Between the ages of 15 and 18, many orphans in Ukraine fall victim to drugs, prostitution and even suicide as they are forced to the leave the orphanage and transition into adulthood. But a group of University of Maryland undergraduates in theQUEST program at the Robert H. Smith School of Business is out to make a difference in those young lives. At the start of the fall 2008 semester they set out to figure out a way to help the orphans in Ukraine benefit from the opportunities of higher education.

College Park, Md. – December 11, 2008 – The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business today announced it has been selected as an inaugural “Changemaker Campus” in partnership with Ashoka, a non-profit network of social entrepreneurs. Ashoka chose the University of Maryland as one of four U.S. campuses to develop a model for future university-based initiatives that will promote innovation and social change.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship's Social Venture Consulting Program wrapped up a semester’s worth of consulting projects  as eight teams of Smith School students presented their consulting work to an audience of students and faculty on Dec. 3, 2008. Projects ranged from product development work, to outreach and social networking strategy. Each team presented a background on their client, their project findings, as well as the lessons they learned going forward.

A team of three students from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland competed against teams from the nation’s other top 23 business programs at the third annual Nationwide-Fisher Biz Quiz hosted on the campus of the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University on Nov. 15, 2008. The final rounds were held at WOSU public television’s production studios at Columbus' Center of Science and Industry (COSI) on Nov. 16.  

More than 250 people packed Van Munching Hall’s Frank Auditorium to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Smith School’s undergraduate Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams (QUEST) Honors Fellows Program and take part in the program’s annual Brumberger Innovation and Consulting Conference, held the evening of Dec. 4, 2008. Named for 2007 alumnus Matthew Brumberger whose financial support sustains conference, the event showcases student consulting projects for corporate and nonprofit clients, faculty, parents and peers. 

Mingfeng Lin, a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, is studying the value of online social networks and “social commerce” and he has won a handful of awards along the way, including the prestigious Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2009-10).

The Smith School’s new Business Plan Course is not just for entrepreneurs – it’s for everyone. BUSI 691 starting in the spring is a capstone course for the full-time MBA program that offers a great example of how the school is progressively pushing boundaries on the traditional MBA experience.

The months after terrorists used planes to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 marked a low point for the nation’s airlines industry. Most suffered deep losses in profits and had to lay off large numbers of employees. But Southwest Airlines rose above the rest, without reducing its workforce or cutting pay. The company’s success lies in its organizational culture, said former CEO James Parker, in his keynote talk for the daylong Executive Conference on Leading Organizational Change.

The Smith School's Finance Fellows and Women’s Society organized the event, "Finance and the City," to help students of the Robert H. Smith School of Business gain an insight into the strategies necessary for succeeding in the finance sector in the current downturn economy. The primary focus of the event was to provide the industry’s perspective on the job market to the students and help the students understand what would be required of them to stand out in the crowd and succeed in the world of finance amidst today’s unprecedented circumstances. 

Smith’s Logistics, Transportation & Supply Chain Management Society (LTSCM) hosted its annual LTSCM Alumni Night and Industry Day on October 23 and 24, 2008, welcoming dozens of students, faculty, recruiters, and alumni. Approximately 80 company executives, 15 faculty members, and 120 students attended two days of events.