The three previous special editions of the Byrd Business Review have showcased images and thoughts of Halpin-Harrison Hall, the new home of the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business. You are welcome to visit at any time, and I would be delighted to provide a personal tour of this outstanding learning center. Through this e-letter, I want to give you a briefing on many other recent events. I hope you enjoy reading about students and faculty members as well as his or her accomplishments or insights.

As I prepare to conclude my advanced management class this week, I realize that many of these young students will graduate, and this session may be my last opportunity to have a personal conversation with them. What shall I say, and what should they ask? The following points may serve as a talking outline of our discussion: Graduation is a time of transition, a time to say goodbye, or perhaps, a time to say I hope to see you again someday; a time of joy and relief; a time to realize the difficulties and hardships you have overcome; a time to see the results of hard work; a time to ponder one's life and future; a time to reflect on who you are and who you have become; a time to find what you love; a time to realize you are what you do, not what you say you are; a time to find great work (never settle for less); a time to follow your heart and become what you truly want to become; and a time to go further, to explore, and to seek understanding.

I will probably close by asking them to imagine a beautiful sunrise coming up over the Blue Ridge Mountains - a new day; a new opportunity to make a difference in our wonderful world. And then I will say, "Don't forget me, and I won't forget you. Let's keep in touch."

BRANDON THOMAS: THE NEW SGA PRESIDENT

Brandon Thomas, a junior in the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business, was recently elected, with 61 percent of the student vote, to be the 2008-09 president of the Student Government Association (SGA). Thomas served the last eight months as treasurer of the SGA. Thomas took the oath of office on April 22, and will take full responsibility of the SGA when the current president receives his diploma on May 10. This will make Thomas only the second Byrd School student to be president of the student body after Heather Wilson ’93.

Thomas’ extensive resume includes work as a student intern in Shenandoah University’s Office of Advancement, assistant to Dr. Miles K. Davis for the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Dean Randy Boxx on special projects, and feature writer and advertising representative for The SUN, the campus newspaper. Over winter break, Thomas organized the spring 2008 Institute for Entrepreneurship Distinguished Lecture Series with speakers such as Wesley Foster of Long & Foster Real Estate and Friis Petersen, the Danish Ambassador to the United States. He was the first contact that the Byrd School had with James Sinegal, co-founder of COSTCO, who spoke in the fall before receiving the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Currently, Thomas is working on a long-term research project, a public relations/marketing/communications plan for the Byrd School of Business, and is preparing plans for the Byrd School’s 25th anniversary in 2009.

THE WILLIAM G. McGOWAN SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The newly created William G. McGowan Scholars Program is made possible through the generosity of the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund of Chicago, Ill. The McGowan Charitable Fund sponsors the scholars program at select universities across the United States that are accredited by AACSB International or the Association of College Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP). The first recipient of the scholarship is Jane Derrick, a bachelor of business administration degree completion program student at Shenandoah University's Northern Virginia Campus who will continue her education by matriculating into SU's MBA program. "Mr. McGowan made a tremendous impact within the business world, and his contributions have had an empowering effect on the whole of business ever since. The business world was particularly changed by his leadership and noble efforts within the telecommunications industry which reshaped models of competitive business," Derrick said during a recent scholarship interview. "Having the ability to look at telecommunications as a whole, and then break it into groups and tasks, was vital to understanding what needed to be done to gain access into the industry. Thanks to the dismantling of the telecommunications monopoly, McGowan was able to lead his team at MCI in the application of new technologies and the creation of innovative services." She concluded her comments by saying, "McGowan and his business pedagogy have been a case study in business schools the world over. Not only did he possess a heralded business savvy, but he also possessed admirable character traits that were not commonly found in the top echelons of the corporate world."

SUCCESS STORIES START HERE: FROM AN INTERNSHIP TO PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT

Those first four words are the the Byrd School tag line, and the following accomplishment of one of our MBA graduates needs to be shared. After interning at the Ralph Lauren Childrenswear Distribution Center in Martinsburg, W.Va., as a reporting analyst, C. Tiffany Fitzgerald will join the Martinsburg team full-time on May 19, as a shipping coordinator. The decision to join the team was based on organizational fit, relationships established during Fitzgerald’s internship as well as her development of a plan of action for achieving her goals of international employment within the supply chain field. Ralph Lauren Corporation promotes a visionary culture that works in the best interest of its associates. Fitzgerald said that she received strong support from the management team in preparing for interviews and in engaging their unbiased feedback as she weighed potential opportunities.

Fitzgerald said, “Interviewing at the post-MBA level proved to be a great learning experience. The process enabled me to realize my current position and define a plan for achieving professional goals. Having a clear picture of where I am currently, where I want to go professionally and how I plan to get there garnered confidence in my decision to stay with the company and not be swayed by attractive incentives included in other offers.” She added, “The most difficult decision was deciding not to pursue a lucrative management position coming right out of an MBA program. I guess I’m the type that prefers the road less traveled. Given Ralph Lauren’s rapid pursuit of global expansion, I quickly realized how I needed to position myself for international management opportunities within the supply chain. Being relatively new to the field, I felt it was critical to continue focusing on establishing a solid foundation for becoming a more effective future leader. At the end of the day, I gained the confidence in knowing I could obtain a management position, but I had to be true to myself and act in my best long-term interest. I look at it as making a larger initial investment that, based on my analysis, should prove to provide a greater future return.”

ETHICS FOR PRACTICING ACCOUNTANTS

The Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business recently hosted an ethics seminar, “Ethics – Your License Depends On It!,” for certified public accountants needing continuing professional education (CPE) credits for the required annual ethics CPE component. The seminar was sponsored by the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants. Dean Boxx and Dr. Charles Pineno made welcoming remarks. The speaker was Molly Brown, CPA and James Madison University accounting instructor, who presented a lecture on must-know topics of professional ethics.

Twenty-two attendees were involved in the seminar, including five SU accounting students. The students had an opportunity to interact with accounting professionals during part of the seminar involving group discussions of various ethics cases. The Byrd School of Business sponsored a reception immediately following the seminar affording accounting faculty and students the opportunity to meet and talk with practicing accountants, including alumni. Pictured above are Tom E. Rosengarth, president of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants and associate professor of business administration at Bridgewater College; Dr. Charles J. Pineno, SU professor of accounting; Molly Brown, featured speaker and Dr. Mark Tyree, associate dean of the Byrd School and professor of accounting.

NEW BYRD SCHOOL PROFESSOR HIRED

Dr. Lili Zhu will join the Byrd School this coming year as a new assistant professor of finance. Currently employed by Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., Dr. Zhu earned her doctorate in business administration (international business and finance) from George Washington University in 2007. Her dissertation was titled “Impact of Foreign Entry on Emerging Market Domestic Banks: The Role of the Pre-existing Competitive Environment.” In addition to her doctoral degree, she earned two degrees from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China — a master’s in economics (international economics) and a bachelor of engineering degree (industrial foreign trade). Within the last three years, she has published articles in the Journal of Behavioral Finance, the Journal of Applied Finance and Commercial Lending Review. In addition, she has presented three papers during the previous three years at academic conferences. Zhu will arrive at SU later this summer.

CREATIVE SCHOLARSHIP DAY

The faculty of the Byrd School clearly understand the importance of being strong teachers and producing scholarship that will be useful to academics, practicing managers and students. The Byrd School faculty use a mix of scholarship along with business, government and military experience to teach the theory and practice of business. This formula is one that serves graduates well as they prepare for their careers in the business world. At Shenandoah’s annual Creative Scholarship Day, several Byrd School faculty members and one MBA student participated in the all-day event. I express to each of the following my appreciation for their participation: Dr. Robert Bonometti, “Decision Support Systems;” Dr. Bingguang Li, Dr. Miles Davis and Tiffany Fitzgerald, “Ralph Lauren Childrenswear Distribution Case Analysis;” Dr. Travis Sample, “Portrait of a Leader;” Dr. Clifford Thies, “The First Bank Robbers of America;” and Professor John Winn, “Preventing Maritime Piracy: A More Practical Paradigm.”

QUARTERLY SNAPSHOT OF CONFIDENCE

Dr. Clifford F. Thies, Eldon R. Lindsay chair of free enterprise and professor of economics and finance, provided the following economic assessment.

Business confidence has been trending down for two years and is now at a level comparable to late 2002, although not as low as early 2001. Consumer confidence has fallen dramatically during the past year, and it is now so low that I may have to rescale my measure of it. Both portend continued weakness in spending, hiring, production and income.

Shown above, the consumer and business confidence measures are meta-indices of the data of six or seven underlying surveys, some of which are conducted monthly and others quarterly. Intra-quarterly values include interpolations of quarterly data based on the monthly surveys. The underlying surveys include questions regarding present and future attitudes and plans. In some cases, the survey taker constructs a confidence index from the responses to these questions; and, in other cases, I construct a confidence index. I then construct a meta-index from the Z-scores of these confidence indices based on means and standard deviations estimated over a common period.

Seven surveys are included in the consumer meta-index, and six in the business meta-index. The consumer surveys include polls conducted by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, the Conference Board, USA Today/Gallup, AP/Ipsos, ABC News, Investors Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP and the American Research Group. The six business surveys include polls of CEOs [conducted by the Business Roundtable], CFOs [CFO Magazine], small businessmen [NFIB], supply chain managers [ISM], human resource managers [Manpower], and bank loan officers [Federal Reserve].