New College of Business Dean
We would like to welcome David Spalding, as the new Raisbeck Endowed Dean of the College of Business at Iowa State University. Mr. Spalding has been serving as senior vice president, advisor to the president, and chief of staff at Dartmouth College. He will begin serving as the dean on August 1.
As a special welcome to Dean Spalding, we are encouraging all of our alumni to post a welcome to him on our Iowa State University College of Business MBA and MBA Alumni Facebook pages. Everyone who posts a welcome to Mr. Spalding by August 9 will be put into a drawing for two free MBA Alumni tailgate/football tickets for the August 31 football game. The drawing results will be announced by August 16. You must have an updated email address with the ISU MBA office to win.
Congratulations Graduates!
The spring commencement ceremony took place on May 10 at Hilton Coliseum. We had 43 students graduate this spring: 25 full-time students and 18 part-time students. In addition, this summer we have 8 MBA students graduating. Congratulations to our new ISU MBA Alumni!
Making the Headlines
Matt Barrett (’98) named CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado
http://csbj.com
Congratulations to Shelly Greving (‘09) who was featured as a STATEment Maker!
http://www.isualum.org
ISU MBA News
First year MBA students apply their skills while giving back to the community during service learning projects.
http://www.news.iastate.edu/
Faculty and Staff News
MBA Professor, Brian Mennecke weighs the benefits vs. risk of facial recognition technology.
http://www.news.iastate.edu/
Iowa State University researchers, Dr. Sam DeMarie, Dr. Brian Mennecke, and Dr. Tony Townsend say it is time for corporations to develop a stronger defense to prevent cyber attacks.
http://www.news.iastate.edu/
Jenny Reitano, Director, MBA Recruitment & Marketing (‘06) received the 2013 Dean’s Advisory Council P&S Student Impact Award. Congratulations Jenny!
Mark Peterson, Director of Graduate Career Services was re-elected as MBA Career Services Council.
https://www.mbacsc.org
Class Notes
Akmal Mirsadikov (‘12) was admitted into the Iowa State University Ph.D. Program in Business & Technology.
ISU MBA Lil’ Cyclones
Amy Brandau (‘08) and husband, Mike - adopted and brought home daughter, Josie Brandau on 2/6/13. When Josie joined the Brandau family in February, she arrived into a Cyclone fanatic family and a fully stocked Cyclone baby clothes closet.
Steve (’12) and Hailey Postma (’12) son, Logan was born on April 22 and weighed 8lbs and 19 oz and was 20.75 inches long. Congratulations Postma family!
Reminders:
You are a part of a growing network. Please keep your contact information up-to-date so you can join us for upcoming events. If you have any changes in your contact information please send an email to Arecords@foundation.iastate.edu.
Be Social
Are you following us online? Check us out on Twitter, Facebook and Blogspot!
www.twitter.com/@ISUMBA
www.facebook.com/IowaStateUniversityMBA
Iowa State University MBA Alumni and Friends
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Iowa-State-University-MBA-Alumni/157611844328974
Inside the ISU MBA Blog
http://isumba.blogspot.com/
Keep Us Updated!
The Alumni Relations Office and your fellow alumni are eager to hear from you. We want to know about those special moments in your life:
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Marriage
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New Job/Company (Please let us know your new title and a short description of responsibilities)
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Births
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Other important events - Awards, honors, community service etc.
Submit your class notes to Deborah Martinez at dmm@iastate.edu and we will include them in an upcoming edition of our MBA Alumni Newsletter.
Faculty Profile
Dr. Brian Mennecke, Associate Professor of Information Systems
Where did you earn your degrees?
PhD:Indiana University in MIS
MS:Miami University in Geology
MBA:Miami University
When did you come to ISU and what brought you here?
I arrived at ISU in 1999. ISU is a research I school, which is a an institution more focused on research compared to my previous employer, East Carolina University
What are your favorite courses and why?
I would rate two equally. One is the MBA core class, MIS 501. I like this course because it is focused on the “so what” question of information systems, so we discuss a variety of current issues and tie them to value creation for organizations. This is a class that is fun to teach because I think it benefits a lot of students in our MBA program. The second is the PhD course, MIS 602, which deals with current issues in MIS research. I like this course because I can engage with current research in information systems and relate this to students in our PhD program.
What interests you about your field?
MIS is a field that ties together organizations, people, and technology. As such, it is central to understanding strategy, tactics, operations, and competitive dynamics. Because of this, IS is an exciting field that is fast changing and creates numerous opportunities to conduct meaningful research and teach important concepts that benefit people and organizations.
What are some highlights of your career at ISU?
There are many but the most enjoyable is meeting alumni who report on how their experience in my classes and/or at ISU in general have benefitted their lives and careers.
How does your research inspire your teaching?
Research is about discovering or applying knowledge. I particularly enjoy studying IS because it is often addressing topics closely associated with innovation. For example, one of our recent papers addresses the topic of facial recognition in customer profiling and marketing. This topic is right on the edge of current applications in business. In fact, our paper makes predictions about what is likely coming in the next year with technologies like Google glasses (visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2013.02.002 for the paper).
What do you hope students gain from their classroom experience with you?
My philosophy is to make IS relevant to each student’s experiences and career, usually through active engagement in real problems and experiences. For example, I usually use “live cases” involving real organizational problems, which I hope bring IS problems to life for students by requiring that they apply their academic skills in a realistic way. As a consequence, I hope that students would find the content of the courses I teach to be understandable, interesting, and applicable.
Describe your ideal student:
A student who is motivated to learn. Usually, this is expressed by a student who asks a lot of questions that push the boundaries of the content we are “scheduled” to discuss.
Favorite place to be/thing to do on campus is…
State gym playing basketball with the MBA students (and Professor Rick Dark)
Beyond the ISU campus, I like to…
Fish with my son, kayak with my daughter, take walks with my wife and dog.
Community/civic involvement includes…
I am involved with my church, the Ames Evangelical Free Church.
Favorite book?
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, written by Eric Metaxas
Favorite movie?
The Princess Bride
Proudest moment at ISU?
When my daughter received an offer to work at IBM.
