State Behrend Chancellor Ralph Ford. “Strong student-faculty relationships are among Behrend’s biggest strengths because of dedicated, involved faculty like Dr. Demirag.”
Decades of Service Add Up for Accounting Professor Dr. Ashutosh Deshmukh didn’t plan to be a college professor, but his path has led him to the highest academic rank possible at Penn State: He has been named distinguished professor of accounting and management information systems. The designation of distinguished professor recognizes outstanding academic contributions to the University and service to students. Deshmukh joins Dr. Michael Campbell, distinguished professor of biology, and George Looney, distinguished professor of English and creative writing, in holding the title. Dr. Ashutosh Deshmukh Deshmukh, who grew up in what was then known as Bombay, India, was just 19 years old when he earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting. He worked as an accountant in India before coming to the United States to earn an MBA at the University of Alabama, which is where he got his first taste of teaching. “As part of my assistantship there, I taught calculus and algebra to undergraduate students,” Deshmukh said. “There, I was also exposed to research in accounting and business. That was when I began to consider a career in academia.” After earning his MBA, he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis and joined the faculty at Behrend in 1993. “I enjoy teaching because it is a multi-faceted activity,” he said “It demands that you be on top of your subject matter, be able to communicate complex issues easily, be able to motivate and energize students, stoke the curiosity of your audience, and, most importantly, give students survival skills to make it in the messy real world.”
Black School Launching Two New Centers The Black School of Business is launching two new outreach centers to focus on improving financial literacy and helping family-owned businesses. The new Center for Financial Literacy will expand on the school’s education and training efforts undertaken in recent years in partnership with the CFA Society of Pittsburgh. The center will provide research-based financial education to high school students, secondary school educators, and adults. The Center for Family Business will support the needs of family-owned businesses in northwestern Pennsylvania, which make up about 90 percent of all small businesses in the region. Information and expertise in the areas of succession planning, estate planning, social media, management information, and other aspects critical to the success of family-owned businesses will be advanced by the new center.
New Interdisciplinary Major The Black School of Business, in collaboration with the college’s School of Science, has a new major—a bachelor of science in Interdisciplinary Science and Business (ISB). Students pursuing the ISB degree will have a choice of three business modules—accounting and finance; technical sales; or operations and supply chain management—and three science modules—quantitative science, including courses in statistics, mathematics, visualization, and databases; laboratory science, covering biology and chemistry; and human health, emphasizing studies of the health care industry. Completion of the ISB degree will prepare students to work on the business side of science-based companies and organizations.
Dr. Pamela Gibbs, center, posed with Educational Equity and Diversity Programs staff members, Walaa Ahmad, assistant director, left, and Andy Herrera, director, at the Multi-Cultural Council’s Spring 2021 Gala event in McGarvey Commons.
GIBBS COMES “HOME” FOR MCC GALA Behrend alumna Dr. Pamela (Sumah) Gibbs was the guest speaker at this spring’s MultiCultural Council Gala. Gibbs holds three degrees from the Black School of Business: Marketing ’05, International Business ’06, and an M.B.A. ’07. She also earned a Ph.D. in Information and Interaction Design from the University of Baltimore. She is a researcher at Google, having held positions previously with Walmart, NorthropGrumman, and Bank of America. Of her time at Behrend, particularly her experiences with MCC, Gibbs said, “In these walls, I learned to cultivate my voice, honed my leadership skills, and made lifelong connections. I’m able to speak up and advocate for others today because of the things I learned in MCC and at Behrend.”
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NEW SITE HELPS K-12 BUSINESS TEACHERS The Black School of Business has launched a website, sites.psu. edu/psbehrendbusinesstopics, as a free resource for teachers. It provides a library of K-12 video content and classroom-based activities.The website features video presentations by Behrend faculty members, students, and alumni on subjects like financial literacy, student loans, social media, and the costs of using credit cards. There also is a library of video podcasts, which explore networking, internships, and leadership traits, among other topics.
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Business Showcase Debuts The Black School of Business held its first Business Showcase in April in which students from across a variety of majors presented projects they had undertaken individually or in teams. “The projects on which students presented are excellent examples of Open Lab learning, a hallmark of Penn State Behrend, which provides hands-on learning experiences for students while also benefitting business, industry, and community partners,” said Dr. Greg Filbeck, director of the Black School of Business. This year’s event was held virtually, but future showcases are expected to be in-person events.
Business Briefs is published by the Black School of Business at Penn State Behrend, 281 Burke Center. Phone: 814-898-6107. Web: behrend.psu.edu/business. This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status. U.Ed. EBO 21-207 All the photos in this publication were taken prior to January 2020, were self-submitted, and/or were taken with safety measures in place.
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