Honors and Awards

• The College of Business jumped in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings. Nebraska's undergraduate business program ranked No. 30 among public universities and No. 53 among national institutions. The college ranked No. 1 in Nebraska and is the only undergraduate business program in the state of Nebraska to crack the top 90 programs ranked. Read the article.
• Nebraska's Center for Sales Excellence was elevated to a full member of the University Sales Center Alliance, an organization in the United States and Europe that prioritizes producing high-caliber sales research with companies and corporate partners. According to the USCA president, Nebraska "demonstrated that it strongly influences the trajectory of students and the sales profession through its classroom content, academic research, and purposeful interaction with industry." Read about the Undergraduate Certificate in Sales Excellence.
• The Cornhusker Case Competition, which was created, organized and led by students in the Nebraska Business Honors Academy for the first time in 2023, received a MidAmerican Business Deans Association Innovation Award for New Ways to Achieve Student Engagement in Business Education.
• Colleen Jones, emeritus associate professor of practice in management, posthumously received the Woman of the Year award during the 10th annual Inspire — Celebrating Women Leadership Awards, presented by the Lincoln Journal Star. Jones died June 18 in Lincoln. Read the Lincoln Journal Star story.
• Seven senior business majors were named Husker homecoming royalty finalists: Cole Berrett, finance and management major from Omaha; Charlie Brockmeier, accounting and finance major from Kearney, Nebraska; Ben Jones, accounting and finance major from Omaha; Tram Ngo, management and marketing major from Crete, Nebraska; Fay O’Connor, business administration major from Chesterfield, Missouri; Grant O’Doherty, finance major from Omaha; and Sophie Thomas, management and marketing major from Lakeville, Minnesota. Read the Nebraska Today story.
• Three students received awards for their high academic achievements during the Nebraska at Oxford study abroad program this summer. Deric Goldenstein, economics major from Kenesaw, Nebraska, received the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence and $1,000. Owen Crone, economics and finance major from Omaha and Ashleigh Jay, English and history major on the pre-law track from North Platte, Nebraska, received Dean's awards for Academic Achievement and $500 each.

Research and Publications

• Todd Thornock, Raymond C. Dein Professor of Accountancy and associate professor of accountancy, was appointed by the Institute of Management Accountants, the association of accountants and financial professionals in business, as its first academic research fellow. He will be responsible for working with the academic community and accounting and related associations. Read the full article.

Notable Involvement

• Nearly 50 students were selected for the Undergraduate Certificate of Sales Excellence Program. With the special professional selling credential from the Center for Sales Excellence, students hone the communication, problem-solving and decision-making skills that employers seek. Read the story and list of students.
• The Clifton Strengths Institute selected 37 students for the ninth cohort of the Clifton Builders Program, which brings together students with high leadership and entrepreneurial potential and develops them to lead high-performance teams. Read the story and cohort list.
• The College of Business welcomed 38 first-year students into the award-winning Inclusive Business Leaders Program this fall. The cohort of students hail from four states and represent 10 majors. They will learn how to make business more inclusive through education, mentoring and unique hands-on learning opportunities. Read the story and list of students.

Competitions

• Nearly 140 students competed in the inaugural Intermediate Accounting Case Competition, Sept. 18-19. Acting as junior credit analysts, the students collaborated in groups to prepare a loan analysis and then pitch it in less than eight minutes to win cash prizes totaling $6,000. Sophia Gagnon, junior accounting major from Lakewood, Colorado; Brooke Hester, accounting major from La Vista, Nebraska; Harry Hueners, senior accounting and finance major from Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Nikolas Mancio, a senior accounting and finance major from Porto Alegre, Brazil, captured first place in the competition and took home $3,000. Read the story.

Appointments

• Amit Saini, department chair and W. W. Marshall College Professor and professor of marketing, was selected by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor to represent the university in the Big Ten Academic Alliance leadership program as a fellow in the Department Executive Officers Program. The program will cover conflict resolution, mentoring, faculty development, performance reviews, and group problem-solving. Read more about the program. 

In The News

• Timothy Hodges, executive director of the Clifton Strengths Institute and assistant professor of practice in management, gave the keynote speech to more than 150 students and business owners gathered to discuss brain drain in the state at the Nebraska Trailblazers event hosted by The Foundry in Lincoln. He focused on what he had learned by working with hundreds of students each semester. Read the Omaha World-Herald article.
• Huy Le, actuarial science, accounting and finance major from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, shared with the Nebraska News Service why democracy to him means helping others. Read the article.
• Matthew Pierson, associate director of Nebraska Council on Economic Education, was one of eight featured speakers at the national Council for Economic Education Financial Literacy and Economic Education Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, in September. The conference gives K-12 educators professional development workshops on how to include economics and personal finance in their classes.
• Eric Thompson, department chair, K.H. Nelson College Professor of Economics and director of Bureau of Business Research, was interviewed for a Sept. 17 KLKN story on the Federal Reserve lowering the federal interest rate. He said it might be a while before people see any economic impact. “The people getting new mortgages will be impacted by the new rates, so it affects a lot of things; it makes its way through the economy,” he said. “Although some have noted it tends to work slowly, with a bit of a lag, so changes they make now might not affect the economy until six to nine months from now.” Read the article.