At Nebraska Business, we know power lies within the university's goal to be an institution where every person and every interaction matters. This principle ties into all that we do – teaching and learning, research, service and engagement. However, with fewer in-person classes and events held during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became difficult for students to feel connected to campus, our community and each other.

To show our commitment to making every person and every interaction matter, the College of Business spearheaded a calling campaign for students. During the months of December and January, 52 faculty, staff and student workers volunteered to make calls to nearly 3,700 undergraduate students to check in on how they were doing, ask for feedback and provide resources. While this campaign contributed to a 13% increase in undergraduate business student retention, the campaign's success goes beyond the numbers. We were able to be there for our students, suggest events and relevant opportunities, and connect students with an advisor. By making these important calls, we encouraged students to continue on their path to lead the future of business at Nebraska.

Last month, the College of Business also participated in a virtual Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) Continuous Improvement Review (CIR). AACSB standards are used to evaluate a business school’s mission, operations, faculty qualifications and contributions, programs, and other critical areas. Meeting accreditation standards places us among the elite business schools in the world and validates our high-quality education. Selected as part of a pilot group of 20 business schools, we adopted the new AACSB standards for our CIR. The review team familiarized themselves with our college from extensive principle-based reports and we also adapted to a virtual visit that impacted how we delivered information about our college to the review team. One of these changes included creating a virtual tour of Howard L. Hawks Hall, which provided the review team with an opportunity to assess our physical resources and allowed us to tell our story in a more meaningful way. We should know more about their recommendation for accreditation by the end of May.

This past year underscored the importance of supply chain management in every industry. To support the growing demand for individuals with the skills to help organizations better understand, manage and coordinate their supply chains, we are excited to launch our new, fully-online Master of Science in Supply Chain Management, which you can read more about in this newsletter. The curriculum combines a core of business fundamentals with specialized courses for an introduction to business concepts and quantitative tools, as well as the foundation of supply chain management. The new offering adds to our other fully-online master’s programs in business analytics and finance as well as seven certificate programs. To learn more about our master or certificate programs, go here.

In addition, this newsletter includes a story about one of our first Master of Science in Finance students, Allison Dahl, and her experiences in the program; an alum, Paska Juma, who uses her strengths as a social entrepreneur to help others; and an assistant professor of management, Dr. Troy Smith, who researched abuse in the workplace. All three stories illustrate the power of people and the importance of interactions at Nebraska Business, in the workplace or in the community.

Thank you to our Nebraska Business community who helped us Glow Big Red during the 24 Hours of Giving last month. We received 350 gifts, which allowed us to unlock our special bonus that was donated by Kevin, ’88, and Marianne Carlson; Jaime Gregonis, ’01; and an anonymous donor. See the Glow Big Red box in this newsletter for more details.

We appreciate your generous support. Glow Big Red!

Sincerely,

Dean Kathy Farrell