Smith School students had the opportunity to take a field trip unlike any other when they visited the Under Armour Distribution Center and Total Distribution Services Inc. (TDSI), a CSX subsidiary, on Oct. 7, 2016. The Supply Chains Management Fellows Program, funded by the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA), made the tour possible for students. The program allows students to go on tours to get an authentic experience of day-to-day life in a corporation.

A team of MBA students from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business outperformed finalists from Northwestern, Georgetown and Carnegie Mellon Universities to win the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s inaugural MBA Case Competition on Nov. 3, 2016, in Washington, D.C. “Congratulations to the Smith School team for its first place finish in our inaugural MBA Case Competition,” said foundation president Carolyn Cawley. “At the Foundation we believe that business is part of the solution, so it was rewarding to see the team bring that to life.”

It is sometimes said that you cannot truly know another culture without knowing its language. In fact, culture informs the business environment of every country and knowledge of a foreign language is among the most immediately recognizable signs of a global mindset. According to a 2014 survey conducted by the Centers for International Business Education and Research (CIBERs), 90 percent of employers in the U.S. consider language skills to be important to the international experience of their staff. 

Post-Olympics Brazil faces challenges, but panelists were cautiously optimistic about the country’s future during a Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) forum on Nov. 1, 2016, at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The Robert H. Smith School of Business held its second Sustainability Lunch and Learn session on Thursday, Oct. 20, giving MBA students the opportunity to engage with Maureen Johnson, Global Internal Sustainability Manager at Deloitte. The session was hosted by the Center for Social Value Creation.

Speed dating took on a new meaning for undergraduates studying finance at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business last week. For several hours on Oct. 26, 2016, more than 130 students mixed and mingled with almost 40 professional mentors from the field of finance at the annual Finance Fellows Networking Night. Several of the mentors were Smith alumni who returned to College Park representing firms such as Capital One, Northwestern Mutual, Deloitte, Harborside Group, and SECU, to name just a few.

Companies worried about disruption need science and technology to stay relevant in the 21st century, but speakers at the fifth annual Smith School Business Summit pointed to soft skills as the real competitive advantage. “If you get leadership, management and culture right, everything else takes care of itself,” keynote speaker David Williams told an audience of more than 300 faculty, staff, students and working professionals gathered Oct.

PepsiCo Awards $15,000 to MBA Students in a Business Case Competition at the TCU Neeley School of Business MBA students from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business joined students from 13 other universities to compete in the 2016 PepsiCo MBA Invitational Business Case Competition at Texas Christian University (TCU), Oct. 28-30, 2016.

Participants did more with less at the fifth annual Smith School Business Summit, a signature event from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on Oct. 28, 2016, in Washington, D.C.

On Oct. 14, 2016, students in the Business, Society and the Economy (BSE) College Park Scholars (CPS) program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business celebrated the 21st Citation Class with an awards ceremony honoring students for outstanding achievement and outstanding citizenship for exemplifying the founding ideals and values of CPS.