We recently hosted our Nebraska Business Alumni Tailgate, where we honored alumni celebrating milestone graduation anniversaries. It was extra special because we were continuing to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of Hawks Hall with our alumni who helped build this state-of-the-art facility as a gift for future alumni.

 

We love hearing from alumni at events like this. It’s where we hear of one-of-a-kind “full circle” moments like what happened with Grant and Shawna (Westcott) Forsberg through the Nebraska at Oxford study abroad program. Coming together enables us to reconnect and hear how the College of Business impacted your lives.

 

In addition to the football game win that day, we celebrated two huge wins for our students. Breaking both of these records is a testament to many people’s work and passion and how Nebraska believes in the power of every person.

 

First, thanks to support from alumni and donors, we were able to award more than $1 million in scholarships to business students. This was a major milestone for us as we seek to increase the accessibility to quality business education. We hosted a Scholarship Brunch in September where student scholarship recipients connected and engaged with the college’s generous donors. Watch this video to feel the energy from the event and hear from a student who was empowered by his scholarship and an alum who gave back.

 

Secondly, we saw the best career outcome success rate for our undergraduates in the 11-year period we’ve conducted career outcome reports. Within six months of graduation, 90% of our bachelor’s degree graduates in August 2020, December 2020 and May 2021 secured employment or continued their education. Previously, our highest placement rate was 86%. A placement rate below 90% might surprise some when seeing other schools’ rates, but, true to our roots, we go beyond survey responses and research student outcomes as thoroughly as possible. Our 95% knowledge rate of our graduates' placements is much higher than others – thanks to sourcing information from faculty and LinkedIn, which is considered a best practice of the National Association of Colleges & Employers. These outcomes speak to our hands-on career development in our Professional Enhancement Program courses that students take each year and to the robust opportunities in the job market.

 

Our graduate programs saw amazing career outcomes as well. Their success rates included: 97% for Master of Professional Accountancy, 99% for MBA@Nebraska and 100% for our Ph.D. Programs. While it is quite well known that our MBA@Nebraska gives a high return on investment with alumni reporting to Financial Times a 33% increase in their salaries post-graduation, we don’t often get the opportunity to shine the light upon the fabulous work happening within our Ph.D. Programs in business and economics.

 

Faculty like Mirzo Abdurakhmonov and Varkey Titus Jr. provide one-on-one mentoring so our Ph.D. students like Izu Mbaraonye can develop great teaching and research skills to take with them in their academic careers. With a 2:1 faculty-to-student ratio, the Ph.D. programs’ students co-author journal articles with faculty before or after graduation. These publications lead to job offers and subsequent promotions. Our newsletter’s student feature shares Izu’s story working with Mirzo and Varkey, while our faculty feature shows how accounting professor Tom Omer is elevating research at Nebraska (link to story) while guiding Ph.D. students. Omer joined an elite group of academics who published in all top six accounting journals with all six papers also being coauthored by former students.

 

With the excitement of Homecoming, career fairs and power lunches behind us, we’ve still got plenty of opportunities for you before we ring in another year. Don’t miss these three programs:

 

As you can see, much work is being done within the college and across the university to best serve our state by being a world-leading, mission-integrated, land-grant university. Your engagement and support will propel us forward on our mission to drive discovery, create opportunity and empower individuals to lead the future of business.

 

Together, we are Nebraska Business.