Archives
August 2006
Director's Message: Strengthening our alumni programs
I'd like to introduce myself as the new director of Alumni Affairs at the Johnson School. Since June 30, I have been getting acquainted with new faces both on and off campus. I found out very quickly that the Johnson School community is unique and powerful. People are motivated, excited, and ready to make things happen and take our programs to the next level. [more]
Professor Libby is sole AAA honoree for research, teaching, service
Professor Robert Libby, David A. Thomas Professor of Management, has received the American Accounting Association Outstanding Service Award at the Association's recent 2006 Annual Meeting. The award, which has been awarded only five times in the Association's 90 year history, was given "in recognition of visionary stewardship of the publications collection of the AAA." Bob Libby is the only person to have received all three of the association's highest awards for research, teaching, and service. He was the AAA Outstanding Accounting Educator in 2000 and received the AAA Notable Contributions to the Literature Award in 1985 and 1996. He has been a member of the Cornell faculty since 1989. Before joining the Johnson School, he was KPMG Professor at the University of Michigan. Please join us in congratulating Bob on his wonderful achievements.
JS hires alumni career consultant
We're excited to announce that the Johnson School has hired career consultant Lynne Allen to provide alumni career services. Allen specializes in working with professionals to assess and analyze career choices, research and understand industries and functions, and prepare for the interview process in the most proven and effective ways. She will work with both the Career Management Center and the Alumni Affairs office to better serve our alumni, providing individual alumni career counseling. She will also hold an East Coast and West Coast seminar for alumni. Last August, Allen was hired to provide career services to students in our Palisades-based Executive MBA program and our Cornell-Queen's Executive MBA program.
Allen is based in New York City. Her professional credentials include over 14 years experience in corporate and executive recruiting at Colgate-Palmolive Company and Time Inc., as well as at two executive search firms.
Search for dean commences
Provost Biddy Martin will oversee the search for Dean Swieringa's successor. She asked us to forward the following update to Johnson School alumni:
I am writing to inform you about the early stages of the process to find a new Dean of the Johnson School. As you know, Dean Swieringa has decided not to seek reappointment at the end of his term (June 30, 2007).
Vice Provost John Siliciano will chair the search committee and Michael Matier, Director of Institutional Research and Planning, will serve as the search manager to oversee and facilitate day-to-day operations of the search.
Just before the end of the semester I met with the School faculty to discuss preliminary plans for the search. Subsequently, John and Michael held meetings with smaller groups of the faculty as well as with the lecturers, senior administrators, and staff of the School to gather background information to assist us with the search. We will be looking for opportunities to meet with students and alumni as the search progresses.
Based in part on the feedback from these meetings and other feedback that individuals provided, I identified individuals to serve on the search committee. The Faculty Senate's Nominations and Elections Committee has approved this slate and each of the individuals listed below has agreed to serve. The members are:
Chair John Siliciano, Vice Provost; School Faculty Bob Frank; School Faculty Vrinda Kadiyali; School Faculty Bob Libby; School Faculty Beta Mannix; School Faculty Mark Nelson; School Faculty Joe Thomas; Outside Faculty Ed McLaughlin, Applied Economics and Management; Academic Dean Kent Fuchs, Dean, College of Engineering; Alumni Jeff Parker '65, MEng '66, MBA '70; and Search Manager Michael Matier, Institutional Research & Planning.
As is the case with all Dean searches at Cornell, this one will progress through a series of open and closed phases. Initially, as we formulate the characteristics we seek in a new Dean and begin to build a deep and diverse pool of potential candidates, the work of the Search Committee will be relatively open. When we begin qualifying applicants and assessing the credentials of nominees, the Search Committee's work will be strictly confidential. After the committee narrows the pool to the finalists we will bring to campus, the process will again be open, and we will actively seek the participation of the School's constituencies in interviewing and providing feedback about the candidates. The final stages of the search will again be confidential, as the committee considers this feedback and recommends the three unranked candidates to me. I will make a final decision in consultation with President Skorton, and we will jointly recommend the chosen candidate to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for its approval. We plan to have a new dean in place at the beginning of the 2007-'08 academic year.
The Search Committee will begin meeting soon to craft a position announcement. The series of meetings that John Siliciano and Michael Matier have held with various constituent groups over the past several weeks have provided numerous suggestions about the optimal background and expertise we would seek in a new dean. If you have not already done so, we encourage you to send your suggestions soon.
We are committed to finding an outstanding dean for the Johnson School. We will do our best to keep you informed of our progress throughout the search both through the search web site and through periodic e-mail messages such as this one. The URL for the search Web site is: http://www.cornell.edu/provost/search-johnson.cfm.
Please send comments or questions throughout the process to the special mailbox we have established for the search: JGSMdeansearch@cornell.edu
Support grows for new BDP program
We are pleased to announce that three of the Johnson School's corporate partners are stepping up to a new level in corporate giving by committing to our new Business Diversity Partners program. Deloitte Consulting, Lehman Brothers, and PricewaterhouseCoopers have recently signed up as the first three partners in the program and have agreed to support the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and its initiatives with a gift of $25,000 each.
The Business Diversity Partners (BDP) program, jointly coordinated by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of Corporate Programs, was created to help corporations increase diversity by reaching women and underrepresented minorities in the pipeline. It gives companies the opportunity to reach students across a spectrum of programs, rather than sponsoring a single event during the year. With the BDP package, contributions are distributed across several programs, ranging from Camp $tart-Up, to Destination Johnson. This is a new concept in corporate fund raising for our diversity initiatives, and we look forward to bringing several more partners into this exciting program.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is taking an innovative approach to its commitment to diversity at Cornell. Utilizing its corporate matching gift program, the company will conduct an internal fund-raising campaign for Cornell alumni to support their participation as a BD partner. Cornellians at PWC will have the opportunity to donate specifically to this program and the company will match those gifts and any additional funds needed to reach the $25,000 goal. If the organization exceeds the goal, additional funds will go to support diversity initiatives in the undergraduate business program, Applied Economics Management (AEM), which is a featured partner in the program. The PWC campaign is being spearheaded internally by firm partner, Shyam Venkat, MBA '85, with the support of the offices of Corporate Programs and Diversity and Inclusion.
To learn more about the BDP program, contact Deniqua Crichlow, director, Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Dyckman to retire
Professor Thomas Dyckman will retire this year. A celebration in his honor will be held on Saturday, November 4, 2006, at 6 p.m. in the Dyson Atrium of Sage Hall. More details on the event, and Tom's distinguished career, will be forthcoming in future issues of SageConnection. Letters, cards, electronic greetings, and other well wishes are welcome. They can be sent via e-mail or snail mail by October 27 to Rhonda Velazquez at rhv2@cornell.edu, or to 106 Sage Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Share your experience at an admissions event
The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid needs your help at summer and fall recruiting events. We need alumni who are willing to share their MBA and current career experiences with event participants. For a listing of the events and to volunteer to assist, please see www.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/events/summerfall2006signup.xls.
Check back often—more events may be periodically added throughout the season.
Felix A. Rouse, MBA '03, speaks about leadership at LEAD
Felix A. Rouse, MBA '03, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Newark, N.J., was on campus as the keynote speaker at the welcome luncheon for the LEAD (Leadership Education and Development) program July 10. A skilled public speaker who adroitly drives home each point with vivid examples and stories, Rouse expounded on what it means to be a leader, citing six principles that typify great leaders: inspire others to follow; be a learner; be passionate; be a risk taker; be ethical; and be compassionate.
LEAD's Summer Business Institute is a three-week residential camp for 30 high school juniors of Black, Latino, Native American or Asian descent. The campers, also known as LEADers, are recruited and selected by the LEAD national office from top-performing students around the country. The Johnson School is one of the nation's 12 top graduate business schools that host this exciting, intensive program. The Johnson School's Office of Diversity and Inclusion is dedicated to pipeline programs like this in order to introduce underrepresented minorities to careers in business.
Conference for LGBT MBA students
The ninth annual Reaching Out LGBT MBA Conference will be held at the Grand Hyatt New York on October 13-15, 2006. The Johnson School invites you to join fellow LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) business school students in promoting the education, visibility, and networking capabilities of LGBT business leaders. Over 600 MBA students, business leaders, and recruiters will be in attendance from around the world. The event is organized by MBA students at Cornell, NYU, and Columbia. Johnson School students on the planning committee are Yvonne Chou, MBA '07, current co-president of Out for Business, and Thomas Koveleskie, EMBA '07.
"In the years since Reaching Out MBA was founded at Harvard Business School eight years ago, the conference has empowered a new generation of gay men and women to express their identity honestly and without reserve in their professional dealings, just as heterosexuals do each day at work," says Koveleskie. "Blue-chip firms in Corporate America have clearly gotten the message that fostering corporate cultures that are 'gay-friendly' is a profitable course: as of June 2006, a majority of Fortune 500 companies now offer domestic partner benefits. We expect the number to continue to rise as managers realize the financial benefits that accrue to the bottom lines when integrity and respect are non-negotiable corporate values."
For more information on the conference, visit www.reachingoutmba.org/nyc06 or contact Thomas Koveleskie at thomas@korstrategygroup.com.
Alumni highlight European info sessions
In an effort to get a jump on the 2006 recruiting season and to increase Johnson School visibility in Europe, Kim Killingsworth, associate director, International Admissions, embarked on a July tour of four European cities along with an admissions officer from Kenan-Flagler, UNC, Chapel Hill. They conducted well-attended information sessions in Paris, Ankara, Istanbul, and London, where attendees were able to interact with alumni, a highlight of the sessions. Special thanks go to Sant Manukyan, MBA '02, Guzin Caglayan, MBA '04 (visiting from NYC), Gerhard Grueter, MBA '02, Richard Hartigan, MBA '03, Tangwena Nelson, MBA '02, Richard Ouaddahou, MBA '05, Gerasimos Efthimiatos, MBA '03, Rami Sabanegh, MBA '06, and his wife, Alexis.
Featured alumni
Bill Roeschlein, MBA '00, has been promoted to the position of vice president and corporate controller at Ultra Clean Technology (UCT), a leading developer and supplier of critical subsystems for the semiconductor industry. [more]
Nicole (Pollaert) Witt, MBA '96, is founder and executive director of The Adoption Consultancy, a company based in Brandon, Fla., that provides education, information and guidance to help couples adopt a newborn within 3 to 12 months. [more]
Henry Arlin Salmon, MBA '77, has received the Louis R. Miller Annual Business Leadership Award, sponsored by the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce. [more]
Events
View the online alumni events calendar to check out the latest offerings in your area. It's a great way to keep in touch!
