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Smith MBA Students Invited to Hear Jeremy
Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkin, founder
and president of Foundation on Economic
Trends, is the author of 17 books on the
impact of scientific and technological
changes on the economy, the workforce,
society, and the environment. He will be
speaking about one of his most popular
books, The Age of Access, at the
Smith School to kick off the Smith MBA
Speaker Series on Wednesday, August 1 at
7 p.m. in Van Munching Hall's Frank
Auditorium. (Registration begins at 6:30
p.m.)
►Full Story/RSVP Now!
Smith MBAs Travel to Europe and South
America to Study
Global Economy
"Seeing Rotterdam, one of the most advanced
ports in the world, was an incredible
experience. The SeaGate, which protects the
port and the city, and the world’s largest
flower auctions were examples of Dutch
technical creativity that are incomparable
to anything I’ve ever seen," said Andrea
Michels, Smith EMBA candidate 2008. Each
year, more than a hundred Smith MBA and
Executive MBA students travel around the
world on short-term study abroad courses.
After the spring semester ended this past
May, two groups of students departed to
study the global economy in different parts
of the world. One group was off to Europe
and the other to South America.
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Top 10 Summer Reading List for Business
Leaders
Hoping
to squeeze in a
book or two for leisure reading this summer
and wondering what will best entertain and
enlighten you? Check out the "4th Annual Top
10 Summer Reading List for Business
Leaders," as provided by faculty and
deans at
the Smith School! Jack Haslem calls
the current NYT-bestseller The Black
Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb a must
read. An oldie but a goodie is Men at
Arms (1952) by Evelyn Waugh. Gabe Biehal
says, "An engaging and easy read, Waugh
offers penetrating observations about
politics, society, religion, and leadership
during difficult times." Buy the books from
our links to Amazon.com and support Smith
School scholarships.
►Complete "Top 10" with Reviews and Links
Smith MBA Featured on CNBC's
Fast Money
Bill Song, second-year MBA student and
portfolio manager of Smith’s $2-million
Mayer Fund, proved his trading smarts on
CNBC’s primetime show Fast Money
last week. Song participated in the show’s
“Grade the Trade” segment on June 15,
getting 30 seconds to answer a stock
question in a match-up with two other MBA
students from the University of Richmond and
Villanova. Song was asked what he’d buy and
sell as surging food prices and the China
economy reignited inflation fears and the
10-year Treasure Yield jumped to 6
percent. He
earned an “A” from the show’s analysts.
CNBC is looking for MBA students who are
in the New York Tri-State Area July 14-15 to
be part of the studio audience of CNBC's
Fast Money MBA Challenge. The studio is
located at CNBC's global facility in
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, minutes from
the George Washington Bridge, Palisades
Parkway, and the New Jersey Turnpike.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Two Shows: First Show Arrival Time: 10
a.m.
Second Show Arrival Time: 2 p.m.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Two Shows: First Show Arrival Time: 10
a.m.
Second Show Arrival Time: 2 p.m.
For free tickets e-mail
mbachallenge@CNBC.COM. Limited
availability, Maximum four tickets per
household.
BMBAA Debuts Monthly Economic Review for
Africa
The Smith School's Black MBA Association
last month debuted a new resource - the
Africa Economic Review. Okon Enyenihi,
MBA candidate 2008 and the editor of AER,
grew up in Africa, spent time in Europe and
has lived in the U.S. for about four years.
"In that span of time I have observed how
often Africa is left out in various related
discussions," says Enyenihi. "Most news on
Africa often too easily bring to mind images
of destitute beggars on the street, a
community on the throes of an epidemic and
hungry children starving on the sand. These
scenes are of course real, but the grimmest
picture of Africa is not the most accurate.
It often draws attention away from the
arduous achievements of a majority of
African people that have triumphed over
every imaginable obstacle with the hope for
a better future that affords a decent living
standard. It also discourages the continued
support of the more privileged countries,"
adds Enyenihi.
"A truer image that depicts the
painstaking effort and achievements of these
honorable African strategist, often held to
suffocation by their leader's corrupt
practices, is what we intend to publicize to
the Smith community," says Enyenihi.
The inspiration for AER came from
discussions and presentations given during
the spring semester's "Africa Forum," an
annual signature event of the Black MBA
Association. "It was obvious that a lot of
people are still not familiar with Africa,
do not even know that African countries have
market index and stock exchanges," says
Enyeihi. "We hope that our publication will
keep people informed and generate
discussions that will bring about solutions
to the regulatory shortfall of African
exchanges and the liquidity problems of the
African capital markets."
►Download the first issue of the BMBAA's
Africa Economic Review (PDF)
►The Smith Asia Business Review
(SABR)
published by the MBA Finance Association is also
available online.
Disney Magic at the Smith School
 Any
visitor to Van Munching Hall on Wednesday,
June 6, was surely aware that there was a
magical event taking place! With dozens of
Mickey and Minnie Mouse balloons, mouse feet
leading into Howard Frank Auditorium, and
banners and signs with mouse ears, the event
was planned with true Disney efficiency. The
Smith School partnered with the Disney
Institute to bring its "Disney Keys to
Excellence" program to the Washington, D.C.,
area, giving business professionals from all
over the mid-Atlantic region a chance to
discover the business behind Disney magic.
The program sessions introduced participants
to innovative Disney business strategies on
leadership, management, service, and loyalty
that they can implement in their own
organizations. Smith School Dean Howard
Frank opened the conference.
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The Hidden Dangers of File Sharing
 If
you’re worried about identity theft, then
avoid downloading a file-sharing client onto
your home computer. The risks of
peer-to-peer file-sharing was one of the
presentations at this year’s Fourth
Annual Forum on Financial Information
Systems & Cybersecurity: A Public Policy
Perspective, held on May 23, 2007.
►Full Story
University
Update ►New
Ranking System Puts UM Second in Computer
Science
Based on a new department ranking system
that considers how many articles a faculty
has published, as well its level of
participation in professional conferences,
UM's CS department outranks most of the
usual vaunted suspects, including Carnegie
Mellon, Stanford, and the University of
Illinois and comes in second behind MIT in
rankings published by the Association for
Computing Machinery.
►Full Story
►UM
Scientists De-Code RNA Mystery, Will Help
Aim Drug Therapies
A team of University of Maryland
scientists and area high school students
have made a discovery that will help better
direct drug therapies to their molecular
targets. As reported in the June 13
issue of the online journal PLoS ONE,
the researchers, led by Jonathan Dinman,
associate professor of cell biology and
molecular genetics, have found the
difference between two closely related
components in the messenger RNA (mRNA) -
near-cognate and non-cognate codons - terms
that have long been used, but not
understood.
►Full Story
►UM
Releases Global Terrorism Database
The world's largest unclassified database of
terrorism attacks is now available online
for general use by researchers,
policy-makers, media and the general public
-- an important tool that the researchers
say may aid in the development of more
effective responses to terrorism. The
Global Terrorism Database was developed by
START, the National Consortium for the Study
of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
based at the University of Maryland, with
funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). Available online:
http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/
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Peter
Morici, professor of international business,
finished among the top prognosticators in
MarketWatch's May forecaster of the month
contest. First prize went to CIBC Avery
Shenfeld. Morici shared runner up status
with four other economists in a field of 43.
Each week Morici's forecasts are provided to
Reuters, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, and
reporters around the country. Get the
forecasts right away using the
