Month: June 2012

National PTSD Awareness Day & Moral Injury – Make the Connection

Posted on by Brian Kelleher

Wednesday, June 27th was officially recognized as the 3rd annual National PTSD Awareness Day.  PTSD Awareness Day was first established by Congress in 2010 after Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota proposed honoring North Dakota Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Joe Biel, who was a suicide casualty following two tours in Iraq. Biel’s birthday was June 27. Tragically and stunningly, in the first 155 days in calendar year 2012, the active duty armed forces endured 154 suicide casualties – as sure a cry for help as there is.

It took a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions of words, and thousands of shattered lives, for our nation to finally recognize the legitimate and true nature of post-traumatic stress and the effect it has on survivors of trauma. Trauma comes in many many shapes and sizes – I call them species of trauma. Combat, certainly. Accidents, whether vehicular or otherwise. Domestic abuse. Sexual abuse. Bullying. Racism. Crime victimization.

The link above includes 12 ways to increase awareness of PTSD in the community. PTSD does not affect just returning veterans. It affects every community, and all ages. It is, in effect, a 12-Step program for community members to learn about living with trauma.

But soldiers and veterans experience something else – a different species of trauma. Because they are volunteers. Every single one of us volunteered to don the uniform, to strap on the boots, and to take up arms to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. That is a good thing. Its a morally right and defensible action. Love of country is part of the natural order. So what happens?

My friend Nan Levinson of Tufts University is a writer and PTSD researcher. She has written an incredibly insightful essay about “moral injury” crossed posted at Tom Dispatch and the Huffington Post. Entitled Mad, Bad, Sad: What’s Really Happened to America’s Soldiers, she calls these moral injuries “sacred wounds.” Here she tells the story of a soldier:

“Andy had assumed that his role would be to protect his country when it was threatened. Instead, he now considers  himself part of “something evil.” So at a point when his therapy stalled and his therapist suggested that his spiritual pain was exacerbating his psychological pain, it suddenly clicked. The spiritual part he now calls his sacred wound. Others call it “moral injury.”

Nan goes on to explain:

“While the symptoms and causes may overlap with PTSD, moral injury arises from what you did or failed to do, rather than from what was done to you.  It’s a sickness of the heart more than the head. Or, possibly, moral injury is what comes first and, if left unattended, can congeal into PTSD.”

She gives credit for the term “moral injury” to Dr Jonathan Shays, the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Boston VA Psychiatrist who wrote Achilles in Viet Nam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Moral Character and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Coming Home.  There is an important academic paper on the phenomenon of moral injury entitled Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans published by in 2009.

It is no accident that the first National PTSD Awareness Day happened in 2010.

Awareness is not enough. Reaching out. As in combat, creating bonds under extreme conditions of stress and trauma. The VA has a new campaign called Make the Connection. Veterans share a common bond of duty, honor, and service. Some military Veterans served in combat overseas. We experienced things – life – that most people can’t fathom. We know. We get it. That’s why we have to reach out.

 

CCEI Holds Annual University-Wide Business Plan Competition

Posted on by Claire Hall

For the third year in a row, the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI) at the University of Connecticut School of Business held its annual business plan competition.  The CCEI, led by Executive Director Christopher Levesque ’87, is an academic center within the School of Business that aims to broaden the entrepreneurial opportunities both within UConn, and the greater Connecticut entrepreneurial community at large.

“Over the last couple of years, the CCEI Business Plan Competition has blossomed into a wonderful program on many levels.  Beyond the prize money — which is substantial — it is energizing hundreds of UConn student entrepreneurs to invent and create new products and services.  The program gives students a platform to launch substantial businesses,  creating career paths for themselves and jobs for the State of Connecticut,” notes Eric Knight ’82, President  of Remarkable Technologies and Manager of the UConn Springboard program, who served as a competition judge.

The competition is university-wide – open to students of all levels, majors, and campuses, and there are no restrictions when it comes to the subject of the plan idea – any and all unique business ideas or innovations were considered.   This competition is part of a broader effort by the University to grow the entrepreneurial community and spirit, and this competition attracted talented student teams from diverse backgrounds and experience, but all with a common motivation and drive.

Many of the teams were comprised of interdisciplinary students, which helps to bring a wide array of perspectives and ideas to any project.  Part of the promise of this competition was that all submitted plans would be reviewed by experienced entrepreneurs, investors and UConn faculty.  Additionally, the CCEI hosted multiple workshops dedicated to helping teams improve and polish their plans to help maximize their prospects for success.  At the workshops, the competitor teams were given general guidance on what makes a successful business plan and were then given one-on-one time to work with experienced professional mentors.

Over 130 teams submitted their intent-to-compete, 49 teams submitted official competition entries, and 13 finalists presented their plans to a panel of judges.  The finalist presentations were held April 25th, 2012 at the School of Business.  The judges for this competition were: Christopher Levesque ’87, Director of CCEI; Eric Knight ‘82, President  of Remarkable Technologies and Manager of the UConn Springboard program; Bruce Carlson, President of the IP Factory; Danny Briere, CEO of TeleChoice; Mary Anne Rooke, President of the Angel Investor Forum; Joe Wehr, President of DBMI; and Nat Brinn, Principal at Vital Financial, LLC.

Among the finalists, PartsTech, a team comprised JD/MBA student Gregory Kirber ’13 and MBA student Alexander VanderEls ’12, presented the most well-developed business plan, receiving the competition grand prize of $25,000.  Second prize of $15,000 went to Buses2 (team members Adam Boyajian ’12 and Michael Parelli ‘12), and the third place prize of $10,000 went to Sharelogical (Max Lekhtman ‘11 , Daniel Hanley ‘12, Jay Bahgat ‘14 and Mike Lovino ‘12).

Competition plan winner Greg Kirber noted how the resources surrounding this competition contributed to his team’s success: “The development processes and mentor advising helped strengthen our plan and provided new avenues for exploration.”  He also commented on the sense of fellowship between competition participants, “While a competition by nature, this event has certainly led to lasting collaboration between teams as well as with mentors.”

“The popularity of this year’s competition is a perfect representation of the energy up in Storrs. There’s an incredible amount of students starting businesses and chasing their dreams, and now there are resources like the CCEI competition so students have a channel through which they can pursue their opportunities,” notes Adam Boyajian. “We just graduated, and we can look back to four years ago when there was no place for kids like us to go with ideas, and certainly no mentors or money to help us make it happen.  The pace at which things are happening is incredible, and there is without a doubt some big things coming out of UConn around the corner.”

Chris Levesque is thrilled with the rapidly expanding level of entrepreneurial energy by the students at UConn.  “The creativity, novelty and sophistication of the ideas presented has increased each year and the CCEI Business Plan Competition, taken in conjunction with entrepreneurship courses, Startup Weekend Storrs, Innovation Quest, and other programs is helping to put UConn squarely on the map in terms of student entrepreneurship.”

This competition was an extremely effective and successful way to tap into the burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit here at the University and throughout the State.  With the success of the 2012 CCEI Business Plan Competition, the organizers are brainstorming ways to grow the competition even larger next year, perhaps adding a competition track for faculty/staff.  In the meantime, the CCEI is extending an invitation to all teams who submitted a letter of intent to compete in the competition to continue discussions and guide them to take advantage of resources The CCEI can bring to bear.

“Our ultimate intent at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is to identify, mentor and help develop new businesses here in Connecticut; PartsTech, along with Buses2, Sharelogical and the other finalists, represent terrific examples of such promising firms,” stated Christopher Levesque.

“The consistent and sheer volume of ideas that emanate from the student population year over year at UConn is amazing and inspiring,” says Danny Briere. “This is exactly the type of innovation that’s necessary to power our way towards more jobs and companies in the state.”

For more information about CCEI, please visit http://ccei.business.uconn.edu.

CONTACT

Christopher Levesque, Executive Director, Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CCEI)

clevesque@business.uconn.edu, 860-486-4594

Marie LeBlanc, Manager of Marketing and Publicity, UConn School of Business

mleblanc@business.uconn.edu, 860-486-6182

 

The Stamford Learning Accelerator Summer Launch

Posted on by Claire Hall

After an Open House held on April 25th for all UConn Stamford Faculty, Students and Staff, the new Stamford Learning Accelerator launched three student projects this summer during its Summer Orientation, less than one month later, on Tuesday, May 29th. Two projects are for the new International Business Accelerator (IBA) and one is for the formation of a new Student Advertising Agency in Stamford, in conjunction with UConn’s Digital Media Center.

19 students and six faculty mentors across multiple school disciplines such as business, chemical engineering, physics and economics are participating in the projects. While the student teams are based in Stamford, some students are participating from both the Storrs Campus and the Graduate Business Learning Center (GBLC) in downtown Hartford.  Students include undergraduates and graduates, as well as one Ph.D.  Faculty include Fred Carstensen Professor of Economics and Director of the  Center for Economic Analysis at UConn; Robert Johnson, Associate Professor in Residence of the Operations and Information Management Department; Dr. Richard Parnas, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mike Roer, Adjunct Professor and President of the Entrepreneurship Foundation.

The International Business Accelerator is run under the direction of Dr. Tim Dowding, Professor in Residence of the Operations and Information Management Department in Stamford. The UConn Student Agency is the brainchild of Tim Hunter, Director of UConn’s Digital Media Center and Professor in the Schools of Business and Fine Arts. It is being run in conjunction with Brian Brady, Director of the Stamford Learning Accelerator and Instructor in Residence in the School of Business.

The first project involves creating a computer model to determine the optimal revenue generated from processing seaweed (macro algae) into a series of commodities like biofuels, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In addition, since seaweed absorbs nitrogen from the water, this model will also estimate the commercial value of nitrogen removed from Long Island Sound based on the State of Connecticut Nitrogen Credit Trading Program.  The second project is for the development of a proposal to establish an EB-5 Regional Center at UConn Stamford as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which is designed to encourage foreign investment in U.S. companies in order to create jobs. The EB-5 Regional Center would be a joint venture between UConn and the Business Council of Fairfield County.

Finally, two full-time MBA students are working with Professors Hunter and Brady in developing the structure, operations model and branding for UConn’s own Student Advertising Agency, which will be working with both internal and external clients on a variety of digital and marketing projects.

The Stamford Learning Accelerator is actively looking for students to participate in projects for the Fall. Please contact Brian Brady, Director of the Stamford Learning Accelerator, at brian.brady@business.uconn.edu for details.

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