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Faculty and Staff Awards Promote Accomplishments

Faculty and Staff Awards Promote Accomplishments
Dean Kathy Farrell poses with all the College of Business Faculty and Staff Award winners.
Faculty and staff from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business received recognition at the 2018 Faculty and Staff Awards Reception at Howard L. Hawks Hall on April 20. Dr. Kathy Farrell, James Jr. and Susan Stuart Endowed Dean of the College of Business, presented recipients with the annual awards which demonstrate the accomplishments and impact made by members of the college.

“So many of our community consider this building as the driving force behind our transformation as a world-class business college. However, I can tell you the people inside the physical building embody the qualities we need to make great things happen. You each enable us all to Start Something,” said Farrell.

Dr. Gregory Hayden celebrates 50 years at the College of Business.
Dr. Gregory Hayden celebrates 50 years at the College of Business.
In addition to recognizing the award winners, Farrell also lauded the accomplishment of retiring faculty member Dr. David Smith, Ray Dein Professor and Deloitte Scholar in accountancy. Smith joined the College of Business in 2005, and inspired undergraduate and graduate students throughout his tenure in both his research and the classroom.

Farrell made a special announcement recognizing Dr. Gregory Hayden, professor of economics, for 50 years of service. Hayden came to Nebraska in 1967 and devoted himself to three main areas, including the development of the social fabric matrix, the development of meta-policymaking paradigm and the application of instrumental philosophy to policy analysis.

The U.S. Army College recruited Hayden to teach at a colloquium in 2016 because of his transformational approach to looking at complex world situations through the use of his social fabric matrix approach. In his own words, “Nothing transpires in the economy without the involvement of cultural values, social beliefs, social institutions, attitudes, technology and the ecological system.” His social fabric matrix integrates those factors for analysis in economic systems.
 
Distinguished Service Award – Marci Warner

Marci Warner
Marci Warner
Marci Warner, administrative coordinator for the School of Accountancy, received the Distinguished Service Award. The award recognizes a staff member who consistently shows outstanding job performance, provides service or support above and beyond the call of duty, exemplifies or inspires a teamwork attitude, makes contributions and is committed to excellence.

Warner joined the College of Business in 2006, and has been with the School of Accountancy since 2010. She oversees the overall operation of the school and works closely with the director, faculty and students.

Her nominators described her using words such as rock, champion, all-knowing and friend. Well-known for her institutional and departmental knowledge across many areas, her dedication to keeping the School of Accountancy running like a well-oiled machine sits high on the list of her praises as well. She organizes events and makes sure everyone has what they need, down to the smallest detail. She regularly coordinates faculty needs for research and teaching while balancing numerous student requests. Warner is also known for fostering student-professor engagement, especially during the MPA kick-off socials each year.
 
“The valuable quality I love about Marci is her dedication to the students. She understands their needs and is always willing to go the extra mile for them if needed. She has patience and shows them respect,” said one of Warner’s nominators.
 
Excellence in Teaching Award (Non-Tenure Track) – Dr. Sam Nelson

Dr. Sam Nelson
Dr. Sam Nelson
Dr. Sam Nelson, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and assistant professor of practice of management, received the Excellence in Teaching Award given to a professor of practice, lecturer or adjunct faculty member who has made a positive impact on his or her students’ educational experience.
 
Nelson earned his Ph.D. in management from Nebraska Business in 2011 and joined the college faculty in 2012. In addition to his graduate work with the university, he has also been an integral collaborator in the Center for Entrepreneurship prior to becoming its director. He helped design curriculum and delivered many of the courses during the 2012-13 academic year while serving as interim director of the center.
 
In recognition of Nelson’s dedication to learning, one student called his business strategy course a highlight of his senior year. The student said, “Sam demonstrated a thorough academic understanding balanced by his experiences in small business and at Intel.”
 
Nelson often brings in professionals to share their experience and hosts entrepreneurs to have candid discussions with students. His lessons go beyond the classroom and provide a platform for the real-world lessons ahead.
 
“I have appreciated his enthusiastic approach as well as practical-orientation of the course. Sam is able to create a stimulating classroom experience that encourages students to want to learn,” said one nominator.
 
MBA Distance Teaching Award – Dr. Geoff Friesen (co-winner)

Dr. Geoff Friesen
Dr. Geoff Friesen
Dr. Geoff Friesen, associate professor of finance, received the MBA Distance Teaching Award. The award goes to a faculty member who has made the most positive impact on the distance MBA students’ educational experience. The recipient is selected by the distance students. 

Friesen earned his doctorate from the University of Iowa before returning to Lincoln and joining the college in 2005. His research interests include investments, behavioral finance, mutual fund performance, microfinance and cognitive psychology. He also enjoys teaching investments, security analysis, derivatives, managerial economics and financial theory.

His nominators praised his ability to make a tough subject understandable and interesting through his friendly approach. One said, “I rarely learn about history from an economic perspective so I thought this was a great way to understand the evolution of economics.”
 
Additionally, Friesen’s students commented on his interactive approach and how his passion for economics and finance comes through in all of his interactions. “His weekly live classes were the highlight of the courses and differentiated his instruction from others I’ve had.”
 
MBA Distance Teaching Award – Dr. Elina Ibrayeva (co-winner)

Dr. Elina Ibrayeva
Dr. Elina Ibrayeva
Dr. Elina Ibrayeva, assistant professor of practice in management, received the MBA Distance Teaching Award as a faculty member making the most positive impact on the distance MBA student’s educational experience. Ibrayeva earned a doctorate from Nebraska Business, and began teaching in the Department of Management in 2012.

While distance courses have a reputation for creating some disconnected feelings, Ibrayeva gets to know her students in each course. Her nominators talk about her energy and commitment to learning. She tailors her class for the unique dynamics of virtual learning, to the point one nominator made note her course design “transcended the typical constraints of a virtual class and transpired an interest in her topic that I would have otherwise not had.”
 
Armed with her passion and knowledge about learning, she exhibits amazing energy. One nominator found her passion to be transferrable, “To be honest, coming from a STEM background, I did not have high expectations I would enjoy the class Applied Organizational Behavior, but I was completely wrong and now notice myself thinking differently about people in general. I am left feeling inspired to hopefully get into a position one day to try to implement some ideas that have budded in the past couple of months.”
 
Distinguished Teaching Award (Tenure-Track) – Dr. Joel Owens

Dr. Joel Owens
Dr. Joel Owens
The Distinguished Teaching Award goes to the professor who has made the most positive impact on their student’s educational experience. Dr. Joel Owens, assistant professor of accountancy, earned the award for putting standards of excellence into new terms for our students.

Owens’ earned his doctorate from the University of South Carolina in 2015. A year prior, he was named an American Accounting Association/Deloitte/J.Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium Fellow. The consortium provides a forum for examining issues from different research perspectives to improve the quality of future accounting education and research at national and international universities.
 
He received the prestigious University of South Carolina Presidential Doctoral Fellowship from 2011-15. His research focus is on judgement and decision making related to auditing and financial reporting.
 
Owens’ enthusiasm extends beyond the textbook and classroom. One recent example is the drone auditing research project he conducted in Hawks Hall’s atrium. One thing you don’t expect to walk out into the atrium and see a drone hovering at the third floor is a drone. This captured many of his colleagues’ attention – as well as students. His innovative thinking provided an opportunity for 60 accounting students to share in a drone and auditing research. His openness with students and desire to learn right along with them makes him a favorite for students.
 
Faculty Service Award – Dr. Jenna Pieper

Dr. Jenna Pieper
Dr. Jenna Pieper
Dr. Jenna Pieper, assistant professor of management, received the Faculty Service Award for showing a commitment and dedication to service. The award recognizes those who have made a distinguished contribution through service to the university, college, department, community or profession. The award is based upon a record of sustained performance that has significantly contributed to the college's service mission. 

Pieper joined the college in 2012 with an area of expertise in human resource management. Her research interests focus on strategic human resource management and workplace diversity. A well-published author, her works appear in Personnel Psychology and the Journal of Management to name a few.
 
In addition to her continued research, she is serving her second year as chair of the scholarships, honors and awards committee. Her dedication to service is the driving force behind the work the committee does and recognizes all of the great things happening at the college. Pieper has also served on numerous search committees, including searches for the dean and management faculty.
 
At the university level, she serves in the university faculty senate and faculty compensation advisory committee. Professionally, she is actively serving on the editorial review board of three major journals.
 
Distinguished Research Award – Dr. Jin Yeub Kim (co-winner)

Dr. Jin Yeub Kim
Dr. Jin Yeub Kim
The Distinguished Research Award stands out for its assessment of a faculty member’s research record over a three-year period. Dr. Jin Yeub Kim, assistant professor of economics, receives the award for her contributions to research in recent years.

Kim earned her doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago. While her research is in the field of economic theory, including game theory, bargaining theory and mechanism design; her primary focus is on developing theoretical models to address relevant issues in the areas of political economy, international relations, organizational economics and law and economics.  
 
In 2017, she published in two top economics journals, Games and Economics Behavior and Journal of Law and Economics. In the same year, another paper was accepted and is forthcoming. Having these two top publications and one forthcoming work in the same year is a great accomplishment for a fourth-year assistant professor. Additionally, Kim has two papers under review at top economics journals and several other working papers. She has also been actively furthering the scholarship of her department through conference presentations, seminar invitations and referee works for top journals.
 
Distinguished Research Award – Dr. S. Sajeesh (co-winner)

Dr. S. Sajeesh
Dr. S. Sajeesh
Dr. S. Sajeesh, assistant professor of marketing, received the Distinguished Research Award for his continued high level of research over a sustained period. Sajeesh earned the award in his first academic year at Nebraska Business.
Sajeesh earned his doctorate from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Previously, he was a faculty member at Baruch College, City University of New York, before joining the College of Business. His research interests are in retailing, emerging markets, product differentiation and marketing strategy.

Over the course of the last two years, Sajeesh has published in two premier journals. One article was published in Marketing Science, a premier journal focusing on empirical and theoretical quantitative research in marketing. This research can provide guidance to policy makers grappling with issues related to the balanced growth of unorganized and organized retailing in emerging markets.
 
Another article published in Decision Sciences includes analysis to identify the role of types of consumers in the market, relative bargaining power of local businesses and market characteristics on the profitability attained through daily deal promotions.
 
Emerging Scholar Research Award – Dr. Sunil Singh

Dr. Sunil Singh
Dr. Sunil Singh
The Emerging Scholar Research Award recognizes a tenure-track assistant professor in the first three years of their career who has made an outstanding contribution to academic literature. Dr. Sunil Singh, assistant professor of marketing, received the award as a first-year faculty member.

Singh earned his doctorate from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He also has more than five years industry experience across multiple organizations in the area of service operations. His primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, interpersonal influence in sales and managing frontline interactions in services and sales.
 
His studies focus on how firms should effectively implement marketing strategy at firm-customer interface. He has recently published two articles in elite journals. His article in the Journal of Marketing Research combines grounded theory and textual analysis to first build, then validate a dictionary of verbal and nonverbal cues used by customer service employees during interactions with customers. In his follow-up article accepted at the Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, he studies how salespeople dynamically manage their behaviors during customer query handling. Both articles address managerially relevant questions on how a firm should train its frontline employees to effectively negotiate difficult customers and enhance outcomes such as customer satisfaction and repurchase intent.
 
Graduate Student Teaching Award – Matthew Hall
 
Matthew Hall
Matthew Hall
Matthew Hall, a third-year student in the marketing doctoral program, received the Graduate Students Teaching Award. He lends his teaching talents to three sections of principles of marketing, one section of marketing channels management and one online section of contemporary marketing.
 
One of Hall’s nominators commented on how strong his teaching evaluations were. In the four years this individual oversaw teaching evaluations, he said, “Matthew would easily be in or near the top for all individuals – and that is considering both faculty and graduate students.”
 
His teaching expertise is coupled with considerable, developing skills as a researcher. His nominators repeatedly praise his “balance between research and teaching quality.”
 
Graduate Student Research Award – Matthew Hall
 
Hall received the Graduate Research for his consistent stream of quality research papers under the partnership with Dr. Jamie Hyodo, assistant professor of marketing. Hall presented at the Mittelstaedt Symposium, an honor bestowed by the marketing faculty based on perceptions of a student’s research excellence.
 
Matthew has proposed and designed experiments, collected and analyzed data, and written papers for two separate, high-level research projects targeted at A-level marketing journals. In the past 15 months, these projects have transitioned from ideas to well-formed papers. One has already been submitted and the other is in the final stages of revision for submission.
 
Another nominator noted, “Matthew is inquisitive, intelligent and works incredibly hard to produce high-quality research. It is a true pleasure to be able to work with him.”
 
To view past winners and make future nominations, visit the Nebraska Business Recognitions webpage: http://business.unl.edu/faculty-and-research/recognitions/.
 
Published: April 23, 2018