Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor dark of night could stop the ten teams contending for first place in the re-scheduled Part-Time MBA Business Innovation Competition on Friday, January 28. Each team had just eight minutes to convince an astute panel of judges that they had the most innovative idea, and a comprehensive business plan that could bring it from the realm of ideas to reality. All 332 second-year part-time MBA students participated in the competition.

The Smith CIO Forum, held October 8, explored the advantages and challenges of mobility with a full day of discussion and presentations on mobility in the workplace. Going Mobile, Changing the Pace and Place of Business brought together the world-class research of the Smith decision and information technologies faculty with the experience of high-level practitioners to explore issues of security, applications performance, and infrastructure key to the success of a mobile work force.

For the past two years eSmith has been evolving into a comprehensive gateway that allows students, faculty, and staff to navigate through a network of public and private information, services, and business functions of the Smith School and the University of Maryland. The internal portal provides a secure infrastructure to present Web-based applications and information to the Smith community, focusing on tools for collaboration, research, and personal productivity.

All 330 second-year Smith part-time MBA students joined for the first time at the inaugural Part-time MBA Case Competition's final round on Jan. 17 in College Park. It was a cold and blustery afternoon, but the weather helped set the mood for what was to come analysis of a Harvard Business Review general management case about ice cream!

In an event organized by four Smith MBA students, 40 students from the University of Maryland and the U.S. Naval Academy drove Land Rovers off-road as part of a program to help them become safer drivers. The event was held on April 12, 2003, and hosted by Land Rover University in Lanham, Md.

Reaching across the academic community, Smith′s Graduate Women in Business club (GWIB) gathered more than 50 Smith alumni, current and prospective students, faculty, and administrators to discuss ways women can achieve influence in the workplace. In honor of Women′s History Month, the event was held on March 6 and included a networking session followed by a panel discussion about strategies on how women earn respect and gain power in the workplace.

The Graduate Women In Business Club (GWIB) and the Master's Programs Office recently invited prospective female MBA students to explore the Smith MBA from a woman's perspective. GWIB's first annual open house showcased the dynamic women of Smith's past, present, and future, by joining alumnae, current students, and incoming students.

The Smith School first offered its part-time MBA program in Washington, D.C., only 18 months ago, but its success has made the program grow by leaps and bounds. The school launched the evening component in fall 2000 with 98 students. The weekend component followed in fall 2001. Today, the Washington location in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center boasts 239 part-time MBA students on evenings and weekends.

Blanka Thibaud was ready for a change. She’d been working as an economist, but had an eye on a career in commercial real estate development. In 2016, she enrolled in Maryland Smith’s Part-Time MBA program (now called the Flex MBA), loading her schedule with real estate courses that would give her in-depth knowledge of the development process. While a part time student, she worked for a real estate developer in Washington, D.C., and then was hired at Freddie Mac as a real estate asset manager.