I think that was the semester that just flew by. It seems like just last week that we welcomed a new group of MBA, MS and PhD students to the University at Buffalo School of Management and now they are down to a last few exams, projects and papers. They’ll all be gone in a few days, we’ll celebrate Christmas and New Years and then a group of us will be off to China for our annual MBA trip to explore what’s going on in the Middle Kingdom.
It was an exciting semester in many ways. Last week I sat in on 18 Corporate Champions presentations by our first-year MBA teams. The corporate exposure, insights and outcomes these 
first semester students gained were phenomenal. Our statistics, communications and organizational behavior faculty collaborated on these “projects” this year so the student inquiries and presentations cut across multiple areas and were outstanding.
One of the second year classes, Leadership Development, had students undertaking projects including an evaluation of the Panasci Technology Entrepreneurship Competition, and the Giving Tree 
Project that succeeded in soliciting over$4000 worth of Christmas gifts for inner-city kids in Buffalo.
It has also been an encouraging semester in terms of resources for the school. There are a number of developments in the works that appear to be coming together to allow us to significantly improve programs, staffing and outcomes throughout the school. I keep teasing our development staff about scholarship funds and capital funding for the next addition to our physical plant. That should be done in collaboration with a business partner(s) who will establish facilities right here on campus where our students can be a resource through internships and part-time work. Things are looking up but we have a tremendous amount of work to do to build further critical resources for the school.
LeaderCORE(TM) has also been developing in great ways. Professor Muriel Anderson and I traveled to Seattle to present the program at the MBA Roundtable’s Curricular Innovation Forum last month and were very well received. We still believe it is the only MBA leadership development program that incorporates a formal certification step. Current students assisted us over the summer in developing a tremendous excel tool to capture and document individual student activities that provide evidence of their competency development. That log will be an integral part of the certification defense next March.
Stay tuned for more good news from the UB MBA, MS and PhD programs and check in with us to discover ways you can contribute to the efforts – be a classroom guest, an executive speaker, give to a fund in the school, host a group of students at your company, be a Corporate Champion – the opportunities, and rewards, are just an ask away.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Dave Frasier, Assistant Dean
