Issue 16, Volume 121
Thursday, September 13, 2012
College of Business searches for new dean David Cobb Assistant News Editor UT’s campus is not the only aspect of the school under renovation. The College of Business Administration will be getting a makeover too, as it seeks to replace retiring Dean Jan Williams. The school is home to 7,500 of UT’s undergraduate students and is ranked by U.S. News as the No. 27 business school nationally among top-tier public universities. Rob Graham, sophomore in finance, hopes that a suitable replacement can be found for Williams, who has served in the role since 2001. “Everyone in the business school respects him,” Graham said of Williams. “I met him and his wife at a GLS event and they were just super polite people. He’s definitely a servant leader, I feel like, in the college. A lot of the success coming from the college can be attributed to the leadership he provides.” Graham said he hopes the new Dean will have similar leadership qualities as Williams. Three candidates visited the UT campus this week, speaking at open forums in the Haslam Business Building. Another candidate spoke at a forum in the spring, and the final candidate will speak next week. Kenneth Evans is currently the Dean of the Michael F. Price Business School at the University of Oklahoma. He spoke Monday about what caused him to consider the position, despite already being a dean at a major university. “I’ve been watching what your chancellor (Jimmy Cheek) has been doing,” Evans said.
“He gets on a lot of people’s radar screens. He’s a busy guy and he’s had a lot of positive impact on this institution, so that is appealing.” Evans credited UT with being open to an array of business platforms, an aspect he said is a necessity to thrive in today’s educational market. “Without a diversified business portfolio, it’s just impossible to be able to succeed,” Evans said. “I’m trying to do it at (Oklahoma), but it’s going to take a long time to get anywhere close to where you guys are.” The search committee is being led by Engineering Dean Wayne Davis and features nine other members, most of whom have direct affiliations with the College of Business Administration. Davis said that his committee will complete its interviews by next week and submit recommendations of acceptable candidates to Provost Susan Martin. The final open forum will be held Tuesday in room 402 of The Haslam Business Building at 3:30 p.m. when Stephen Magnum, the Senior Associate Dean of the Max M. Fisher College of Business at Ohio State, addresses students and faculty in attendance. Students will be able to ask questions. Graham already knows what he’s looking for in a new dean. “Someone that understands the importance of the college of business,” Graham said. “Someone that will put in as much work as Dr. Williams, someone (who is) as approachable as Dr. Williams. “There’s a difference between being an administrator and a leader.”
• Photo courtesy of utk.edu
PR students attend panel Victoria Wright Arts and Culture Editor The semester may have just begun, but public relation industry hopefuls are already preparing to land that coveted first job or internship. The UT chapter of the Public Relations Students Society of America, or PRSSA, held a young professionals panel Thursday in the Scripps Convergence Lab where students had an opportunity to speak to industry professionals, most of whom were UT alumni. “What we were wanting to do was connect PRSSA members with industry professionals in our area,” Cassidy Duckett, PRSSA president and senior in art history, said. “Usually professionals who have gone to UT have gone through this program and are now successful out in the field. I know that transition is a scary period between college and the professional world, so we want to kind of make that a little easier.” Panelists included Taylor Griffin, public relations and social media specialist for The Tombras Group; Amanda Shell,
account executive for Moxley Carmichael; Christie Elwin, project manager for UT’s Communication and Marketing Department, Tyler Lewelling, project assistant for Piper Communications; and Chris Martin, public relations coordinator for Fletcher PR. The event began with Duckett asking the panelists to name the most influential lessons regarding PR in college. Many panelists listed networking while in school as a top priority. “That’s how everyone I know has gotten a job,” Griffin said. “Take every opportunity you can to network.” With many of the students in attendance being current seniors, most questions were focused on how to appear attractive to potential employers. Many students wanted to land jobs in major cities, such as New York and Boston, which panelists noted would take ambition and patience. But even if a full-time job doesn’t fall into students’ laps upon graduation, panelists said students should be open to internships, even if they are unpaid. Between applying for jobs and internships, panelists noted one factor that will help make the process easier. “Find a mentor,” Lewelling said. “Find someone that you think you can trust in the field.”
File Photo • The Daily Beacon
Guest speaker Bob Wilson, digital media manager at Moxley Carmichael, discusses his use of social media to students at a Public Relations Student Society of America meeting on Sept. 21, 2010.
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Lecture held on post-9/11 policy Jan Urbano Contributor As unpredictable events and international crises occur around the world, such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the conflicts over disputed ownership of islands in Asia, it is essential for a country, especially one as wide-reaching in influence as the United States, to have an established set of foreign policies. This allows a nation to confront and solve problems in the global community. On Tuesday night, Dr. Brandon Prins hosted a presentation in the Toyota Auditorium about U.S. foreign policy and how it has changed since the events of 9/11, as well as the policies of President Barack Obama and GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. His presentation was one of several lectures that are a part of foreign policy week at UT. An Associate Professor for five years in the Department of Political Science at UT, Dr. Prins’ areas of expertise include International Relations, Foreign Policy, Military Conflict and Global Security. Dr. Prins held the lecture, not just as part of UT’s Foreign Policy Week, but also to help educate students for the upcoming election. “With this lecture, I hope that students become more aware of the driving forces on foreign policy, and make intelligent, independent and rational decisions about who should and should not be president, based on their
own preferences,” Prins said. In his presentation, he first introduced several factors that have influenced U.S. foreign policies in the past, and which still affect policies today. One factor was partisan polarization — the degree of difference in voting between a member of one party and a member of another. “The trend is that partisan polarization has led almost all Republicans to become more conservative, and more Democrats to become more liberal,” Dr. Prins said. “The degree to which their ideologies differ has increased. The result is that it makes it harder for the president to pass legislation that agrees with his party’s policies and his own.” Dr. Prins also outlined several foreign policies of President Barack Obama and GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. “President Obama follows ‘Liberal Internationalism’, which means he is more likely to intervene in other countries in order to pursue liberal topics, such as human rights and the promotion of democracy, and utilize intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, in order to prevent power struggles between nations,” Prins said. “Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a ‘realist’, and is much more willing to use military force to defend the U.S., as well as actively seek to stop organizations that could threaten or endanger the United States.” See POLICY on Page 3
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