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As you all have heard in recent meetings, we are taking steps to develop Pamplin’s next strategic plan. We are ready to launch a survey, designed to learn opinions and environmental changes and trends that will impact Pamplin over the coming years. Faculty, staff, students, alumni and corporate recruiters will be invited to complete the survey. We wanted to share the link and QR code with you all prior to sending to all those invited to participate.

As we develop the Pamplin’s Strategic Plan for the next five years, we continue to need your input in order to provide a foundation for making sound strategic decisions. For this survey, we are interested in hearing your thoughts about the university’s values and how they align with Pamplin.

In our previous strategic plan, Pamplin targeted key areas of focus we wanted to be known for and invest in. These areas include emphasized technology and analysis that improve business, entrepreneurship that leads to innovation and innovative companies, and international opportunities for learning and research. We refer to these areas of focus as the “Pamplin Pillars.”

Rianka Dorsainvil is considered one of the top financial planning experts in the country and a strong voice advocating for diversity in the field.

Virginia Tech hosted first session in a series that is designed to facilitate cross-institutional connections among academic leaders at 14 ACC universities while building leadership capacity for the participating institutions.

Hosted by the Graduate School, the two-day summit, now in its third year, aims to foster connections between Virginia Tech and students and faculty at the visiting institutions.

Cadets Jacob Heil, Ian Donaher, and Megan Watkins will receive the flags from football players at Thursday night’s game.

The program will integrate the study of Chinese and Korean languages and cultures through coursework in Blacksburg and online, study abroad, and internships with companies.

Six alumni and one company were honored recently with the 2018 Pamplin Society Awards - Rising Alumni, Mentoring, Ut Prosim, and Corporate Ambassador awards from the Pamplin College of Business.

Imagine getting behind-the-scenes insights on a corporate acquisition that creates the world’s largest hotel company — from an experienced and articulate executive who helped make it happen.

What began about 10 years ago as a student club with a few members has transformed into the Consulting Group at Virginia Tech, giving students opportunities to develop or hone important professional skills while in college and providing businesses and organizations around Virginia with pro bono consulting services.

Good ideas are slumbering in intellectual property offices at universities across the country, just waiting for enterprising people to see their potential.

A team of Virginia Tech hospitality and tourism management students won the 2018 STR Student Market Study Competition at the BDNY hospitality trade fair recently.

After years of research and development contributed by over 100 Virginia Tech students and faculty, the FutureHAUS Dubai team has officially built the world’s best solar home.

A team of Virginia Tech hospitality and tourism management students won the 2018 STR Student Market Study Competition at the BDNY hospitality trade fair recently.

Why do humans make certain choices? Why do they select candy over fruit, for example? And why do they partake of free offers that could lead to unhealthy choices?

Virginia Tech is hosting two public panel discussions in February focusing on increasing the number of women working in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Seàn-Patrick Lovett has shared his media and communications expertise with college students and professionals around the world. On March 20-21, he will be in Blacksburg to give a public lecture and participate in small-group discussions.

Cadet Donald Warter will receive the flags at this week’s football game against Pittsburgh.

Combatting brain drain. Creating safer infrastructure and reducing disease. Supporting peers struggling with mental health issues. Equalizing access to quality education.

The home of the future is en route to a temporary residence in the desert — and the Virginia Tech students and faculty who built it are following.

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Zachary Bird, a 2015 Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets alumnus who earned a degree in business with a concentration in human resource management from the Pamplin College of Business and a minor in leadership studies from the corps’ Rice Center for Leader Development, was selected as the Hokie Hero for Saturday’s football game against Boston College.

During her military career, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Stacy Uttecht has done everything from flying with a F/A-18 Super Hornet demonstration team to commanding a fighter squadron.

Over the weekend of October 28-30, 2016, the Zeta Upsilon chapter of Delta Sigma Pi (DSP), a professional business fraternity within the Pamplin School of Business, celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since Zeta Upsilon’s establishment at Virginia Tech in 1966, over 1000 brothers have lived out DSP’s values of professional development, service, and scholarship. The weekend was marked with a number of events to commemorate the accomplishment for the 1049 initiated brothers. These events offered opportunities for active members and alumni to connect, including a happy hour at Hokie House, a lunch and a semi-formal gala at the Inn at Virginia Tech.

Pamplin's Kickoff picnic was held on Friday, August 26, 2016 from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. on the Alumni Association Lawn. The picnic was free for all Pamplin faculty, staff, and students. The band Empty Bottle played, students mingled with Pamplin faculty and staff, Emeritus faculty, and VT senior leadership, and learned more about Pamplin’s student organizations.

On the morning of December 21, 2017, 200 Pamplin students crossed the stage in Cassell Coliseum to receive their undergraduate degrees. 64 students graduated with distinction, with nine earning Summa Cum Laude. Courtney Stull, a first generation college student who graduated Cum Laude, was thankful for a December commencement ceremony so her family could attend

The faculty at Claremont McKenna College, in conjunction with the Kravis Leadership Institute, voted Pamplin Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, Steve Markham, as their outstanding alumnus for the year. Claremont McKenna College is a very selective and highly rated liberal arts college in California, and this prestigious award honors one of Pamplin’s longest tenured management professors

Pamplin’s Center for Business Intelligence and Analytics (CBIA) recently partnered up with Norfolk Southern Corporation to host one of its first case competitions of 2017. This unique competition tested students’ knowledge of data analytics, application, and problem solving skills. The case primarily focused on intermodal terminal capacity and asset utilization.

Nancy Gard McGehee, head of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Managementin the Pamplin College of Business, has been recognized as one of the “Top Women in Travel” by Women in Travel and Tourism International (WITTI). McGehee was honored as an “Outstanding Woman in Travel Research,” one of only three award recipients in that category.

Zheng “Phil” Xiang, associate professor of hospitality and tourism management, received one of the two Papers of the Year 2016 awards from Electronic Markets, a leading international academic journal that offers a forum for research on networked business. Xiang’s co-authored paper, “Smart tourism: foundations and developments,” was published in the 25 (3), 2015 issue.

Congratulations to Eojina Kim for her Best Paper Award at the Asia Pacific CHRIE Conference in Indonesia for “Understanding Customer Perception of Restaurant Innovativeness and Customer Value Co-creation Behavior.” In all, 340 papers were submitted to the conference and approximately 220 authors were invited to do presentations. Kim is an Assistant Professor in Pamplin’s Hospitality and Tourism Management department.

Cancer drug company founder and CEO Brian Slingerland will give the keynote address at the Pamplin College of Business commencement ceremony on Friday, May 13, at 3:30 p.m. at Cassell Coliseum. Slingerland, an alumnus who received a bachelor’s degree in finance in 2000, co-founded Stemcentrx, a biotechnology company in San Francisco that is doing research to develop new types of cancer treatments. Stemcentrx, which has five cancer drugs in human clinical trials, is being acquired by drugmaker AbbVie Inc. in a $10.2 billion deal that is one of the 10 biggest biotechnology deals in history.

President and CEO of Career Path Management & Associates, LLC, in Greensboro, North Carolina,Wayne Robinson (Finance ’80) will give the keynote address at the Pamplin College of Business commencement ceremony on Friday, May 12, at 3:30 p.m. in Cassell Coliseum.

Once again, Business Horizons has proven to be one of the best career fairs for student job seekers and recruiters alike. On Thursday, Sept. 7, thousands of students had the opportunity to connect with more than 150 of the top recruiting organizations. This year, Business Horizons broke many records. “This was the most attended fair by both employers and students – ever. Our students continue to be in high demand, and employer feedback was complimentary. We would like to thank everyone for participating, especially the student leadership team.” – Stuart Mease, Executive Director for Student Advancement and Career Services in Pamplin

Dr. Inès Blal, a Pamplin PhD alumnae, has been named Executive Dean of Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) located in Switzerland. Dr. Blal is the first and youngest woman to be appointed into this position since the foundation of Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne.

During the 2016-2017 school year, Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Apex CIE) helped launch an outstanding number of student-founded companies; 84 to be exact. According to its website, Apex CIE’s mission is to “inspire and empower students to turn their passion, purpose, and ideas into action.” Over the course of this year, companies like Park & Diamond, SmartGoggleIQ, Bar None Insulated Apparel, and Tech Wound Solutions have made a name for themselves, thanks to the support they received from Apex CIE.

Recently, twenty students began a new leadership development program – Pamplin Leadership Academy. Designed as a bridge between our one-day Pamplin Student Leadership Conference and the 18-credit business leadership minor, the Academy seeks to offer Pamplin undergraduate students opportunities to develop leadership and professional skills through coaching and mentoring relationships with leaders and scholars in our professional communities.

Students in Virginia Tech’s Executive MBA program in metro Washington, D.C., were given an opportunity this summer to evaluate patents held by The Aerospace Corporation and make recommendations to company executives on the best ways of commercializing them. Ed Swallow, vice president of Vaeros, a division of Aerospace, said he was impressed with the students’ team presentations and came away with action points from each of them.

Virginia Tech’s Evening MBA program ranking in U.S. News & World Report has improved to No. 7 among the nation’s part-time MBA programs, according to the 2018 survey released today. It was ranked No. 16 for the previous two years.

Virginia Tech’s part-time MBA program in the Washington metropolitan area is again ranked No. 16 in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Graduate Schools 2017 survey. The program is based in the Pamplin College of Business and known as the Evening MBA. “We continue to be the top-ranked school in Virginia for part-time MBA programs,” said Pamplin dean Robert Sumichrast.

Initially an event for alumni working on Wall Street, it has expanded to include alumni from many curriculums at Virginia Tech. Students from several Pamplin College of Business groups were invited to participate in the New York events and they also attended the reception, where they had the opportunity to meet over 380 alumni living and working in the New York area

As a collaborative effort between Virginia Tech Housing & Residence Life, Pamplin College of Business, and university faculty members, Innovation was born. In August 2013, those core groups came together with the common goal of creating a unique program to jumpstart innovation and entrepreneurship at Virginia Tech. Hosting a range of students representing all seven colleges within the university, the focus of the program is brought to light and applied within many different disciplines.

Free to all Pamplin faculty, staff, and students, the picnic was held from 4-6 pm on Alumni Association Lawn at the Inn at Virginia Tech. Picnic-goers enjoyed hotdogs, hamburgers, side dishes, desserts and drinks. The band Empty Bottles played to an appreciative crowd. Students hung out and high-fived the Hokie Bird, learned more about exciting opportunities to get involved with some of Pamplin’s many student organizations, and mingled with Pamplin faculty and staff, Emeritus faculty, and VT senior leadership.

A May 2016 Pamplin College of Business Graduate, Calyn Witz, was recently awarded the prestigious NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women’s Enhancement Scholarship to help with the costs associated with pursuing graduate studies. Her undergraduate experience of serving as a student manager for the women’s lacrosse team, her extensive experience in other parts of the VT Athletic Department, and her work with the Management Department’s Undergraduate Programs Committee were important factors in her selection for the NCAA Women’s Enhancement Scholarship. Ms. Witz is currently pursuing a Master’s in Education in Adult and Higher Education with an emphasis in Intercollegiate Athletic Administration.

Two Pamplin professors, Zheng Xiang, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM), and Weiguo “Patrick” Fan, Ph.D., an R.B. Pamplin Professor of Accounting and Information Systems (ACIS), received the “Best Conference Research Paper” award recently at the ENTER 2017 eTourism Conference held in Rome, Italy. The paper, “Assessing Reliability of Social Media Data: Lessons from Mining TripAdvisor Hotel Reviews” is authored by Zheng Xiang (HTM), Qianzhou Du (doctoral student in business information technology,) Yufeng Ma (doctoral student in Computer Science,) and Patrick Fan (ACIS). In addition to receiving the award, Xiang will assume the editorship at the Journal of Information Technology & Tourism.

Out of more than 1,200 submissions from 33 countries, Blacksburg Transit’s bus wrap, designed for First & Main Shopping Center, by Pamplin Reinventing Social Media (PRISM,) has won a gold award in the 2016 Muse Creative Awards competition. The winning work was created by Molly Marshall of PRISM.

Chris Shean, chief financial officer for Liberty Media and Liberty Interactive, received the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Pamplin College of Business at the college’s commencement ceremony on Friday, May 13, at 3:30 p.m. at Cassell Coliseum.

Kaley Burlingame, an accounting and finance double major, was selected as the Pamplin’s 2016 Outstanding Senior, in recognition of her achievements. She maintained a 3.94/4.00 GPA and served as co-CEO of SEED, a student-run equity portfolio of over $5 million. She supervised six area managers and 30 analysts and led the technical analyst training program.

The marketing department and Coca-Cola teamed up to host Season 2 of the Barracuda Bowl at Virginia Tech in November. The student competition challenged undergraduate marketing majors to create a social media activation campaign on the Virginia Tech campus to build brand love for Coca-Cola. Students were given a budget by Coca-Cola and a limit of five minutes to present their campaign.

Coca-Cola and the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business’s Marketing Department teamed up again to make Season 3 of Barracuda Bowl one of the most exciting years yet. This year’s prompt was, “How can Coca-Cola leverage the power of gaming to reach teens and recruit the next generation of brand loyalists?” Out of dozens of applications, seven student teams were chosen to pitch their ideas to members of the Marketing Advisory Board as well as members of Coca-Cola’s corporate team.

Pamplin faculty members Janine Hiller and Linda Oldham discussed privacy, security, and data analytics curriculum (or education) at the CISO Executive Summit in Washington, D.C., in November. In her presentation, Hiller, a professor of business law, focused on the “complexity around the regulatory and ethical aspects of privacy and how they intersect with data and cybersecurity that challenge today’s privacy conceptions, including health analytics, mobile devices, and the ubiquitous collection and storage of data.” She led the audience in a discussion framed by the following questions, “What are the evolving security and regulatory concerns around data and predictive analytics? How are privacy and cybersecurity management frameworks converging? What do major court and administrative cases foreshadow?

Students gathered at the German Club Manor on Saturday, January 28th to attend the 18th Annual Pamplin College of Business Student Leadership Conference. Hosted by the Pamplin Leadership Development Team with 11 corporate sponsors, the conference allowed undergraduate students to attend company-led seminars, participate in breakout sessions, and network with alumni and business representatives.

The Pamplin College of Business social media group PRISM (Pamplin Re-Inventing Social Media) is the first Virginia Tech organization to win a Telly Award, the premier award honoring outstanding local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs. PRISM is being honored for their creation of the 2015 “Welcome to Hokie Nation” preview video that was developed to excite high school seniors that had been accepted into Virginia Tech to join the community in Blacksburg.

As a long-standing tradition, Pamplin has honored its outstanding alumni. The Pamplin Society established four new awards in 2017 to recognize additional alumni—the Pamplin Ut Prosim Service Award, Pamplin Rising Young Alum Award, Pamplin Corporate Ambassador Award, and Mentorship Award. The awards were presented at the annual Pamplin Advisory Council dinner in September.

The Pamplin College of Business supported by the college’s Center for Business Intelligence and Analytics (CBIA) is accepting applications for its new concentration in Business Analytics within Master of Science in Business Administration degree program. The program is designed to give students the necessary business knowledge, technical expertise, and professional skills to be effective business analytics practitioners. The program requires the completion of 30-credit hours. Students who have fulfilled the prerequisite requirements (i.e., individuals with basic skills in statistics, computer programming and database management) can normally complete the degree in 12 months.

As 2016 draws to a close, I can't help but be extremely proud of all the accomplishments by our students,alumni, faculty, and staff. I am very impressed with not only the caliber of the work, but also the passion, dedication, and spirit of our college. I look forward to seeing this momentum continue in the New Year.

A study co-authored by William Becker, a Virginia Tech associate professor of management, finds employer expectations regarding monitoring e-mail after work hours is the main reason employees are unable to enjoy a healthy work-life balance. In the study, he notes that even when no e-mails are present to respond to, the expectation alone leads to stress and ultimately affects employees’ overall well-being and job performance. While those who actively try to keep an intense work and home life separation are most affected, even those who don’t care are still often negatively affected. The results of the study offer practical insights for employers to keep employees more focused during work hours, and less stressed during non-work hours. Managers need to be aware that extreme expectations ultimately lead to poor employee function. Becker suggests enforcing organizational practices that protect employees and prevent e-mail overload.

On April 12, students, faculty, parents, and staff gathered together in the Owens Ballroom to honor the achievements of students in the Pamplin College of Business. The Students of Distinction Reception awards those graduating in the spring who have demonstrated exceptional academic performance and leadership.

Pamplin welcomes new advisory board members for the Hospitality and Tourism Management and Marketing departments.

Shin Fujiyama, founder of Students Helping Honduras, spoke in Squires’ Haymarket Theatre on social entrepreneurism on Tuesday, February 16 at 7pm. Fujiyama talks about founding Students Helping Honduras while in college. He has also started a bilingual school and children’s homes in Honduras. His social entrepreneurship efforts are having a profound impact on the lives of students in both the U.S. and Honduras.

An interview with Marketing Professor, David Brinberg

At the core of the Department of Finance in the Pamplin College of Business is one of the College’s long-standing working trains. He seems to be tireless and is most definitely committed, and now he is being recognized for those traits.

As the fourth industrial revolution is upon us, Virginia Tech students undertook a capstone project that challenged them to leverage a number of technologies to accelerate progress in many different IT domains. Included were Cloud, Al, ML, robotics and loT. The graduate students worked with Amdocs to create a value-based model for automation in IT to reduce the "run-the-business" operations and increase Amdocs growth. Amdocs is a leading software and services provider to the world's most successful communications and media companies. The team trip was guided by Linda Oldham, Executive Director, Center Business Intelligence & Analytics in the Pamplin College of Business. Several Amdocs executives sponsored the project and spent 2 days supervising its further development. They included Tomer Simon, IT Futurist, Director of Innovation & Academic Collaboration, Rupesh Guikwad, Global Technology Manager, Hanoch Sapoznikov, Lead of worldwide Academic Relations, and Alex Polyak, Global Technology Manager.

I have worked at Virginia Tech nearly 50 years. Throughout, I have observed a consistent common denominator among our alumni - an appreciation for a fundamental business education.

More than 200 Hokies, including alumni, students, faculty, and staff, showed up for an evening of finance discussions and social networking at the recent Hokies on Wall Street reception organized by the Pamplin College of Business.