NewsHour
with Jim Lehrer
Comes to Smith

On Thursday, May 19, a production crew from NewsHour with Jim Lehrer was at the Smith School for a story about changing trends in news consumption. Maya Rao, second-year MBA student, Brendon Fox, first-year MBA student, and Asher Epstein, MBA '04 and managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, participated from the Smith School along with two students from the Phillip Merrill School of Journalism.

Terence Smith, senior producer and correspondent with Jim Lehrer NewsHour, conducted the interview asking questions about non-traditional news habits including subscribing to e-mail alerts, RSS feeds and using BlackBerry handhelds. The segment is slated to air sometime in June.
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Smith MBAs Win National Asset Management Competition

A team of four Smith MBAs -- Casey Rentch, Matt Adinolfi, Kamran Shahid, and Mohammed Alam -- took home first place and $4,000 at the Second Annual Inter-MBA Asset Management Competition, held at the the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College. Six student teams from area graduate schools participated in the seven-month competition by managing investment portfolios and issuing final reports on strategy and performance.

The competition began in November 2004 when each team was given an identical portfolio of 50 stocks. Teams were asked to articulate an investment strategy and then rebalance the portfolios each month through April 2005. In April teams were then asked to submit final reports summarizing their strategies, trades and analysis of their portfolio performance. A panel of Wall Street experts ranked the final reports. The final scores for each team consisted of their portfolio risk adjusted rate of return (60% of the score) and their final report ranking (40% of the score).

Some of the key stocks in the Smith team's portfolio included Electronic Arts, Lehman Brothers, Quest Diagnostics, and Conoco Phillips. They had a gross return of 6.920% (first place) and a Sharpe Ratio (direct measure of reward-to-risk) of .798 (first place).

"The long duration of the competition turned out to work in our advantage," said Casey Rentch, a second-year MBA student. "Our 'top-down momentum' strategy was constantly refined; we got better as the competition went along."

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Part-Time Students Develop Leadership Skills While Helping Others

On Saturday, April 23, 2005 Smith part-time MBA students gathered in Washington, D.C., to help repair the house of Ben Blair. Ben is a senior citizen participating in the Rebuilding Together Christmas (Christmas in April) Program sponsored by Fannie Mae. Four Smith part-time students, Maieka Hansard, Keishana Myrie, Frank Ries, and Thinzar Russell, worked as a team to recruit Smith School volunteers to help paint, tile, and construct furniture. Their work was part of the Leadership Development BUMO 712 course, which teaches students skills to influence and organize to accomplish goals. Thinzar Russell, a part-time student and employee of Fannie Mae, served as House Captain and led the team in numerous home improvement tasks. To learn more about this program, visit http://smithmba.dyndns.org.

Judy Frels Speaks at The Brookings Institution

On May 19 Judy Frels, assistant professor of marketing, was a keynote speaker for a brown bag lunch at The Brookings Institution. Frels discussed her work, “StandardScape: An Artificial Society Undergoing Technology Adoption,” which simulates the collective behavior of a population in which technological innovations are introduced by competing firms. The model is studied under varying conditions to determine the relative success of these firms as they pursue different pricing strategies designed to increase their market share.

Thursday, May 26, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 27, 6:00 a.m. Sunday, May 29, 11:30 a.m.

How are Maryland businesses changing because of growing concerns for the environment?

Dave Michaels, outreach coordinator for Ecoprint, a Maryland-based environmentally responsible printer, will answer that question on the next edition of Smith Business Close-Up, on Maryland Public Television's Business Connection program. The segment will air on Thursday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, May 27 at 6:00 a.m.; and Sunday, May 29 at 11:30 a.m.

Maryland-area businesses have made great strides in recent years to protect the state’s environment. Companies throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed have reported the reduction and recycling of 7.3 billion pounds of waste and materials at a cost savings of $892 million. Since 1996, local Maryland businesses have reported the reduction and recycling of over 1.2 billion pounds of materials, saving these companies $18.3 million in operating and disposal costs.

Watch previous segments online at: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/sbcu/