Professor & Cizik Chair in Management John Mathieu was recently elected to and inducted as an Academy of Management Fellow. The Academy of Management is the premier association for Management Scholars. Fellowship status is designed to recognize and honor members of the Academy of Management who have made significant contributions to the science and practice of management, and to provide opportunities for fellowship and a forum for discussion among persons so recognized and honored. Fewer than 1% of Academy of Management members worldwide receive this honor.
Department News
Articles about activities within the academic departments
Management Information Systems Student Receives Prestigious Information Security Scholarship
Ryan Fried, a senior in MIS, received an Information Security Scholarship from (ISC)2 Foundation. Scholarship recipients were announced on September 11, 2012. This year, Ryan is one of only seven recipients of the Undergraduate Scholarship, which was open for applications worldwide.
When asked why he is interested in Information Security, Ryan said: “I enjoy the challenge of staying one step ahead of hackers and discovering vulnerabilities before they do. For the future, I plan on working as a consultant or in a technology leadership rotational program to further my knowledge of information technology.”
(ISC)2 (‘ISC-squared’) is the largest not-for-profit membership body of certified information security professionals worldwide, with over 86,000 members in more than 135 countries. Globally recognized as the Gold Standard, (ISC)2 issues the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) and related credentials. The (ISC)2 Foundation is a non-profit charitable trust that aims to make the cyber world safer for everyone by supporting cyber security education and awareness in the community through its programs and the efforts of its members.
NPR Discusses MIS Recruiting with UConn OPIM Department
Dr. Ram Gopal, department head of Operations & Information Management (OPIM) at the University of Connecticut School of Business, accompanied by OPIM faculty members Ramesh Sankaranarayanan, Sudip Bhattacharjee, Dmitry Zhdanov, and students Walid Namane, Imrus Sadiq, Carlo Guerriero, and Lily Elawar chatted with Neena Satija of NPR News about the overwhelming need for MIS (IT) skills in the state job market.Continue Reading
CREW 2012 Scholarship Recipient: Brittani Clayton
Brittani Clayton, daughter of Jim and Sue Clayton of Simsbury, Connecticut, is a recipient of the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network National Scholarship. CREW is a national organization that promotes and encourages young women to enter the commercial real estate field and to connect with real estate professionals. Applicants were selected nationwide for the scholarship.
As a scholarship recipient, Brittani will be a CREW guest at their annual convention in Chicago, Illinois October 24 – 27th. The convention is an excellent opportunity to network with men and women nationwide and will afford the opportunity to learn about the current topics of discussion within the field.
In addition to receiving the scholarship, Brittani will also have the opportunity to participate in internship opportunities. CREW also offers a 12 month e-mentoring program that will allow recipients to work with professionals in the field on their goals. Brittani also received a free membership to CREW network which will allow her to connect with the 6,000 members nationwide. Congratulations to Brittani on this national recognition.
Brittani is entering her senior year at the University of Connecticut School of Business and is an intern this summer with GE Real Estate in Albany, NY.
UConn MIS Student Wins an Information Systems Security Scholarship from ISACA
In Fall 2011, students from the University Of Connecticut School of Business participated in an opportunity to compete for a $500 scholarship sponsored by the Greater Hartford Chapter of ISACA. ISACA is a leading independent, nonprofit, global association for the promotion of information, guidance and certifications in the field of auditing security controls for computer systems. The competition was held in conjunction with the undergraduate elective course IT Security, Governance, and Audit, offered by Professor Dmitry Zhdanov of the Department of Operations and Information Management (OPIM).
Student presentations were evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Relevance of the presentation to the audit and risk management profession
- The extent of the student’s work including depth of research, ability to communicate and synthesize the materials, approach taken and completeness of the subject matter
- Delivery of the presentation.
This year’s award was presented to Walid Namane (pictured), a junior in Management Information Systems (MIS). His project presentation covered the topic of Social Media Security Controls in Business Settings. The Chapter also offered two other participants – Sean Hecht (MIS senior, report on Voice over IP Security) and Rich Sciretta (Accounting senior, report on SSAE-16 standard) – an annual membership in ISACA.
The awards were presented and their achievements celebrated at a February 8, 2012 chapter meeting.
ISACA is a leading non-profit global provider of knowledge, certifications, and education on information systems (IS) assurance and security, enterprise governance and management of IT, and IT-related risk and compliance. ISACA hosts international conferences, publishes the ISACA Journal, and develops international IS auditing and control standards, which help its constituents ensure trust in, and value from, information systems. ISACA also advances and attests IT skills and knowledge through the globally respected Certified Information Systems Auditor™ (CISA®), Certified Information Security Manager® (CISM®), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT® (CGEIT®) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control™ (CRISC™) designations.
From 1978, the Greater Hartford Chapter of ISACA has promoted the professional education and development of its members in the field of technology auditing and risk management. For more information, visit
The Department of Operations and Information Management (OPIM), which offers the highly acclaimed Management Information Systems (MIS) undergraduate program, is consistently ranked in the top 25 in information systems graduate education (US News) and among the most productive and impactful research departments in the world (OR/MS Today, Communications of the ACM, Communications of the AIS, and AISNET). For more information, visit http://www.business.uconn.edu/opim/
UConn MBAs Win First Prize in APICS Supply Chain Case Competition
UConn MBAs stood first in the APICS Northeast Region Supply Chain case competition hosted at UConn’s business school on Saturday, April 21st, 2012. Twenty one teams from across the northeast participated, including undergraduate and MBA teams from Boston University, Rutgers, Northeastern, and Bryant. Prof. Manuel Nunez mentored the UConn undergraduate team and Prof. Suresh Nair mentored our MBA teams. The winning team members were Anup Ratnakaran, Nanxin (Nick) Li, and Samir Mohanty. Another UConn MBA team won the fourth place in the competition. Continue Reading
Celebrating SAS/OPIM Partnering and JMP Starting the Future of Analytics
The challenge was set. What could one analyst do with a laptop, 123,000,000 observations, and JMP pro software? The answer, provided by SAS co-founder and JMP guru, John Sall, was “just about any known statistical analysis” and all in a matter of seconds!
On Friday, April 6th, SAS and UConn’s Department of Operations and Information Management (OPIM) jointly hosted a gathering of local business executives and academic researchers. The focus was on the growing importance of analytics in the business world. But the spotlight was on how a partnership between SAS and OPIM has supported the successful development and launch of the new MS in Business Analytics and Project Management (MS-BAPM) and has helped demonstrate the business value in deep data analytics.
Following an interactive and lively lunch, Ram Gopal, Head of the Department of Operations and Information Management, kicked off Friday afternoon’s program with welcoming remarks, expressions of gratitude for all those in attendance, and a brief summary of the SAS/OPIM partnership and details on the new MS-BAPM program. Ram’s remarks were followed by a presentation from Peter Bothwell, Senior VP at the Travelers and a Founding Member of the MS-BAPM Advisory Board, who spotlighted the business value of competing on analytics using a compelling array of examples in the property and casualty industry. Pete also highlighted the growing partnership between The Travelers and the new MS-BAPM, emphasizing the mutual benefits of such public/private partnering.
After being introduced by Zhongju Zhang, Director of the MS-BAPM program, John Sall, or “Mr. JMP”, then took the podium for a live and real time demonstration of how a slightly souped-up (added memory) laptop could do deep analytics in seconds either on a 123,000,000 record data set or on a broad, flat data set involving hundreds of variables and millions of records. The demonstration of the power of JMP Pro was evident but what caught the attention of all was the sheer enjoyment John was getting out of this very powerful demonstration. He demonstrated and emphasized the growing power and speed of deep data analytics – most importantly, he caught the attention of Connecticut’s business community.
Radhika Kulkarni, VP R&D Analytics at SAS, noted how difficult it was to be the speaker following John Sall, but Radhika’s knowledge and presentation made it evident she was John’s parallel as the “analytics genius of SAS”. Emphasizing the enterprise-wide focus of SAS, Radhika walked us through the challenges facing the analytics community and advancements in enterprise analytics from SAS in responding to those challenges. Radhika’s clarity of examples and ability to demonstrate high-value analytics’ links across the enterprise gave the audience a variety of possible analytics use-paths to think about in their own business settings.
While the business attendees headed home after the early evening networking reception, UConn faculty and students along with our SAS visitors prepared for a full day of workshops on JMP 10 Pro and SAS Rapid Predictive Modeling (RPM) that took place on Saturday. JMP’s Mia Stephens handled the JMP 10 Pro hands-on workshop, while SAS’ Andre de Waal took our faculty and students through a journey on the RPM highway where traditional statistics and analytics collides with the need for virtually instantaneous model development and implementation in today’s e-world.
The two-day event gave all of us an exposure to the power of analytics and to how powerful new tools capable of rapidly analyzing massive amount of data are emerging. The two days gave us much to ponder, but one thing is clear. The SAS/OPIM-UConn partnership is yielding large benefits. Our students are being educated at the forefront of methods and analytics platforms. Our faculty have the benefit and power of tools that support innovative teaching and frontier research. The Connecticut business community continues to see the value of programs such as MS-BAPM, including interactive experiential learning projects and a growing high-quality job candidate pool. SAS has the opportunity to enhance use of its tools along with feedback that helps them continue to expand and enhance the analytics support tool set.
A great two-days – a great continuing partnership!
Photo: Ram Gopal, Head of the Department of OPIM & John Sall, SAS Co-founder and JMP Guru
UConn MIS Team Wins Inaugural CoMIS Case Competition
On April 4-7, University of Minnesota hosted the first of hopefully many undergraduate case competitions in the area of Management Information Systems. This event is named CoMIS and provided the students to test their business skills and information systems knowledge against an elite group of competitors from all around the USA. Ten leading universities sent their representatives to compete, including Arizona, Arizona State, Texas-Austin, Texas-Dallas, Minnesota, Minnesota State, Indiana, Maryland, Utah and UConn.
UConn team was represented by Sebastian Guzera(MIS Senior), Walid Namane(MIS Junior) and Michael Whiteman(MIS Junior). Dmitry Zhdanov served as the team’s coach. It is my great pleasure to inform you that UConn team became the winners of this inaugural competition.
Teams were given 24 hours to analyze a case and prepare their presentations. Case sponsor and topic were not known in advance; to everyone’s surprise and excitement, the case was about Minnesota Wild – a professional hockey team playing in the NHL. Students were asked to identify the best way for the team to boost its social media presence and turn it into revenue. As part of the case, students were given a wealth of data collected from the Wild’s Facebook page (data known as Facebook Insight). Students had to prepare a 20-minute presentation followed by an intensive Q&A session from the judges.
A panel of industry experts judged students’ performance, including two members of the Minnesota Wild front office, as well as executives from 3M, Medtronic, Ernst and Young and others. To preserve competition integrity, university affiliations were not available to the judging panel. UConn team went as Team Apollo.
The teams were broken down into three groups for the first round of the presentations. Group winners went on to the finals to give their talk one more time. UConn was matched with UT-Austin and Arizona State in group B. After winning the group, UConn’s Team Apollo went on to the final to face Utah Cyber Snipers and Maryland’s Dream Team. Utah finished second and Maryland third.
This was a fun an exciting event, many new friendships were made. The fact that our team ended up as the winners makes it even more exciting and speaks highly of the quality and dedication of our students and MIS program. We’ve set a high bar for ourselves going forward.
Pictured left to right: Jan DeGross (of MIS Quarterly) presents the CoMIS 1st place award to UConn Team – Walid Namane, Michael Whiteman, Sebastian Guzera and Dmitry Zhdanov (Coach)
Students Compete at National Collegiate Sales Competition
On March 2nd-5th students Michael Ferrone, John Sulzicki, Chris Czarnowski, and Lauren Basist and Faculty Advisor Bill Ryan represented UConn at the annual National Collegiate Sales Competition held at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia. The NCSC is comprised of 65 colleges and universities from across the country. Over 20 companies sponsor the competition, each hoping to attract students interested in working for them upon graduation. The competition consists of multiple rounds of one-on-one selling with a “buyer,” and judging based on successful execution of a professional sales process that includes building rapport, effective needs identification, presenting targeted solutions, overcoming objections and effectively “closing the sale.” These techniques are taught in the Professional Selling and Sales Management & Leadership classes offered by the UConn Marketing Department as part of the Program for Sales Leadership.
Pictured from left to right are; Michael Ferrone, John Sulzicki, Bill Ryan-Faculty Advisor, Chris Czarnowski, and Lauren Basist.
Dr. Kramer Receives Award by the CT Chapter of American College of Health Care Administrators
Dr. Kramer Awarded Chapter Award by the CT Chapter of American College of Health Care Administrators
Dr. Jeffrey Kramer, Director of Programs in Healthcare and Insurance Studies, was honored by the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Health Care Administrators at their Annual Holiday Luncheon held on Friday, December 2, 2011. Professor Kramer received a Chapter Award for his many years of service in promoting the profession of long-term care administration, and especially for mentoring the numerous individuals who currently serve as Administrators in Connecticut’s nursing homes.
Professor Kramer received his BA, MBA, and Ph.D all from UConn. He specializes in the study of managed care and long term-term health care organizations. He also has served as a key investigator for utilization review programs, a study evaluating the performance of managed care organizations, and a study examining the effects of deregulation of private pay rates in long-term health care facilities.
Photo: Dr. Jeffrey Kramer