Author: Flinchum, Emily

This semester the College of Business and Economics welcomed five new faculty members to the Tiger family. One of the five is Dr. Feng Cheng, an Assistant Professor of Business Analytics here at TU. Cheng received her Ph.D. in Supply Chain Management from Arizona State University.  She currently teaches EBTM 350 – Introduction to Business Analytics which she describes as “a class that uses data to discover patterns, trends, and therefore, make predictions to solve business problems.”

 

When asked about her time so far at CBE she said “So far, I have been very much enjoying teaching at Towson University in many aspects. One of my favorites is interacting with the diverse students at TU. It gives me lots of satisfaction and joy from conveying a useful technique or a problem-solving insight.” 

 

Cheng is passionate about her subject, students, and Towson. When asked what led her to become a professor Cheng shared “I am always enthusiastic about teaching and research which essentially is a professor’s main job. Also, I used to live, study, and work in the Baltimore area. So joining Towson is coming back home for me.” 

 

Moving forward, Cheng says “My current future goal is to carefully read the literature from Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens, winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics this year.” Specifically she is reading/working on the methodology/business analytical tools developed by above winners “to better reveal the causal relationships among various entities in this world.”  

 

In closing Cheng shared “I look forward to the unique opportunity to learn from my students and their diverse experiences.Thanks for this opportunity to introduce myself to the Tiger Family!” 

 

Welcome Dr. Cheng, CBE is excited to learn and grow from your knowledge and experience!

 

By: Millie Klefsaas

For alumnus Mark Fahmy, Towson was the first step in his pursuit of higher education. After graduating from Towson in the spring of 2019, Fahmy pursued the next step, his master’s from Georgetown University. However, Mark Fahmy did not stop there, currently he is a Ph.D. candidate for law and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston.

Q: Tell us about your time at TU.

A:  I really have a lot of appreciation and gratitude toward Towson University  for pushing me to challenge myself to graduate in three years. I have no idea what I’d be doing right now if I had graduated in spring of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic began to emerge and disrupt the course of everyone’s lives.

 

Q: What impacted you the most during your time at Towson University?

A: During my time at Towson, I started off in the business administration program and was looking to specifically concentrate in either finance or economics. It was my freshman year when I was taking a microeconomics class that I was able to get connected with one of my professors who was a technical advisor at a company that at the time was called the Regional Economic Studies Institute (RESI), under Towson University. She was working there and jointly teaching at Towson. I decided to ask her if she could put me in touch with any of the internship or recruitment specialists at RESI, and I was fortunate enough to interview with them and work with them in the spring of 2017, just after my first semester at TU. That experience was really one of the biggest hallmark moments for me, something very memorable. I had an opportunity to contribute to the regional economic research that TU was supporting and providing more broadly throughout the greater Baltimore area. That experience actually helped to jumpstart a lot of my career choices and professional trajectory. After I interned at RESI, I worked at Morgan Stanley. I also had another internship with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which was my overture into the federal service. I was really fortunate to get all of those opportunities from the TU network at a pretty young age. Towson did a very good job of encouraging students, challenging them and providing them with good resources and opportunities to build a solid network.

Q: Which class in CBE most influenced your academic and career trajectory? 

A:Environment of Business (LEGL 225)

 

I took Dr. Iotina’s class my freshman year. It was just before I started my first internship, and it really gave a very informative scope into the legal environment in the business world. We had opportunities to go to circuit courts, monitor cases and do very engaging and experiential work outside of the classroom, but we also got to learn a lot more about the legal frameworks that are used and applied in the business world. That was something that was really enticing to me, mainly because it’s a very critical component when you do work at an institution. [It’s important] to be cognizant of what you are legally bound to, and I’ve always kind of aspired to go into legal reform. Iontina’s class, specifically, was one of the benchmarks in my undergraduate studies that gave me that impetus to pursue it further.

 

Q: What pros and cons have you seen going straight through your degrees?

A: Personally, I received a lot of guidance that if you intend to go into graduate school, you ought to do it while you can. I definitely do like to plan ahead and as I started working in the federal service, I saw my career accelerating very quickly. I realized that the higher up I move within the company, the more challenging it will be for me to create an opportunity to go back to school. Also, I noticed in the Agency [Department of Homeland Security] that they put in a lot of effort and investment into young and entry level personnel, so it was a good opportunity to commingle my academic pursuits with my professional pursuits. I know that the two do supplement each other because when I’m in class, I’m able to speak on the institutional experience, and when I’m at work, I’m able to apply a lot of theoretical and applicable concepts from the coursework in my day to day job. I think it was better for me to go straight through my education and matriculate right out of undergrad and masters.

 

Q: What are your future goals? 

A: I definitely want to stick around in the federal service. I do really like working for the government. It’s definitely one of the institutions where you can have a very meaningful and visible impact in the area of responsibility in which you’re working. I definitely intend on staying for maybe 10, 15, 20 years. We’ll see how that career progression and trajectory goes, but beyond that, I would really like to go into teaching. Specifically, some policy courses, or even some legal courses at the undergraduate or graduate level, but I have plans for that much later down the road once I have some experience.

 

Q: What advice would you give current students? 

A: The advice I would provide future students with is to be intentional about fostering a rapport with your professors, particularly those that are teaching in disciplines you are either interested in exploring further, conducting research in, and/or eventually working in. That was certainly the most formatively enriching aspect of my college experience, and was able to seamlessly balance it with active social & academic dynamics.

 

In closing, Mark had this to say, “I really just want to thank you for the opportunity. I have so much gratitude for CBE and Towson, and I love having the opportunity to come back and speak. This alumni spotlight means a lot to me.” 

 

Mark Fahmy is currently the Portfolio & Public Engagement Manager for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a great example of the trajectory of excellence on which CBE has sent countless alumni. We look forward to watching Mr. Fahmy’s career and know there are many outstanding accomplishments to come. 

 

Written by: Millie Klefsaas

As a part of our ongoing CBE Star Student Spotlight series we would like to highlight Emma Roth, who is majoring in Business Administration and legal studies. Emma shares that she always had a passion for business and she knew that CBE had opportunities for that passion that she would not find anywhere else. 

When reflecting on the classes she has taken in CBE, Emma states that the classes she has found the most valuable are those that are useful regardless of one’s career choice. Emma shares that Business Communications is the best example. “I’ve learned so much about how to present myself in a professional setting, the best way to go about job interviews and how to make my resume stand out.”

During her time in CBE, Emma is proud of the work she is doing with the Student Leadership Council for food insecurity. Emma explains that “I was fortunate enough to be part of the planning process and decision making process in choosing a cause that the CBE would be supporting and I think we definitely made the right choice.”

Additionally, Emma is proud to see the success of the student organizations in CBE. She shares that “as the SLC president, I saw first hand how many, if not all, of the student organizations struggled during the pandemic. Now, I see so many CBE student orgs working their way back and even thriving. Although I am not personally involved in every organization, the success of each of these organizations contributes to the success of the CBE and of the success of the students.”

Emma’s advice to other CBE students is to take advantage of the opportunities that CBE offers. 

“The clubs that you join, professors that you connect with, and leadership positions you take will all have a significant impact on your college experience. I urge students to get as involved as possible and say yes to opportunities. There are always people willing to help and guide you.”

Emma plans to graduate in May 2022 and after her time in CBE hopes to go to law school. Emma plans to keep her connections she has made in Towson University and the College of Business and Economics and wants to be a mentor to other students. 

Emma adds that “with graduation right around the corner, I look back at my time in CBE and I’m very grateful for all of the opportunities and experiences that I’ve had. With the help of the faculty, Dean’s office, and of course my fellow students, I truly feel that I have made my mark on the CBE.” 

What is business analytics? Business analytics has been around for many years but has grown as a field in the past ten years because of big data. Stella Tomasi, a professor in the Department of Business Analytics and Technology Management, began her career as a chemist in pharmaceuticals before transitioning to technology. 

 “I was curious about how things worked in pharmaceuticals and in three years I was able to learn a lot. At that point, I got a job offer at the FDA while being accepted into a master’s program in management information systems,” Tomasi says. “I chose the master’s program and switched my career into how businesses used technology to achieve their goals.” 

While working as a database administrator and building databases for clinical trials, she worked with statisticians to analyze collected data to identify the effectiveness of new drugs. 

“This was my first introduction to data analytics,” Tomasi explains. 

Afterward, as a consultant at Accenture until 2009, she worked with various pharmaceutical companies on process improvement, new system implementation, and analyzing success measures, all of which helped her bring real world experience into the classroom. She continues to talk to industry partners to incorporate new technology such as UiPath, which helps businesses with robotic process automation.  

During her time in the College of Business & Economics, Tomasi developed the business systems and process major, the business analytics minor, and the data analytics competition. 

“We have lots of data that is being collected in any industry. Regardless of what discipline you are in, collected data can be analyzed to help identify patterns, trends and ultimately make intelligent decisions for decision makers,” Tomasi says.

Interested in learning more? We encourage all students to learn more about the Business Analytics Minor. 

Tomasi is also a big advocate for careers in the STEM fields, since she herself switched from chemistry to technology. The business systems and processes major provides students with hands-on experience with an Enterprise Resource Planning system called SAP. Students learn how SAP is utilized in industry through various processes such as sales, distribution, production, marketing, human resources, and accounting. Regardless of your functional area, most large companies use SAP in their daily operations. 

Additionally, Tomasi advocates for women and minorities to participate in STEM through an organization called Girls in Technology (GIT), where she is a program director that helps connect girls with learning experiences. GIT works with young girls from grades 6-12 from various schools in the DMV area to promote STEM careers. 

This year, there is a focus on data analytics. The field of analytics is growing and jobs are expected to continue to grow. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts the number of jobs in the field will increase by 28% by 2026, which means roughly 11.5 million new jobs. 

One of the reasons Tomasi developed the data analytics competition was for students to see what it is like to analyze data — but in an informal environment while helping companies with intelligent decision making. Tomasi believes that it is important to look at a practical application of data analytics that will help students understand how data analytics is helpful in any industry. 

 

Not only does the competition give students a fun way to experience analytics, but it allows participating companies to recruit students in an informal way as they are able to see how students analyze and communicate the insights. The participating students sometimes do not realize how this opportunity could potentially lead to an internship or future career. 

Stella Tomasi has contributed immensely to the College of Business and Economics, and her unique career path makes her invaluable to Towson University. 

 

Learn more about the Data Analytics Competition

Learn more about the Business Analytics Minor

Learn more about the Business Systems and Process Major

 

Written by: Millie Klefsaas

Zephinia Hill is a CBE student majoring in Entrepreneurship and Business Systems & Processes and is our next student as a part of the CBE Star Student Spotlight!  

Zephinia was inspired to join the College of Business and Economics with the goal of becoming her own boss one day. She states that “I want a sense of accomplishment where I can look back and feel proud of the journey.”

Zephinia has used her time in CBE in order to get out of her comfort zone. Zephinia shares that “I used my time at Towson to visualize my future. I treated each class as a stepping stone, and some classes I had to go gather real data and opinions from people outside of the classroom. I had to attend networking events where I didn’t know a single person. No one is just going to hand you what you want in life, you have to take the leap yourself.”

“Please use everything Towson offers to your advantage, explore everything. The shoulda, coulda, woulda, phase will never end unless you put yourself out there” she remarks. 

One aspect of the program that has stuck with her is the advantage it has given her towards ideation and failure. “One of my professors once posed the question of ‘would you rather fail here at Towson or out there in the rest of the world.’ I didn’t know what to make of that question because I, like many, would not like to fail at all. But when you look at it through an entrepreneurial lens, I would rather fail at Towson. I know if my idea didn’t win the competition, I have more than enough teachers willing to help me make my vision and presentation stronger. So when I pitch my idea to investors outside of the four walls of Stephens Hall, I will be prepared for whatever is thrown my way.” 

When giving advice to other CBE students, she shares that it is important to not compare your journey to the journeys of others. She shares “I am guilty of this myself; I have been working on The Mensuration Situation since the fall of 2019. I thought I would be a lot farther along in my journey than where I am now. Truth be told, I don’t know what I’m waiting on; maybe I want to be in the right mindset or have certain products. Either way, it’s always going to be a constant battle of what is the competition doing that I’m not. Comparison is the thief of joy, so keep an open mind and focus on yourself.”

Zephinia plans to graduate in the fall and when asked about her future plans she shares “After I leave CBE I’m hoping to follow through on the many promises I made myself over the years. For one, officially launching my business venture, The Menstruation Situation, which has been a work in progress for so long that I have to see it through for my own sanity. Something else I hope to achieve after my time in CBE is a stable work life balance. With being one’s own boss you can get swept away in the operations of the business without taking time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.”