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School of Business Update

Lecture series brings a Congressman and Ford CEO to KU
Sustained success characterizes KU-ABWA partnership
Real world, real learning

 

Lecture series brings a Congressman and Ford CEO to KU
The school's annual public lectures, The Vickers Memorial Lecture and the Anderson Chandler Lecture, will bring former Congressman John R. Kasich and Alan Mulally, e'68, g'69, president and CEO of Ford Motor Company, to campus in April. The series are designed to bring a diversity of perspectives to campus and to encourage the exchange of innovative ideas.

Kasich will give the Vickers Lecture April 10. He spent 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the chief architect of the plan that balanced the federal budget in the 1990s. He is now an investment banker on Wall Street. The lecture, titled "Stand for Something: The Battle for America's Soul," will be held at the Lied Center of Kansas and is free to the public.

Mulally, e'68, g'69, will deliver the Chandler Lecture April 16. The event is held in conjunction with the School of Engineering. A KU alumnus, Mulally forged a long and distinguished career at The Boeing Company, eventually rising to Executive Vice President. He joined Ford in 2006. The Chandler Lecture, titled "Working Together," will be held at the Lied Center. Tickets are required and are available free of charge at the Lied Center beginning March 12.

 

Sustained success characterizes KU-ABWA partnership
For the past five years, the American Business Women's Association (ABWA) has partnered with the KU School of Business to provide its members career-enhancing opportunities. According to René Street, ABWA's chief operating officer, the success has been stunning.

"The KU professors receive the highest scores of any outside business experts ABWA has ever hired," Street says. "Our members are very vocal about what they like and don't like, so those marks are quite impressive." To date, more than 380 ABWA members have participated in KU-ABWA programs.

The partnership is quite simple and tremendously effective. ABWA works with the School's Center for Management Education (CME) to develop and deliver two programs: MBA Essentials and the Management Certificate Series. The programs teach participants the basics of KU's MBA degree. Professors teach rotating sets of courses at ABWA national conferences, allowing ABWA members to earn an MBA Essentials certificate of completion in about three years.

"KU has the name recognition and the cutting-edge research we wanted," Street admits. "We knew that going in, but they've completely exceeded our expectations."

KU's CME provides customized employee development courses for clients, including up-front assessments, short-term classes, and complete programs. For more about its capabilities, visit the executive education Web site.

 

Real world, real learning
How does Cessna crack the Chinese market? It's a question top executives have been strategizing on, and it carries huge implications. There are more Cessna aircraft in the city of Pittsburgh than the entire country of China. The only question is how to tap the market.

A group of KU MBA students tackled that problem in the KU International Business Case Competition March 2-3. Teams from the University of Washington, University of Connecticut, University of Wisconsin, and Ohio State University also competed in the two-day event. The KU School of Business' Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) sponsored the competition.

Two Cessna employees delivered the case to the students, who had 24 hours to devise a strategy. Each team presented its recommendation to a panel of judges. The judges assessed teams based on the viability of their solutions and the quality of their presentations.

The KU team received an award for "Best Industry Analysis," while the University of Washington won the overall competition.

Visit the School of Business Web site for more information.



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