Connecticut Mirror – Connecticut is among about 14 states receiving less in federal dollars than its residents pay in federal taxes, getting about 81 cents from Washington for every dollar paid in federal taxes.
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Faculty Attend Workshop on Brain, Learning; Dartmouth Prof Offers Suggestions on Retaining Knowledge
Many people think of the human brain as like a giant filing cabinet. Just open the right drawer, pull out a folder, and it will be loaded with all the information you need.
In fact, retrieving information is more like going on an archaeological dig, said G. Christian Jernstedt, professor emeritus of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College.
“We find fragments and we assemble them into something meaningful,” he said. “That’s why we rummage around in our brains for the answers. Sometimes there isn’t even a correct answer. It’s the thinking that is the important part.”
Jernstedt spoke to 60 faculty and graduate students Oct. 31 at a workshop titled, “Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and the Brain.” Jernstedt specializes in human learning and speaks around the world about cognitive, social, behavioral and educational neurosciences.
During the full-day workshop, he talked about emerging research on increasing the ability to learn, building effective learning habits, and different ways to evaluate what has been learned.
Management Professor Travis Grosser said the lecture was fascinating. “I wanted to learn more about how the brain works and how to apply that knowledge in the classroom,” he said. “I appreciate that the School of Business is helping us become better teachers and helping us grow and develop our professional skills.”
Some 150,000 articles and books have been written about the human brain in recent years, Jernstedt said. Among his findings is that the more engaged a person is, the more active their learning becomes.
“Memory is constructed, it isn’t a passive situation. If it is an active process, it works,” he said. “The person who is ‘doing’ is the person who is learning.”
That’s why taking notes is more effective than listening; why talking to others is better than learning alone, he said.
What happens when you use an area of the brain a great deal? Before GPS was widely used, London cabbies had to study maps of the city until they knew every road. For them, the centers of the brain that learn place, direction and navigation blossomed. “When you use the brain, it changes,” he said.
But while some changes are universal, every individual learns differently. In fact, the human brain is a bit like a novelist, Jernstedt said.
“Our brain makes up stories about reality,” he said. “Our stories vary by experience. We all see things differently.”
For an example, he showed an abstract picture of a man and woman engaged in an embrace. When the same picture was shown to young children, they saw porpoises in the photo because their frame of reference is different, he said.
“So when we develop courses, programs and schools, it is important to recognize that how people code and retain information varies, depending what’s happened to them,” Jernstedt said.
The human brain contains 20 billion cells just for thinking, he said, yet we are most successful when we tackle one task at a time. “People who say they ‘multitask’ either do it poorly, or are really shifting between tasks,” he said.
Research by a jam-and-jelly company also indicates that too many options are overwhelming. On the days when customers could sample 20 or more types of jam, only 3 percent bought the product. When offered only five varieties, 30 percent of the customers purchased jam. Too many choices leads to indecision, he said.
In another analogy, Jernstedt noted that the tiger beetle runs about 5 1/2 miles per hour, but it does so in bursts, and then freezes, because its brain is filled up and it needs to rest it. Likewise, it is important for humans to take intellectual breaks in the classroom, and for faculty to build in time for students to process and reflect, he said.
The human brain is a powerful tool, he said. “This organ can do extraordinary things when we find out how to use it,” he said. With practice, people can even change the speed at which the brain operates.
Marketing Professor David Norton said he attended the workshop because he was interested in strategies to help his students. “We are asking them to learn a great deal in a rather short amount of time,” he said. “I’m interested in anything that helps to communicate that information more efficiently.”
“The biggest opportunity is to bridge science with practice,” said Management Professor Kevin Thompson, noting that students tend to retain only about 10 or 15 percent of what they hear in a lecture. “I’m here to find out what we can take away to help or improve learning for our students.”
UConn Real Estate Students Finish Third in Prestigious International Competition
(11/12/2014) – A team of real estate students from the University of Connecticut School of Business earned third place in a prestigious international case competition on November 4 in New York City, sponsored by Cornell University.
The UConn team consisted of William Bartol, Drew Harney, Austin Smyth, Kristine Victor and Patrick Nista. Francesca Michel was the alternate.Continue Reading
Goldman Sachs Scholarship for Excellence Program
The Goldman Sachs Scholarship for Excellence Program is an integral part of our diversity recruiting effort, helping to attract Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American undergraduate students to careers at Goldman Sachs.
The scholarship is a reflection of our Business Principles and is awarded to recognize outstanding students and the achievements they have made. Upon acceptance of a summer internship offer, SFE recipients will be awarded up to $15,000* and have a leadership opportunity as a GS Campus Ambassador on their respective campuses.
Application Checklist:
To be considered for the Scholarship for Excellence, you must complete the following steps:
1. Complete an application online using our events portal at www.goldmansachs.com/careers and selecting ‘Interviews’ under Event Type.
2. Please explain which one of our fourteen Business Principles you identify with the most. Business principles can be found by using the following link, http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/business-standards/business-principles/index.html.
a. Applicants may choose one of the following mediums for submission: 450 word essay, 2 minute video, or slide presentation.
b. You may submit an essay or slide presentation via the online application. Slides should be in PDF format. Videos submissions should be emailed to GoldmanSachsSFE@ny.email.gs.com.
3. Invited candidates will travel to Goldman Sachs for an in-person evaluation of the Business Principle presentation.
Deadline: The application deadline is Sunday, November 16 by 11:59 p.m.
Questions?
For questions regarding the application process, please contact GoldmanSachsSFE@ny.email.gs.com.
Student Group Hosts Jim Calhoun, CEO of Converse, Inc.
The Honors in Business Association (HiBA) hosted Jim Calhoun ’89 (CLAS), CEO of Converse for a discussion about his experience as an undergraduate at UConn, his career path, and what it is like being CEO of a multibillion dollar international company.
Before speaking to a larger audience, Calhoun spoke with students at an intimate reception sponsored by the UConn School of Business Dean’s Office. Gregory Doyle ’15 (BUS), an attendee at the reception stated, “It was great connecting with a past UConn graduate who has been successful on a large corporate scale. He seemed really passionate about Converse and what it represents. I especially enjoyed hearing about the mistakes he has made along the way and what he has learned from them.”
Following the reception Calhoun began his discussion in the Student Union Theater with a picture of his father, former UConn men’s basketball head coach Jim Calhoun. The picture was of the former coach wearing Converse sneakers as a college student and playing basketball against UConn, a team he would later coach. Calhoun brought the picture full circle stating that the picture hangs in his office at Converse headquarters.
In addition to taking in advice from Calhoun, students were stunned to learn that Calhoun was to thank for the famous product placement of Wilson in ‘Cast Away’ starring Tom Hanks.
Both the reception and speaking event attracted UConn students across all disciplines who all took something away from Calhoun’s talk. Justin Hall ’17 (ENG) stated, “Calhoun’s presentation was both insightful and interesting. Personally I left with a greater understanding of how to utilize and how to create pivotal opportunities throughout my life.” Alyssa Zabin ’16 (CLAS), from student group Leadership in Action added, “It was great as students to see what huskies before us have done as they build upon their undergraduate experiences in profound ways.”
Larry Gramling, associate dean of the School of Business who sat down with Calhoun for a question and answer session expressed, “A great deal of what made the event one of the very best I have ever attended at UConn was first and foremost due to Jim Calhoun who did a great job by just being himself: genuine, down-to-earth, and engaging before the event in the Lounge, during the talk, and afterwards when many of the 100 or so in the audience came up to talk to Jim.”
About Honors in Business Association: Honors in Business Association (HiBA) is a student organization formed between the Honors Program and UConn School of Business. HiBA strives to create a sense of community for students in both Honors and the School of Business and those with an interest in business while focusing on professional development. Contact information: uconnhiba@gmail.com or Quian Callender at quian.callendar@uconn.edu.
Pictured L to R: John Averill ’16 (CLAS), Quian Callender ’16 (BUS), Alyssa Zabin ’16 (CLAS), Jim Calhoun, CEO of Converse, Associate Dean of the School of Business Larry Gramling, Grace Kim ’16 (BUS), Emily Vasington ’16 (BUS), Brooke Wasserman ’15 (BUS), and Global VP of Communications at Converse Terri Hines.
Veterans’ Bootcamp Offers Mentorship, Business Expertise
Steven Therrien, of Harwinton, Conn., has what he believes is a great idea for creating a superior solar panel that would capture some of the sun’s energy that is now lost.
But Therrien, a former Navy corpsman and advanced x-ray technologist, was overwhelmed at the prospect of starting his own business.
“Before, I looked at it as an insurmountable mountain,” he said.
After enrolling in a nine-day Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), sponsored by the UConn School of Business, he has increased confidence that he can make his business plan a reality.
The course is funded exclusively by private donations and features the expertise of UConn business faculty. This year, 26 veterans learned everything from how to write a business plan to finding funding. They developed social media skills and took a course on “discovering your personal genius.”
“It’s very flattering and humbling that so many people are willing to give their time and themselves to help a veteran,” Therrien said. “We all appreciate it very much.”
This fall, UConn’s EBV was recognized at the Pentagon by Newman’s Own, Fisher House Foundation and the Military Times as one of the nation’s best and most innovative programs for improving the quality of life for U.S. military personnel.
This is the fifth year that the EBV program has been offered at UConn. Seven of the veterans hail from Connecticut; most of the rest are from neighboring states. This year’s class was composed of 19 men and seven women.
“This was a great class, the first one that we had with no attrition at all from acceptance through graduation,” said program Director Michael Zacchea. “Our veterans said it was an amazing and transformative event.”
“These people aren’t in it for the money,” Zacchea said. “Every vet here wants to solve a problem. They are very focused on ‘mission accomplished.’ Because our veterans all come from diverse backgrounds, we offer a very hands-on program. We tell them how to find an accountant, a lawyer, how to establish a relationship with a bank.”
What makes the bootcamp unique is it addresses the veterans’ holistic needs—even providing a free suite and laptop for the future business
owners. It also offers mentorship for a year, to help veterans identify and overcome business barriers. The UConn program is also part of a larger community of veteran entrepreneurs throughout the country. The rigorous course usually had veterans working on their businesses until midnight.
Since they graduated on Oct. 10, the veterans have been preparing their business plans, for which they could be awarded a $3,000 grant to use as seed money.
“I would tell everyone to hire a veteran,” said Rosita Campbell of New Jersey, a bootcamp graduate, who wants to own her own fitness center. “We are dependable, reliable and offer standards of service and excellence that are beyond what is expected. We also have incredible integrity. All of that has been ingrained in us from a young age.”
Schools of Law and Business hold Joint Retreat to Promote Scholarship and Programming
On September 26, law school and business school faculty held a joint retreat at the UConn Law School in Hartford, Connecticut. Participants attended a variety of academic sessions on mutually interested topics, including dig data, financial markets and corporate governance, human rights and ethics, and sustainability. The lunch speaker was Kip Hall, Esq., a senior attorney at DLA Piper, who presented on the importance of understanding compliance for both law students and business students.
Approximately sixty faculty from both schools attended. Feedback was strongly positive and faculty reported that they gained useful contacts throughout the day. Marketing and business law faculty played prominent roles at the retreat, fostering common ground in the areas of big data, corporate governance, and international business. The goal of the retreat is to develop new programs that enrich the options for students while leveraging the considerable expertise of the two schools in joint initiatives.
Professional Selling Role-Play and Networking Event
Every semester, our exciting Professional Selling Role-Play and Networking Event facilitates conversation between our students and sales professionals. This fall, over 35 students in the Professional Selling course acted out sales calls with professional representatives from 9 PSL partner companies. During the initial round of sales calls, our students met with company representatives and engaged in 20 minute rounds of calls. Students with the highest scores proceeded to the final round of the competition. During the final round, they engaged in a sales call in front of a panel of representatives. We are pleased to announce this year’s winners are Hannah Kirsch and Amar Singh.
UConn’s Marketing Department offers students the experience and training to excel in professional sales. The Program for Sales Leadership (PSL), provides interactive classes, sales competitions, student-run organizations, and accredited professional sales internships to give students experiential learning and insights on career development. PSL also emphasizes the critical thinking, communication, and data-driven analytical approaches that today’s leading businesses value.
This year, the PSL Role Play and Networking Event brought together our partner companies with over 80 passionate professional sales students to discuss sales careers and opportunities. If your company is interested in building an enduring relationship with PSL, please contact the PSL Program at psl@business.uconn.edu.
Big-Time Champions of Corporate World Bring Insight, Excitement to Auriemma Leadership Conference
The president of Meriden-based Protein Sciences said her company hopes to have an experimental Ebola vaccine ready in six months.
Meanwhile, a UConn alumnus, who ran one of the largest financial institutions in Europe, is now setting his sights on expanding and revolutionizing the banking industry in Africa.
And a senior vice president at United Technologies Corporation said that the growth in wealth and status among Asian residents will open up an enormous tourism market that will increase demand for air travel—and new jet engines.
“Leading for Innovation and Change” was the topic of the Geno Auriemma UConn Leadership Conference at Mohegan Sun on Oct. 22 and 23. For the nearly 200 business executives and entrepreneurs who attended, the ideas, enthusiasm and leadership advice were invaluable.
During his lunchtime presentation titled, “Changing the Game,” Auriemma coached business leaders on the need to re-create and innovate a company, or a team, even in good times. “Why go to practice when you know you’re going to win? Why change something when what you’re doing is already working? Because you have to get better,” said the coach of the UConn Women’s Basketball Team.
“As a coach, I know the flaws in our team. Do you want to make changes when you’re 40 and 0? Or at the end of the season when you don’t get into the Final Four? The time for change is when things are going great and you’re at the top of your game. You don’t want to make changes in a time of panic, out of desperation.”
Auriemma, who coached Team USA to a gold medal in the 2014 FIBA World Championship in Istanbul this fall and the UConn Women’s Basketball Team to nine NCAA Division One National Championships, also told the audience that sometimes leaders have to look backward—at what made a business great—in order to move forward.
Often, Auriemma said, he watches footage from games that occurred 40 or 50 years ago and finds a skill or a strategy that has been forgotten. “Sometimes going back, to what made your corporation or your team or your sport great, may be the way to go,” he said. “If you ignore the past, you may miss an opportunity to learn.”
The conference was punctuated with exciting examples of innovation and change in Connecticut.
In a discussion about the healthcare industry, Manon Cox, president and CEO of Protein Sciences in Meriden, talked about how the company has invented FluBlok®, a flu vaccine that contains no egg, antibiotics or other preservatives and is three times stronger than a traditional vaccine. She went on to tell a spellbound audience that the company is now working on an Ebola vaccine and hopes to have a product ready for trial in six months.
Bob Diamond ’77 MBA, ’06H, founder and CEO of Atlas Merchant Capital and formerly chief executive of Barclays, discussed his company’s ambitious goals to revolutionize the financial sector in Africa.
“Seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world are in Africa,” said Diamond, who was valedictorian of his MBA class at UConn in 1977. “Africa jumped off the page for us.”
More babies were born in Nigeria last year than in all of Europe, he noted. Meanwhile, fewer than 20 percent of the residents of Africa even have a bank account. Some 80 percent live too far away to ever use a bank branch and most will do their banking with a mobile device.
The financial opportunities in Africa are not limited just to a single business, but present an opportunity for economic growth for an entire continent, he said.
“Innovation isn’t always about doing something brand new,” Diamond said. “It’s also about how to create jobs and foster economic growth.”
Vision, speed, and creative ideas are vital even in a long-established company like United Technologies, said Michael McQuade, senior vice president of science and technology. Whether developing jet engines, elevators, or the latest, quietest and fast helicopter, innovation is a daily component of all the company does.
“At our subsidiary, Otis, we move the world’s population every three days in elevators,” he said. “We do things for which failure is not an option. We are constantly thinking about creativity in an area where we cannot fail.”
McQuade said the two biggest trends the company is following are the urbanization of the world, with more than 1 million people moving to cities a day, many in high-rises requiring elevators; and the growth of the middle class, which has tremendous implications for jet-engines and travel, particularly in Asia.
One of the ways that UTC retains, motivates and inspires its workforce is to offer company funding for higher education, he said.
John Caine ’97 a UConn alumnus and chief product officer at Priceline.com said his company has embraced the changing lifestyles of consumers. Some 30 percent of reservations now are made from a mobile device—often at the last minute. As such, the company’s subsidiaries, like Open Table and KAYAK, have ahd to change to accomodate those customers, including creating sites that are easy to use from a mobile device.
The company doesn’t just talk about change for its customers, he said. There are no private offices at Priceline.com and at least once a year the employees relocate to a new desk to get a fresh perspective.
A new perspective was needed at Aetna during a crisis that was costing the company $1 million a day, according to Elease Wright ’76, former senior vice president of human resources. She talked about how the company transformed itself during that crisis.
“We went from the darling of Wall Street to the company everyone loved to hate,” she said. The company selected new administration and engaged every employee of the company, she said.
“We recognized that if we didn’t change the organization, we would become irrelevant,” she said. The company focused on the people who used its services as the centerpiece for all decisions. “If we were dealing with a tough issue, we asked ourselves, ‘What would our values say?’ It became a way of life.”
“Change was messy and difficult, but do-able,” she said. “One of the leading indicators of failure is success. You constantly have to think about strategy, marketing, perspective and listen to suggestions. Egos can ruin companies. Leadership must be consistent with values. It takes only two or three years for a culture to unravel.”
Andy Bessette ’75, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Travelers, talked about reinventing the Travelers’ Championship golf tournament to attract greater attendance and raise more money for charity. He urged his colleagues to create a culture that allows people to speak up—and then to really listen to what they recommend.
“You have to talk to everybody,” said Bessette, who earned a bachelor’s degree from UConn and is a former Olympic athlete. “It’s important to get feedback and be engaged. You want to be respected as a leader by your team. You have to talk to everybody…you have to be in the tank with your people.”
The two-day program was inspiring for many, including Sharad Patney ’13 MSBAPM, who works in information technology at VLink Inc. of South Windsor, Conn.
“The interaction between different industry leaders is what I enjoyed most,” said Patney, who attended the conference for the second year. “This type of program pulls us out of our shells and allows us to look at our businesses from a new perspective.”
Pictured: Bob Diamond, Professor Lucy Gilson, and School of Business Dean John Elliott.
National Black MBA Association, Inc. – Westchester Greater Connecticut Chapter Scholarship
The Westchester/Greater Connecticut Chapter of the National Black MBA Association is offering scholarships to outstanding minority students pursuing undergraduate and graduate management/business degrees, while demonstrating strong leadership abilities and a commitment to their communities. This year the program awards scholarships ranging from $1,000 for undergrads and $2,000 for master’s candidates.
Please note the deadline to apply is December 15, 2014.
Please click the link to apply –