The School of Business Administration is proud to welcome three new faculty members for the 2009 Fall semester.
 Clay Dibrell
Associate Professor of Management -- Dr. Dibrell received his Ph.D. from The University of Memphis. His areas of interest include a strong focus on innovation, competitiveness, and the influence of family on firm processes in small- to medium-sized firms.
Christopher Thomas
Assistant Professor of Management -- Dr. Thomas received his Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Georgia. His interests include employee engagement, leadership, career development and mentoring.
Experts in finance, economics and corporate law spoke about the current financial crisis on April 30 during a panel discussion at the University of Mississippi's School of Business Administration. The event was hosted by the
School of Business Administration and sponsored by the Financier's Club
- Click here to watch a video of this event -
Panelists discussed the causes and effects of the crisis, the effects of policy responses and what the future may hold, said Ken Cyree, business school dean and Frank R. Day/Mississippi Bankers Association Chair of Banking.
Panelists included Cyree; Mercer Bullard, assistant professor of law and expert in securities law; Matthew Hill, assistant professor of real estate; Bill Rayburn, CEO of FNC Inc.; and Bill Shughart, Frederick Barnard Distinguished Professor of Economics. The moderator was Mike Mitchell, director of business development at FNC.
Financier's Club President Mario Hilliard, a senior banking and finance major from Oxford, proposed the idea for the event. Hilliard said he suggested the discussion for multiple recession-related reasons, including the stock market decline, layoffs at major financial institutions and the suffering mortgage market.
"The purpose of this panel discussion is to provide insight into the current financial environment," Hilliard said. "Our goal is to create an atmosphere that allows the panelists to engage the audience in an interactive exchange of perspectives. I hope the attendees will leave this event more informed about the causes and effects of the current financial crisis. More importantly, I would like for them to take the various points of views expressed and be able to incorporate them in their economic analyses."
- Click here to watch a video of this event -
Managing Editorship of the
Financial Review Comes to Ole Miss
Dr. Bonnie Van Ness and Dr. Robert Van Ness have been named the Managing Editors of The Financial Review, one of the top 15 journals in finance and financial economics. The Financial Review is affiliated with the Eastern Finance Association. This quarterly journal publishes original empirical, theoretical and methodological research providing new insights into issues of importance in financial economics.
The journal's home was most recently at Iowa State University. Having this prestigious journal based at The University of Mississippi is a great honor, and a reflection of the national reputations of Bonnie and Robert Van Ness as outstanding finance scholars and experts.
Bonnie Van Ness is the Chair of the Department of Finance and Professor of Finance. Robert Van Ness is the Tom B. Scott Chair of Financial Institutions and Professor of Finance. Both have been on the faculty at the University of Mississippi since 2001.
Gillespie Business Plan Competion
Winners Announced
Two University of Mississippi students plan to take their ideas for entrepreneurship to the next level after winning $5,000 each in the fifth annual Gillespie Business Plan Competition, sponsored by the School of Business Administration.
A panel of eight judges selected Jennifer Harjes, an MBA student from Jackson and manager of product resources for the UM Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, as winner of the Best Business Plan, and Julia Bussade, a doctoral student in education and interim director of Spanish and Portuguese from Brazil, as winner of the Best New Business Concept.
"The Gillespie Business Challenge is a wonderful event that exposes aspiring entrepreneurs to the process of organizing and selling their business idea to a panel of experienced judges," said Ken Cyree, business school dean. "The presentations are similar to what these budding business owners would make to a start-up funding firm or a bank to get their business off the ground, so the experience is excellent for honing their business plan for the future. The event showcases the ingenuity or our students, and the finalists gave impressive presentations about their ideas."
Harjes entered a plan for Fantastic Flatware, a customized utensil business that would allow fans of organizations such as colleges, sports teams and NASCAR to entertain with flatware bearing their college or team's stamp. Harjes is working on putting her plan into action. She said that the feedback from the Gillespie competition judges was extremely helpful.
"I wanted to bounce this idea off of people who have a lot of experience in business," Harjes said. "The judges gave a lot of really great feedback and offered to introduce me to people they know in the business. I'm just so excited about the idea."
Bussade's plan, AlienNation, offers long-term car rentals to international students, researchers and other visitors who plan to be in Oxford for an extended period of time but not permanently.
"Most people lose money when they buy a car for a short period of time, and the fact that they usually have to sell it right before they return home makes the price even lower," Bussade said. "That is where AlienNation Car Rental LLC sounds like a good solution."
Bussade put her idea into motion in 2001, but she plans to expand by investing her prize money.
Twenty-four undergraduate and graduate students of all majors entered the competition in March by submitting a two-page executive summary of their plans, and 20 semi-finalists were then chosen for five-minute presentations in front of the judges. The six finalists gave in-depth presentations April 17.
Competition judge John Cassimus, of Maki Fresh Restaurant, said he judged the business plans on whether or not the ideas were believable and applicable, as well as on the inclusion of solid financial data. For the Best New Business Concept, he said he was looking for an idea that could be "put into play next week and make money."
Melanie Dowell, a competition judge from Smith Barney, said she was looking for ideas that were "realistic, new, achievable, simple and innovative," which she found in Harjes' plan and in Bussade's idea.
"While there were several deserving entrants, Jennifer's plan was not only new, simple and achievable, but she will have limited competition due to her ownership of the licenses for each logo she uses," Dowell said. "Julia's idea was so innovative and original that it really captured your attention."
Along with Cassimus and Dowell, other judges were Wayne Averett of Renasant Center for IDEAS Home Page, David Guyton of First National Bank of Oxford, Whitney Harris of BancorpSouth, Lance Hickman of BancorpSouth, Rita Floyd of Trustmark Bank and Gerald McLemore of SOUTHbank.
The endowment for the competition was provided in honor of Edwin C. Gillespie, a 1943 business administration graduate. His widow, Jean Gillespie, and brother, Joe Gillespie, a 1950 liberal arts graduate, helped establish the endowment to assist students in promoting concepts in entrepreneurship.
Professional MBA Students Travel to Panama
Over Winter Break
For a handful of students enrolled in the Professional Master of Business Administration program at the University of Mississippi, the winter break included a five-day trip to Panama that served as the site for the last step in their final PMBA class.
Tony Ammeter, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in UM's School of Business Admistration, traveled with the four students to study the expansion of the Panama Canal as part of the students' online project analysis class, which he teaches. The expansion project calls for a series of new locks and approach channels to facilitate a growing number of ships - a major project that racks up a tab of more than $5 billion. The project is expected to be finished in 2014.
Dr. Tony Ammeter (left) in Panama with PMBA students Drew Shull, Tammy Mailhot, Tami Busby, and Gina O'Hara. The group's driver, Alvaro, is on the far right.
The trip enabled the students to complete different parts of their final project as they considered details of the canal's expansion to determine if they thought the project was properly planned.
"It's a very interesting project, and it is very important for North America" Ammeter said. "Whenever you can ship something by road, air or ship, the ship is always cheapest and uses less energy. (The canal) is going to be 50 percent deeper and 50 percent wider."
The trip was a bit of an experiment for the online program, but both Ammeter and his students felt it was a nice capstone to the program and could be a good change for the current curriculum.
The PMBA offers a flexible online cohort of coursework. Students take one to three classes a semester and usually complete the program in from two to six years. The emphasis is on setting a pace that works for the individual student.
For student Tami Busby, who runs her own human resources consulting firm in Tupelo, the greatest value of the trip came from actually seeing how the canal worked.
"You can see and study the canal in a book, but you don't really realize how magnificent it is until you are there," Busby said. "To see the size of the vessels going in and out and to watch the water level go up and down is awe-inspiring. You realize it is going to take hours instead of days for the ship to reach the other side and you realize how big a deal that is."
While the classroom may have been taken out of the online course offering, there is a classroom mentality among the students. It is not required, but students who enroll in the cohort usually meet a couple times a semester and frequently communicate via phone and e-mail on projects - though the students may be in different states or countries at the time.
In my two years in the program, I never had any trouble getting in touch with my professors," Busby said. "I hadn't taken statistics in 10 years, but I called my professor, drove to Oxford, and we sat down and worked on it until I was caught up. I wouldn't have been able to finish had it not been for that."
To Ammeter, who has taught both online and on-campus MBA seminars, the classroom variable does not take away from the program; the endgame is the same as the full-time program.
"The PMBA is a lot more self-driven, of course," he said. "But, I think there may be something to learn from the online classes - in industry this is how things happen. It's not like you can always spend lots of time with one group and then more time with another; lots of things happen at once today."
Click here for more information on the
Professional MBA Program
Speaker's Edge Competition
Gives Ole Miss MBAs an Edge
As a business consultant for 20 years, Randy Harrington often hears managers grouse that their employees with M.B.A.s may know their way around a spreadsheet, but they struggle to run a meeting or make an effective presentation. Verbal communication, they say, is a skill that’s often lacking, even among some of the top candidates they have hired.
“The bottom line is that business decision-making is collaborative art form—and collaboration implies relationship,” says Harrington, CEO of Extreme Arts and Sciences. “For all of the e-mail, text messages, and automation, real business accomplishments always orbit around real people talking with each other. In fact, the expectations for substance and value in face-to-face communication are even higher than it used to be because now a presentation must go beyond what could have been accomplished with an e-mail or Internet search.”
Recognizing that today’s college students need to possess effective speaking skills to succeed in their job searches and careers, Harrington’s firm—along with the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) School of Business Administration and the Lott Leadership Institute—co-sponsors the Ole Miss M.B.A. program’s Speaker’s Edge competition.
Having just completed its sixth year, the competition is designed to help M.B.A. students improve or enhance their public speaking skills by learning their strengths, weaknesses, and personal style. In addition, they learn how to craft a message and react under pressure.
“Speaking and communication skills are critical for students entering the job market and can often make or break a candidate’s success in attaining a position,” explains Bethany Cooper, director of corporate relations and M.B.A. services in the Ole Miss School of Business Administration. “Companies seek strong communicators, particularly those who can articulate their ideas and information to a diverse audience.”
The diverse audience for the Speaker’s Edge competition includes a contingent of judges. Cooper says that the school and the Lott Leadership Institute partnered to invite key senior-level business leaders to campus to judge the event. Many of the judges represent companies and organizations that hire Ole Miss students.
“Fifty judges attended this year, which is a record number, and amazingly they traveled to Oxford from all over the country to participate in and support the program,” Cooper notes.
The judges also took advantage of the event’s networking component, as organizers hosted a reception to allow students and judges to interact.
“Many students made great career connections,” Cooper says. “Following the event, I have also received calls from judges asking for students to follow-up with resumes for specific job opportunities, so the event really is a chance for Ole Miss to showcase our M.B.A. talent.”
During the competition, students make persuasive and informative speeches that are from five to seven minutes in length, and address a seven-minute "ethical dilemma" for which the students only have 30 minutes to prepare.
“By using the ethical dilemma in the speaking competition, we reflect the M.B.A. faculty's determination to emphasize business ethics at multiple points throughout the curriculum,” Cooper points out.
For the persuasive presentation, students must influence judges to want to purchase a product, or inspire a group as a leader. The informative presentation demonstrates how well students are able to communicate complex information to a nontechnical audience or educate a group about a process.
Harrington says that to be persuasive, a speaker must first be credible and earn the audience’s trust by being in command of relevant facts. Another key criteria, he says, is authenticity.
“It is not about being ‘slick,’ ” Harrington says. “It is about delivering a message with integrity and being yourself with the audience. There is no silver bullet recipe for effective speakers. People are great speakers when they know their subject and they are true to themselves and their audiences.”
These are skills Harrington and other instructors work on with participants during “boot camp” preceding the competition. During this phase, the students also learn that, through this experience, they have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
“The Speaker’s Edge Competition allows the students to see themselves in relation to others in an evaluative situation—in a safe place—while the opportunity to get better doesn’t come with the weight of a job offer or loss or a promotion,” says JoAnn Edwards, speech instructor at Ole Miss and Speaker’s Edge coach.
The competition itself is the culmination of the school’s managerial communication class. During this class, the students prepare for the Speaker’s Edge competition. Students receive one hour of credit for the event and participation is required.
Says 2009 Speaker’s Edge champion Hunter Tubbs of the experience: “During boot camp, we were critiqued in a way that forced us to get over any type of speaking insecurities that we had. Everyone messed up, everyone's voice cracked, everyone got embarrassed at one point or another.”
Despite the anxiety, Tubbs explains that this turned out to be a positive thing.
“We quickly realized that everyone was human and that no student was a master speaker,” he says. “I think once we all let our guard down and were open to constructive criticism our class turned the corner and our speaking skills rose to a new level. All the communication skills I learned through Speaker’s Edge will serve me well in the financial planning industry because such an important part of that industry is the communication with clients.”
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Lawrence and Jan Farrington
Deliver Otho Smith Lecture
University of Mississippi husband-and-wife alumni Lawrence Farrington and Jan Griffin Farrington of Jackson returned to their alma mater Thursday (Nov. 20) to discuss their successful business ventures with MBA students. The lecture was an installment of the School of Business Administration's Otho Smith Lecture Series.
Lawrence Farrington is an independent oil and gas businessman, and Jan Farrington is executive director of the Medical Support and Development Organization Inc. He is a 1958 business school graduate, and she completed a degree in education in 1965.
"Lawrence and Jan Farrington have been great friends of the school of business and to Ole Miss for many years," said Ken Cyree, interim dean of the business school. "I am delighted that they are willing to use their time to educate and encourage our students. It is through generous support of alumni like Lawrence and Jan Farrington that we are able to provide an outstanding education for our students."
The lecture focused on entrepreneurship and investing in start-up companies, and included stories, tips and advice that the couple has learned through their own experiences.
"We hope this will be helpful to students, and we look forward to sharing some time with them," Lawrence Farrington said. "Jan and I want to encourage young entrepreneurs and give them some ideas and tips about creating new companies and finding investors."
Lawrence Farrington has worked as a general partner of Vaughey & Vaughey Oil Co. and in the petroleum department of Deposit Guaranty National Bank. He started his own company, Atwood Alarm Co., which he later sold. He continues to be involved in oil and gas, as well as land and business investments. A former chairman of the UM Business Advisory Council, he serves on the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Besides her work with Medical Support and Development Organization Inc., Jan Farrington joins her husband in investment ventures. She serves on the board of directors for FNC Inc., Mississippi Technology Alliance and Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian. She is a former national president of the UM Alumni Association and is president-elect of the UM Foundation Board of Directors.
The Otho Smith Lecture Series, initiated in 1981 through a grant from the Phil B. Hardin Foundation, brings prominent business executives to the UM campus as guest speakers. It is named for the late Meridian businessman, philanthropist and former president of the UM Alumni Association.
Cellular South President Victor Meena
Delivers Otho Smith Lecture
Jackson businessman Victor Hu Meena, president of Cellular South Inc., discussed the importance of company values in a free, public lecture on November 13 at the University of Mississippi School of Business Administration.
The lecture, "Company Core Values: the Non-Negotiable Aspects of Business," was presented especially for MBA students under the auspices of the School of Business Administration's Otho Smith Lecture Series. "We hope that students will take away that beyond strategy execution and focus on the bottom line, there are values that are important to every business that should be non-negotiable," Meena said. "We will present and discuss values that are a part of this category for Cellular South."
Meena has headed Cellular South, the nation's largest privately held wireless provider, since 1997. He played a key role in launching the company in 1988 on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Cellular South, a subsidiary of Telapex Inc., services the entire state of Mississippi as well as parts of four Southeastern states.
Under Meena's leadership, the company has received multiple awards, including the President's Safety Award from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, celebrating Cellular South's leading initiatives in wireless safety education.
"Hu has a passion to help educate people, and we are pleased that he has partnered with us in this important endeavor," said Ken Cyree, interim dean of the business school. "We are honored to have someone with his background and accomplishments speak to our students, and we appreciate him sharing the things that have made him successful with our students and faculty."
Meena joined Cellular South as general manager in 1987, before the company's launch, and was named vice president of operations and development in 1990. Previously, he was general manager of Southland Systems of Mississippi.
Meena is chairman of the board for the Associated Carrier Group and member of the Rural Cellular Association Board of Directors. He also serves on the boards of Telepax Inc., Mississippi Economic Council, Jackson Metropolitan Area Chamber of Commerce and Jackson Preparatory School. He is a member of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.
The Otho Smith Lecture Series, initiated in 1981 through a grant from the Phil B. Hardin Foundation, brings prominent business executives to the UM campus as guest speakers. It is named for the late Meridian businessman, philanthropist and former president of the UM Alumni Association.
Thinking About Ole Miss Business?
If you are thinking of coming to the Ole Miss School of Business Administration, this streaming video will give you first-hand view of what we have to offer.
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