Finance team earns second place in regional CFA competition

A group of TU finance students placed second out of seven undergraduate and graduate teams in the regional CFA Institute Research Challenge last week.

For this rigorously competitive challenge, teams create equity research reports and give presentations about a real, publicly traded company. The report is scored by a group of judges and team present to a panel of experts from top financial institutions. The team with the highest combined written report and presentation score is the winner and advances to the national/global competition. The TU team compiled and presented their report on Northrop Grumman Corporation, the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world. Professors Jian Huang, Ph.D, and Rachel  Gordon, Ph.D., advised and mentored the team. The team members, Seth Vittori, Jose Ruiz Rojas, Michael Darosa, Peter Gallagher, and Ryan Hunsicker, were just .12 of a point shy of first place.

“We are proud of the work of these students and the faculty who helped them prepare,” said Babu Baradwaj, Ph.D., chair of the finance department.

Other schools competing in the challenge included Johns Hopkins (undergraduate and graduate teams), Loyola University Maryland, University of Maryland (undergraduate and graduate teams) and American University.

Tobin Porterfield

Professor co-authors book on the power and importance of soft skills

As an associate professor, Tobin Porterfield, Ph.D, not only teaches his students the technical skills they need for their careers, but also soft skills like communication, time management, teamwork and more.

Unlike technical skills that typically are gleaned from formal instruction, soft skills are hard-to-teach skills that are better developed through experience, mentoring and interacting other people. Their importance is often underappreciated, Porterfield said.

“Most businesses continue to focus on technical skills and expertise,” he said, “But paying more attention to soft skills will enable employees and organizations put those technical skills to work to achieve greater innovation and growth.”

Porterfield and his co-author Bob Graham spent five years reviewing hundreds of articles in academic journals to develop a comprehensive list of 55 soft skills.

The 55 Soft Skills that Guide Employee and Organizational Success“People may have heard about soft skills, but very few, based on our discussions, can list more than one or two of them,” Graham said.

The 55 Soft Skills that Guide Employee and Organizational Success is the product of their research and highlights each of the skills employees and organizations can use to ignite growth and innovation.

“By cataloging each of them and explaining how they might be used in the workplace, we hope to expand the use of soft skills even further,” Graham said.

“This book is designed to improve people’s understanding of those soft skills and their application in the workplace,” Porterfield added. “Companies can improve their results and boost employee satisfaction when they focus more on soft skills.”

The book, which is available for purchase here, is the latest release from Serious Soft Skills, LLC, which Porterfield and Graham launch in June 2016. They also produce a weekly podcast and blog about how to unleash the power of soft skills.

Students celebrate many holidays, traditions in December

December is a well-known holiday season. People love to enjoy this season by shopping, traveling, eating delicious foods, spending time with family or taking rest. And December is a time for people of several faiths and cultures to celebrate important holidays.

Although each of the holidays pursue their own spiritual principles and values, celebrating them makes us more humane and gives us joy, happiness and peace.

We asked some CBE students to share their holiday observances and traditions.

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CBE Students Provide Recommendations for Wye River Upper School, PANDORA

Student teams went head to head and put their knowledge to work coming up with solutions for organizations both large and small at the annual CBE Fall Case Competition.

The annual competition features challenges related to supply chain management and marketing intelligence. This year featured real-life cases presented by the Wye River Upper School and PANDORA.

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Meet the Entrepreneurs-in-Training for fall 2017

The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Student Launch Pad welcome four new Entrepreneurs-in-Training for the fall 2017 semester. Entrepreneurs-in-Training (EiT) is an awards-based program where top entrepreneurial-minded students serve as entrepreneurial ambassadors and get access to exclusive, hands-on experiences.

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