Uncategorized
Message from the Dean – March 2024
How does a business school build a great brand? I ponder this question often; I even did so today as I sat in a meeting room in San Francisco. I’m here on a trip with our Parker Business Scholars; we bring them to the bay area annually to meet with companies, entrepreneurs, and investors. It’s a great way to showcase our best and brightest students and to show the flag around one of the world’s business and innovation centers. It’s also a chance for our students to meet some impressive people who can offer advice and lessons to help them advance and build their careers.
In our sessions, the speakers often give an overview of their own professional journeys, including the schools they attended. What is interesting is, the greater the brand strength of the school, the more frequently people want to mention it. They’ll tell you they attended or graduated or that they lectured or taught at a place. They’ll even tell you that their children or colleagues attended or graduated if it allows them to drop the name one more time. Clearly, the brands of some schools carry great value, which has me pondering how we, at the Parker College, build and sustain a great brand of our own. While I can’t claim all the answers, I can offer some ideas, based on my observations over a long career.
One piece is student success, which means quality education and placement. Graduating lots of well-trained students into good jobs, with good companies, is job one. We also need to connect our alumni to our programs and students, creating a pipeline of talent and leveraging the stories of every success. Faculty members are key. Yes, they must be good teachers, but they must also be experts, who add value through the intellectual capital they create and represent. We need good students and lots of them. Lou Holtz once said good teams are built from good players. We need students hungry for success with the talent, drive, and aspiration to succeed, but good students have options; so, we must become their first option and best choice. Programs like the Parker Scholars and trips like the one we are on are designed to attract good students. But trips are momentary breaks from a routine, and that routine involves hours in the hallways and classrooms of our building. So, our brand is also related to our building and the quality it conveys. All of which brings me back; what drives the brand of a business school? Well, a lot of things. Moreover, it takes doing all of those things, doing them well, and doing them over and again, to ultimately build the sort of brand that will rival the greatest in the world. But therein lies our opportunity. Even the longest journeys consist of many small steps. So, we are intentional in our tenacity and deliberate in our focus. We aspire to greatness, for the Parker College to be among those schools that people boast and brag about. But our aspirations won’t make us great; we have to do the work, do it well, and do it relentlessly. And, all the while, we must stay hungry for the future but excited about the journey, the progress we are making, and the impact we are having.
Students Participate in The Candy Container Competition
by Christian L. Rossetti
On March 7, students in Christian Rossetti’s supply chain management class participated in “The Candy Container Competition.” The exercise used competition and the promise of a sugar-high to motivate students to appreciate the importance of load management in an intermodal setting. Using material available from a local supermarket or general merchandise store, student teams loaded their “containers” for two customers. One customer required palletized square candy, and the second customer required barrels (Dixie cups) of smaller odd-shaped candy. Students received a worksheet that contained the weights of each type of candy in their customer kit packs, the tare weight of the container, and the approximate weight of their cardboard pallets. Students secured the contents of their pallets with shrink-wrap (household plastic wrap) and ensured that their cargo did not shift using dunnage (bubble wrap). They competed to approach but not exceed the 500-gram maximum gross weight of their containers while meeting two constraints: withstanding a 30° tilt and no more than a 20% weight differential between the ends of the container. A debrief reinforced the importance of our responsibility as supply chain professionals for the safety of transportation and material handling workers. The winning team was awarded extra credit points, and all participants were allowed to eat their customers’ shipments.
In 2018, the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education published Rossetti’s article, “The Candy Container Competition: Reinforcing Gross Weight, Balance, and Stowage in Intermodal Transportation,” about this competition.
Athletes Choose Parker
On March 26, Georgia Southern held its annual “Declare Your Major Day.” Britton McKay, Ph.D., associate dean, attended as Parker College’s representative. She is thrilled to announce that nearly one-third of all student athletes participating in the ceremony chose majors from Parker—the largest group to choose majors from the same college this year. We would like to welcome these student athletes to the Parker Family.
Finance Association Hosts Mutual of Omaha
On March 6, Sara Cho and Nico Inman, representatives from Mutual of Omaha, spoke to the Finance Association for the third installment of the Spring 2024 Guest Speaker Series. Sara Cho has worked at Mutual of Omaha for 15 years and is currently the director of the Sales Trainee and Development Program. Nico Inman is an associate sales representative. He joined Mutual Omaha last year after he graduated from Georgia Southern University with a bachelor’s degree in finance.
Sara started the event speaking about her career at Mutual of Omaha, which she built around recruiting, hiring, and developing top sales talent. She explained the concept of group insurance, a large portion of Mutual of Omaha’s business, and as well as several other products the company offers. Next, she mentioned the different career opportunities at the company focusing on the training program as well as the mentorship program. Nico, who just went through the training program, walked the students through his experience with the company so far, highlighting the excellence of the program, which assigned him a mentor from day one and offered weekly virtual and classroom training sessions, as well as a self-study program. He stressed the importance of knowing the insurance language and embracing the entrepreneurial nature of the job, while also providing students an overview of his day-to-day business, which includes meetings with brokers and clients on a regular basis.
Sara and Nico used the second half of the event to provide students with invaluable advice walking them through the “Five Steps to Getting Your Dream Job.” They mentioned the importance of prep-work before an interview, including getting to know yourself, researching the company, designing a well-built résumé, and writing down important points during the interview. Sara and Nico further stressed the significance of preparing a good opening, questions, and overcoming objections during an interview via listening, acknowledging, and responding. Finally, they highlighted a strong closing and the importance of following up after the interview. For each step, Sara provided good and bad examples while Nico shared his own experience during his job interview at Mutal of Omaha.
The event ended with Sara and Nico answering a multitude of questions from the students. Topics of discussion included: “What can students do to prepare for a successful career while in college”; “Nico’s experience moving to a city like Detroit and how the cultures differ between the different locations that Mutual of Omaha offers”; “The impact of regulations on the business of the company”; and “What the speakers like most about working for Mutual of Omaha”; as well as important professional certifications.
Mutual of Omaha is a Fortune 500 mutual insurance and financial services company based in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1909 as Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Association, Mutual of Omaha is a financial organization offering a variety of insurance and financial products for individuals, businesses, and groups throughout the United States.
Alumna in the Spotlight: Shannon Dempsey, CPA
We thank Grice Connect for providing this article.
Shannon Dempsey (ACCT, 2011; MAcc, 2012), CPA, has recently become a partner of Dabbs, Hickman, Hill, & Cannon, LLP, a CPA and business advisory firm providing financial, tax, estate planning, and management services to individuals and businesses with industry and service specialties. While at Georgia Southern, Shannon was active in Kappa Delta Sorority serving, first, as treasurer and, later, as house director. After graduation, she took a position as an assistant office manager at Thigpin, Lanier, Westerfield, & Deal, CPAs, in Statesboro. In 2013, Shannon joined Dabbs, Hickman, Hill, & Cannon, LLP’s Savannah office as a CPA. In her new role, she will continue to advocate for and advise clients. Her fellow partners appreciate her wealth of experience in the accounting profession and her unconditional commitment to their clients. In addition, Shannon is well-known for her marketing, leadership, and customer service skills.
Outside of work hours, Shannon is active in several organizations in the Savannah area including the American Heart Association, United Way of the Coastal Empire, and the Savannah Chapter of the Georgia Society of Certified Public Accountants. She and her husband, J.D., have a daughter, Charlie Rose. They are members of St. James Catholic Church in Savannah.
