For the second year in a row, employers surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek have ranked the Penn State Smeal College of Business as having the best undergraduate business program in the country. The magazine surveyed 257 corporate recruiters as part of its 2012 ranking of the best undergraduate business programs. The recruiters were asked to identify which schools have the best graduates, most innovative curricula, and most effective career services. Smeal's overall ranking this year rose three spots to 22nd out of the 142 programs eligible for the ranking. (more)
Business leaders from Altria, Boeing, Kohl's, KPMG and Target will join students, faculty and administrators from the Penn State Smeal College of Business on March 22 to discuss business initiatives in diversity at the 13th annual START Conference.
The conference, organized by Smeal students, starts at 11:15 a.m. in the Ballroom of the Nittany Lion Inn on Penn State's University Park campus. The event is free and open to all Penn State students, faculty and staff. Attendees should pre-register for the event online. (more)
Penn State alumna Lizabeth Zlatkus has committed $50,000, which includes employer funds donated in her honor, to establish the Lizabeth Herbst Zlatkus Trustee Scholarship in the Penn State Smeal College of Business. With support from the University's Trustee Matching Scholarship Program, the gift's impact will be doubled, effectively resulting in the equivalent of a $100,000 scholarship fund for undergraduates with financial need. Zlatkus, a 1981 graduate of Smeal with a bachelor's degree in accounting, is the retired executive vice president and chief risk officer of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (more)
The annual shift to daylight saving time and its accompanying loss of sleep cause employees to spend more time than normal surfing the Web for content unrelated to their work, resulting in potentially massive productivity losses, according to researchers. Web searches related to entertainment rise sharply the Monday after the shift to daylight saving time when compared to the preceding and subsequent Mondays, according to D. Lance Ferris, assistant professor of management and organization in Penn State's Smeal College of Business, and his colleagues David T. Wagner, Singapore Management University; Christopher M. Barnes, Virginia Tech University; and Vivien K. G. Lim, National University of Singapore. They based their findings on an examination of six years worth of data from Google. (more)
The Smeal College of Business and Penn State College of Medicine have teamed up to offer a five-year joint doctor of medicine (M.D.)/master's of business administration (M.B.A.) program beginning in the 2012-13 academic year. Designed to appeal to highly qualified and motivated medical students who have an interest in the business of medicine, the program is now accepting applications for admission in the fall 2012 semester.
The program's goal is to train medical doctors as both good clinicians and skilled business analysts. Such graduates may decide to be in clinical practice, but possessing the additional M.B.A. degree opens up myriad possibilities, including managing hospitals and working for firms in biotechnology, consulting, insurance, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, venture capital, and other industries. (more)
Milton J. "Mickey" Bergstein, whose 72-year relationship with Penn State began as a student and included 25-years broadcasting football and other sports, died Feb. 14 in State College, Pa. Bergstein, associate professor emeritus of marketing, was 89 years old. (more)
Many people fall victim to emotional eating, but it doesn't happen only when they're feeling bad, according to researchers. Having a good day at work, for example, can sometimes lead to a candy bar treat from the vending machine, according to Karen Winterich, assistant professor of marketing, Penn State Smeal College of Business, and Kelly Haws of Texas A&M University. At other times, positive feelings lead to choosing a healthier option, such as fruit. (more)
For the first time since its inception in 2007, the executive speaker series at the Penn State Smeal College of Business, Leadership in Focus: Executive Insights, will host a current Penn State student as a featured speaker. Elaine Tanella, overall chair of the Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, will be the college's guest speaker on Feb 24.
Tanella, a senior Schreyer Scholar majoring in bioengineering with a minor in Italian, will join Smeal Dean James B. Thomas for an interactive on-stage conversation at 11:15 a.m. in the Business Building's Struthers Auditorium (110 BB) on the University Park campus. The talk is free and open to the public. (more)
The U.S. may have its first black president and the Fortune 500 its first black female chief executive, but African American CEOs account for a mere one percent of the chiefs of those 500 largest companies.
Andrew Carton, assistant professor of management and organization at Penn State Smeal College of Business, and Ashleigh Shelby Rosette of Duke University, suggest in the current issue of the Academy of Management Journal that what steers people's perceptions of African Americans are stereotypes about blacks' leadership failings, biases that may not even be conscious. (more)
Financial Times has ranked the Penn State Smeal College of Business MBA Program sixth among all publicly supported programs in the United States. The program is ranked 22nd among all U.S. programs and 49th globally, according to the newspaper. The ranking is based on information provided by the schools and surveys of graduates from the classes of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The criteria include alumni salary and career development, the diversity and international reach of the school and its MBA program, and its research capabilities. (more)
