Bearcats Mean Business podcast
Discover how and why students become business problem solvers at Lindner.
Bearcats Mean Business chronicles and explains the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business’ mission of empowering business problem solvers through interviews with current students, faculty, staff, alumni and college supporters.
Topics include co-op (paid, professional work experiences) and experiential learning; the admissions and application process; students' everyday college experience; and more!
Find Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music.
New episode: Thy Loyal Lindner Children: Josh Kramer’s Path to Producing ESPN Shows + Cory Sims on Turning Hoop Dreams into a Successful Investment Management Practice
Josh Kramer, Bus ’12, and Cory Sims Bus ’11, joined Bearcats Mean Business to talk about their pay-it-forward, authentic approaches to networking, how Lindner prepared them to lead meetings with Stephen A. Smith (Kramer) and clients twice his age (Sims), and much more.
Kramer, an accounting major, outlined his journey to ESPN and eventual career climb from entry-level production assistant to producing the network’s flagship programs. Sims, managing member, investment adviser representative at Sims Investment Management, originally wanted to be a college basketball coach.
Kramer and Sims are both alumni of Lindner Business Honors, and recently spoke at the program’s annual Homecoming celebration at Lindner Hall. Sims was honored as the recipient of the 2024 Norman R. Baker Outstanding Alumni Award.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Welcome to Bearcats Mean Business. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. Did you know that there are more than 330,000 UC alumni worldwide, or that nearly 50,000 of those alumni are Lindner graduates? I'm joined by two of those esteemed and accomplished Lindner alumni today. Josh Kramer, an accounting major as an undergraduate, is a prodUCer for ESPN and an adjunct professor at UC. Cory Sims studied finance and real estate at Lindner and is now managing member, investment advisor representative, at Sims Investment Management. Welcome, Josh and Cory.
Josh Kramer: (00:37)
Great to be here, Grant.
Cory Sims: (00:38)
Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Grant Freking: (00:40)
Of course. Now, gents, before we talk about your experiences at Lindner and UC, let's chat about what you do now. Josh, how does an accounting major who had multiple tax co-ops end up as a producer at ESPN?
Josh Kramer: (00:51)
You know, I get this question a lot, Grant. There's really no simple way to explain it. So I'll try to make it as short of an answer as possible here. So, first of all, always dreamed of working at ESPN. I know that you had aspirations as well.
Grant Freking: (01:06)
Mm-Hmm. .
Josh Kramer: (01:07)
And you still have time to, you know, work in the sports media industry. And when I was in college, through the encouragement of some of my Honors-Plus classmates like Jack Habig, Robell Kidane, Ryan Atkins, I started a sports blog called the sportskraze.com, which I know that you are familiar with.
Grant Freking: (01:25)
Mm-Hmm. .
Josh Kramer: (01:26)
Because I believe you wrote a couple posts for the blog back in the day.
Grant Freking: (01:29)
Back in the day. Yep.
Josh Kramer: (01:30)
Even though we are first meeting in person today.
Grant Freking: (01:32)
This is true.
Josh Kramer: (01:33)
Which is great.
Grant Freking: (01:34)
Yeah.
Josh Kramer: (01:34)
All these years later. and that blog, I pumped out a little over a thousand posts. So it was something that I was meticulous with and worked really hard on. And it was a great networking tool for me. And it got some local and national notoriety, which was great for me. And it added to my portfolio.
Grant Freking: (01:51)
Mm-Hmm. ,
Josh Kramer: (01:52)
Which I didn't have much of a media portfolio when I started applying for internships at ESPN. I applied for dozens of internships. And, you know, it's very, very competitive, the internships at ESPN, that process is, I think it's harder get an internship there than a full-time job.
Grant Freking: (02:08)
How interesting.
Josh Kramer: (02:09)
From my understanding, having worked on interview committees and hiring committees for both, you get more candidates. So I remember actually when I applied, I ended up getting an interview for a position in the mobile department in their New York City office.
Josh Kramer: (02:27)
And I remember when I was interviewing, I was actually, I can picture this. I was sitting underneath my desk at a co-op at Deloitte, literally just underneath the desk taking sports trivia questions and answering interview questions. I also remember doing another interview for that in the Pike House over on campus here. And the electricity had went out. So I remember there was no lights anywhere. So I remember that as well. So ended up doing all that, getting an internship. And when I did the internship, you know, I made it a point and something that was instilled in me here was the networking aspect. And I met as many people as I could and heard about this content associate program and kept in touch with those people over the course of the next year and a half as I was getting closer to graduation.
Josh Kramer: (03:18)
And I was fortunate enough that from this great program, I had a job lined up at Ernst and Young, in their tax department. I was two weeks away from starting full-time there. And, you know, which is great to have options when I got the call to come to ESPN as a production assistant for $32,000 a year. And, you know, after talking a lot with my family and friends and with the encouragement of Ernst and Young as well, which there are some great Honors-Plus alums that, you know, hired me like Justin Schafer, they showed so much class, they let me outta the contract. They encouraged me to go after this opportunity. So I went, I packed my bags, I went and, you know, that was just the start. You know, when you get to a place like ESPN and any major corporation, it's very competitive.
Josh Kramer: (04:06)
Right. And you're going up against graduates of some of the top media and journalism programs in the country from schools like Syracuse and Northwestern. But I think what really helped me out was some of the principles that were instilled in me here in terms of work ethic, never shying away from a challenge to always be learning and networking. And, you know, 12 years later, I'm, I'm a producer now. I mean, I know it's kind of a long-winded answer, but there's no direct path. Anytime when I talk with students, 'cause I frequently talk with students from the Lindner Business school and from UC all the time, and they ask the same question. And I was, I wish there was a direct formula because I would say, here's the formula, here's how you do it, if you wanna work at ESPN or at a major sports media company. But there really isn't. Everybody takes a different path. And I was quite fortunate to have studied here, and I think that helped me a lot.
Grant Freking: (04:58)
Sure. The path is rarely direct in careers anyway. So your story, I think will resonate with a lot of people listening to this podcast who have maybe not worked at ESPN, have achieved maybe some sort of dream job status or satisfaction in their career, but through winding means.
Josh Kramer: (05:13)
Yeah, definitely. I mean, very lucky, very fortunate to have studied here.
Grant Freking: (05:17)
Right. Cory, tell us about how you've successfully grown your investment management and wealth planning business.
Cory Sims: (05:22)
Yeah, so, you know, Josh and I, our stories are, are very different, but there's a lot of similarities. And I know we'll get to some of that, here in a little bit. But, you know, I came to UC, did the co-op program, started at Johnson Investment Council as a co-op. My first co-op was actually, with a buddy Stephen Porter at a company called The Ward Group. And I'll joke about this, we were kind of like The Bobs off of Office Space, right?
Grant Freking: (05:52)
Yeah.
Cory Sims: (05:52)
Where they were like insurance consultants. And it was a really great first co-op, but it was also great for me to learn like, this is not what I want to do. But made some great connections there. Some people that I'm still in touch with today, went to Johnson, got a really great education there in a co-op, for a couple years.
Cory Sims: (06:11)
Worked part-time my senior year of school. And then, I was there full-time for a year and ultimately ended up leaving Johnson, going to a smaller firm and, and starting my own thing in 2013. So I would say, that background is important because of how important the co-op experience was, because I would've never been prepared at 25 years old to try and start my own company had I not had a couple years of experience while I was in school. So, you know, kudos to Lindner for that. And then, you know, what I think has made us successful today, I've got a staff of six underneath me now, three other advisors. And, you know, some of those Bearcat principles of, you know, we're gritty, right? We do more with less. And, as I was getting started, you know, that that was it. I was willing to, if I couldn't, didn't know the answer to a question a client had, I was willing to bust my butt to go find it, get back to them quickly, provide them great service. And, and really, I think like just going above and beyond for our clients, and creating that culture with some of my other employees now is what's made us grow the way that we have the best I could.
Grant Freking: (07:25)
Right. Resilience is an attribute that'll apply to any professional setting, in my opinion.
Cory Sims: (07:30)
Yep.
Grant Freking: (07:30)
Cory, I read a q and a recently that where you said you came to UC intent on becoming a basketball coach. How did, how did you end up,
Cory Sims: (07:38)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (07:39)
So maybe shifting from that goal.
Cory Sims: (07:41)
Yeah, so this is, this is where, Josh and I have similar stories here, just a little bit different. So, you know, grew up a big Bearcat basketball fan. We have a ton of history, my family does with, with Cincinnati and the Bearcats. So, actually, my great grandparents had a bar, started a bar here in, in the 1930s.
Grant Freking: (08:04)
Oh, wow.
Cory Sims: (08:04)
It was called the Clifton Cafe. It was on Victor and Warner on the corner. They had that, it was in my family until the early eighties, so about 50 years. My dad went to school here. Some of my uncles went to school here. And so my dad ended up playing a little bit of baseball and then was an equipment manager for basketball and football when he was here for a couple years.
Cory Sims: (08:27)
So I was just kind of instilled growing up, Hey, I wanted to be a Bearcat, and being an equipment manager is a good way for you to be able to get some of your school paid for. So, I ended up making a connection with a guy that was on Huggins' staff. And then when everything went down with Huggs, you know, this guy Andy Astley, was still on AK's staff for a year, and that's when I was a senior in high school.
Grant Freking: (08:56)
Mm-Hmm. .
Cory Sims: (08:57)
So, this all comes together with just, again, that resilience and that Bearcat grit because, you know, then AK got let go and Coach Cronin got hired. And, you know, I went from having an equipment manager spot sealed on the basketball team to nobody having any idea who I was. So for the first three or four weeks that Coach Cronin was hired, in the midst of him trying to, you know, hire a staff and put together a team, there was this annoying little kid, you know, in West Virginia that was calling his office every other day and shooting him an email every day.
Cory Sims: (09:31)
And finally a few weeks later, I got a call from Coach Larry Davis that said, Hey, come up and work, some basketball camps with us this summer. We'll see how that goes. And then, you know, see if we can get you a spot as an equipment manager. So I did that all five years I was here. Once I got into it though, there's just aspects of the industry and the time commitment, what those guys have to do, and the sacrifice their families have to make that ultimately, I realized this wasn't the career path I wanted to follow. But I haven't necessarily given up on that dream. There's a couple, couple great stories. You know, there's a great book, fourth and Goal, which is about a football coach that, you know, had a successful financial career, never gave up on his dream, and became a college football coach, later in life. So, I'm not a college basketball coach right now, but I haven't given up on the dream.
Grant Freking: (10:23)
Love it. Love it. Josh, how did you wind up at Lindner? What do you remember about your college selection process?
Josh Kramer: (10:29)
So, when I was towards the end of high school, I actually was highly considering playing tennis in college. I had looked at several schools, some division two schools, some smaller division one schools, and was heavily considering it. And I hurt my shoulder my senior year, and I kind of realized that I didn't know if I wanted to do this collegiately. Fortunately for me, at Princeton High School where I went to high school, we had a couple of people that worked at the school. One was an academic advisor, John Bial, who actually I think works at Winton Woods now, but he was at Princeton for a long time. And, Tim Duggan, whose daughter Ashley McFarland works here at the business school, and they both knew about this Lindner Honors Plus program at UC, where, you know, they were looking for really well-rounded students to come here, and it was a scholarship. And heard about the program.
Josh Kramer: (11:28)
I went to the breakfast that they had that was led by Jeri Ricketts, who was the director of the program at the time. And I was sold. It looked like an amazing opportunity. It had a challenging curriculum. It gave you the chance to travel the world. It had an amazing network of Bearcats to lean on. And of course, a full ride scholarship, which, you know, when you're starting out, that's quite appealing. So you can come outta college with little to no debt. I also was fortunate that I knew a couple of guys in the Honors Plus program. Mark Wood, who's a good friend of Cory's as well, and Alex Arroyo, they were both Princeton alums that were a year older than me. And they highly encouraged me. They answered all my questions. They kind of talked about how amazing this program was.
Josh Kramer: (12:17)
So I said, okay, that sounds great. I grew up a diehard Bearcat guy my whole life growing up here. Kind of always just knew that ultimately I would end up here in some way, whether it was as a student or was it as a season ticket holder or working on a staff here, whatever it was. So I applied for the program. I got an interview, and I would say that the interview was probably my first like, formal interview, I would say, like that I had to do where, you know, you showed up and, and dress, you know, in a suit, and you were nervous and your hands were sweating and that type of thing. I guess you don't normally get to do that in high school. Like even when you apply for jobs, whether you're, I was a tennis teaching pro. I delivered newspapers, you know, if you work at a store, it's not super formal interview process.
Josh Kramer: (13:09)
But I remember the interview, you know, it was an all day thing at the Lindner School. I remember vividly the interview portion with Jeri Ricketts, who was the director at the time. And I just remember it went really well. So I was in the parking garage, I was getting ready to drive back to school because this was on a school day, you know, large chunk of the day. And I remember calling my mom and saying, well, that's as good as it could have went. I knew I had nailed it. Obviously, I hadn't had interview experience, but I knew, man, that went really well. So if I was gonna get it, I have a really good shot. And if I wasn't gonna get it, well, I wasn't gonna get it anyway. And when I got the call, man, it was life changing because, you know, it was a scholarship.
Josh Kramer: (13:57)
It was a chance to go to school here at a school that I think the culture of this university really fits who I am as a person. And, you know, I mean, and I'll probably speak more on this later, but, you know, being here, the academics, going to the athletic events, like that was a dream come true. All of that was great. But I think the most important thing, and Cory can attest to this too, is making lifelong friends. I mean, you know, three of the guys in my Honors Plus class were in my wedding. And, you know, that's something that, you know, you don't necessarily always get wherever you go to school and, you know, being a part of the Honors Plus program, being a part of a team, even though it was an academic team and not necessarily a sports team, building those lifelong bonds. I mean, that's probably the best thing that happened during my time at UC.
Grant Freking: (14:44)
Right on. The culture, right.
Josh Kramer: (14:46)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (14:47)
Culture all about it. This question is for both, for both of you. I'll start with Cory. Cory, you touched on, the co-op experiences you had, but how else did you think, do you feel that Lindner prepared you for your career?
Cory Sims: (15:00)
Yeah, I think one of the things that Lindner did for me is it made me want to be a lifelong learner. And I think that's one of the most important things that you can do in education. I actually think, like, as I'm further removed now, it's one of the greatest disservices that we do for young students is, you know, you think about reading assignments and things like that. Some of the purpose of school and education is just to turn people into lifelong learners. And, one way in order for you to turn someone into a lifelong learner is to figure out what their strengths are, what their passion is, and then just allow them to pour into that rather than, no, you have to go down this track, right? This is the way that you have to be taught and this is the way that everybody's been done it.
Cory Sims: (15:45)
So, I think what was great for me was, you know, I did not get into Honors Plus. I had an interview. I wasn't lucky enough to get in. But, you know, I'm a big believer that things happen for a reason because I got into, at the time, the Business Scholars program, which was a little less structured. And that worked for me because, being a basketball manager, I would have to go to school for six months and then I would co-op for six months.
Grant Freking: (16:10)
Mm-Hmm. .
Cory Sims: (16:10)
Instead of rotating every quarter at the time. So having that flexibility and having academic advisors that would help me navigate that in order to make my schedule work. And then, you know, having a flexible enough basketball staff that, you know, also understood that there was gonna be parts of the year that I was a little bit less accessible because I'd be on co-op.
Cory Sims: (16:35)
So, you know, finding that passion, letting you pour into that passion, I think that's part of it. Becoming a lifelong learner. And then, like we talked about before, the grit and the relationships that, that you can form here. I mean, I, I've got some really great friends I grew up with in Huntington, West Virginia that I'm still very close with today. But, you know, pretty much the vast majority of the people that I still hang out with in Cincinnati are people that I met through Delta Sigma Pi. You know, we still have a great manager's group text where we, you know, harass each other still. We've got a great group of friends from Sigma Sigma. So really those lifelong Bearcat relationships have helped, you know, set me up for success too.
Grant Freking: (17:25)
Sure. And Josh, how about you and your preparation, even though your preparation actually academic-wise didn't translate to the field you ended up in?
Josh Kramer: (17:32)
Yeah, I'll admit, definitely a very unique career path. You know, being an accounting major and now producing shows like SportsCenter and a ACC basketball post-game shows it's very different. So I would say, yeah, academically on a day-to-day basis, there's not a direct correlation. However, I did learn so many valuable lessons at Lindner throughout the five years at the school, and I kind of boil it down to five things. One, never shy away from a challenge. I was put into a really challenging environment where I'd never seen a television show rundown in my life. I'd never cut video in my life. Sure, I had the sports blog, but that was writing. I work in television, so, you know, not being scared to take on something because ESPN is, it's a sink or swim environment when you first get there, or really even as you continue to move up, you know, you can't be scared.
Josh Kramer: (18:27)
If you're scared, you're not gonna make it there. And I will say that I'm the only one left from my start group from 12 years ago, and I'm really proud of that. And I think a lot of that has to do not because those people were scared, but I did not shy away from the challenge of not having experience in what I was doing. Two, attention to detail. So I do think the accounting background does come into respect there. That's one of my biggest strengths as a producer, is my attention to detail and the meticulous little things in a show, because in my opinion, there are a lot of good shows at ESPN, but the difference between good and great shows are those really minuscule things that you notice, whether it's something that you're on-air talent's doing, whether it's how you're writing a script, how a piece of video is cut, all of those really little things.
Josh Kramer: (19:11)
That's what makes the difference. And obviously as an accountant, that's really important that attention to detail. Three, this relates exactly to what Cory said, the importance of always learning because the industry is constantly changing. I mean, even in my 12 years at ESPN, so many technologies that we use, protocols, standard operating procedures, they're constantly changing. So if you're not willing to always be learning, well, it's gonna pass you by and you're not gonna be ready for what's next and you're not gonna continue growing in your career. Four, I would say the confidence to lead meetings and to embrace diverse thinking. You know, Cory mentioned his time in Sigma Sigma and Delta Sigma Pi. I also was in a lot of campus organizations and got, was fortunate enough to serve as president in some of those organizations. And you're leading meetings, whether it's on a daily basis or a weekly basis in those organizations.
Josh Kramer: (20:08)
And that gives you the confidence because when you're producing a show and you have that pre-show meeting and you're presenting, Hey, here's the plan today, Stephen A. Smith, here's how we're gonna do First Take today, here's the topics I'm thinking, here's why I am thinking it. Alright, what do you think? You have to be confident and you have to have experience in doing that because it's quite intimidating to lead a meeting with people that you've looked up to your whole life. Or if you're producing a SportsCenter and Hannah Storm's in that meeting, you know, she's a legend in the industry. If you're not confident and you're not showing that they're not gonna believe in you, which is gonna put you behind the eight ball. And then the last point, networking. And I know Cory and I, you know, networking's helped him a lot in his career.
Josh Kramer: (20:49)
It's helped me a lot in his career, whether it's your friends or people that you meet through friends and, you know, being somebody that's kind and generous and considerate and has strong values like Cory does. And I feel like I do as well, it helps so much in building your clientele for your business, or building your reputation in a business like I work in as a producer. When you walk into a show, if you have a strong reputation that you've built through the networking with people, they'll believe in you and that will help you succeed.
Grant Freking: (21:16)
Right.
Cory Sims: (21:18)
I wanna expand on that real quick because, Josh and I, you know, we've had these conversations of just the Bearcat network. And networking, I think can have a negative connotation at time. You know, it's like, oh, I gotta go do a networking. Right? And they think of it as a
Grant Freking: (21:33)
A chore.
Cory Sims: (21:34)
Yeah. A chore. And it's a boring coffee meeting, or it's a boring happy hour and, you know, you're making awkward conversation. But a lot of our business has grown just from relationships, which is essentially what networking is. Like, how can you just be a genuine, authentic, nice person and keep a keen ear so that way if you hear at some point in the conversation a way that you can help that person, whether it's for profit or not for profit, right? How can you just genuinely, you know, be a resource for somebody and, and pay that forward?
Cory Sims: (22:10)
And I think that's what UC, like definitely taught me as well, is the number of alumni that poured into me when I was a student. And whether that was take you out to lunch or, you know, you'd go for a coffee meeting and they would just give you your time and you're just a poor college student. You're like, how can I pay this person back for this? Right? I can offer to buy them the lunch. You know, and that's a small, example, right? Of like, how can I pay this person back? But every one of them said, you don't owe me anything. I just want you to pay this forward. Right? So when the opportunity comes up, so that way you have the chance to, you know, connect with another Bearcat student in the future when you're at a place in your career to do so. Like that's how you can repay me is just pay it forward to someone else. And I think that's, you know, been a part of Josh and I's journey as a Bearcat too, right?
Josh Kramer: (23:10)
Yeah. And you know, just to add on to what Cory just said there, you know, when I teach the course Intro to Sports Media Production here, I've required each student to network with three different professionals in the industry throughout the semester. That's something that I added into the course, and it helped some of them land internships and jobs. But at the same time, I explained to them when I was trying to break into the sports media industry, I emailed thousands of people.
Cory Sims: (23:37)
Mm-Hmm. .
Josh Kramer: (23:37)
And I probably heard back from, you know, less than 1% of them. And that's okay. But I think exactly what Cory said, there should not be a negative connotation around networking. Networking is not about what they can do for you. It's about building a connection with somebody. And first, how can you help them and build the connection with them, and then maybe eventually it comes back around. And I think Cory brought up an excellent point there. 'cause I think that's something I really had to explain to my students. And, you know, it's paid forward for some of them in landing internships and jobs. So I think that's really important.
Grant Freking: (24:11)
Right.
Cory Sims: (24:12)
Yeah. I also loved your point number four because I've never thought of it that way, but you know, Josh is talking about his experience of leading a meeting with, you know, arguably intimidating people to be leading a meeting at a younger age because of the experience. And, and I've never necessarily thought that, yeah, Lindner prepared me that way as well, because here I am starting a company at 25 and you know, I'm looking across the table at people that are 20 or 30 years older than me thinking, well, why, why should they be listening to a 25-year-old about doing financial planning? You know, they've got significantly more wealth than I have at this point, just because of their age. And all of a sudden you get in that situation and you realize, I am prepared to lead this meeting. I do have the education. I can help these people. I am qualified. And again, I don't know if you get that type of confidence without doing the co-op program, having real-world experience.
Grant Freking: (25:12)
Current students listening, I really hope you were taking notes or make use of the rewind button during that last segment. That was, that was gold. Let's move on and talk about fondest memories that both of you have from Lindner and UC. Josh, I'll start with you.
Josh Kramer: (25:24)
Yeah. So I think it's really hard to boil it down to one. I mean, I know I've already brought this up. I mean, my top memory is just building those lifelong friends I mentioned, you know, Jack Habig, Robell Kidane, Ryan Atkins, they were all in my wedding. There's still people that I'm close with to this day, even though I don't live as, live in the same state as any of them. They're people that I look to. They're confidants, they're people I come to for advice. We talk about parenting, we talk about, you know, being a good husband, all these types of things. I think that is invaluable and that is probably the best part of my UC experience.
Josh Kramer: (26:03)
But in terms of other fun items, I would say I did, while I was at UC, I probably got to attend the greatest live sporting event I ever attended. It was December of 2009. Cincinnati was undefeated in football, going to their final game against an 11 and one Pitt team. So the winner of that game was gonna win the Big East. The game was at Heinz Field in Pitt. And I remember going with probably like 70 or 80 Pikes, you know, on shuttle buses. It was freezing cold. It was snowing. I dunno, Cory, were you at this game?
Cory Sims: (26:42)
No, unfortunately, coach Cronin, he conveniently, scheduled a practice during this, this game time. So , we kept sneaking, into the locker room, to check on the score to the point that he got a little aggravated and said, if one more person goes in that locker room, I know what you guys are doing. I need you focused out here. 'cause we had a game coming up, , and the Big East season was starting, so I was not there.
Josh Kramer: (27:09)
Yeah, it was, it was like early December of 09. It was the last game of the regular season ended up ironically being Brian Kelly's last game at UC. And I remember the game, it was snowing. It was cold. We were down 21 points. It looked like the undefeated season was going bye-bye. And we wouldn't win the Big East title, so therefore we wouldn't get into a major major bowl game. And I remember right before halftime, Mardy Gilyard, took a kick back. We were down 21 points. He had a kick return for a touchdown. We came all the way back, Tony Pike hit Armon Binns for a touchdown in the final minute. Pitt's kicker missed an extra point. We ended up winning the game 45-44. And I just remember the excitement of the game. But I also remember after the game being there with thousands of UC, people that travel and just everybody kind of taking in the moment together at Pitt's stadium which happens to be Heinz Field, which is where the Steelers played as well.
Josh Kramer: (28:06)
So most Cincinnati people don't have much love for the Steelers. I do not. And I remember that moment. It was just such an amazing moment. And then of course, you know, we went to the Sugar Bowl, going to, that was amazing the year before we went to the Orange Bowl. I mean, those were arguably the best couple years, two to three years of UC football maybe ever. I know that obviously a couple years back we went to the college football playoff. But in terms of years in a row, it's, it's right up there going to an orange bowl and sugar bowl. And then I would say another memory is I never missed a home basketball game in my five years, which obviously Cory did not either 'cause he was working the games, but just kinda watching Mick Cronin and that program go from being kind of a cellar dweller in the Big East to being a team by the end of my five years that was making the tournament again, that was, you know, a top 25 caliber team that was really neat watching a program that I worshiped so much growing up, get back to being a national powerhouse.
Josh Kramer: (29:04)
So it's really exciting to see what's going on right now as well with the basketball program that hopefully we might be getting back to the tournament again. We have that top 20 ranking, so we'll see how that goes. But I'd say those are probably a few of my fondest memories. I'm sure Cory could go all day on this too.
Grant Freking: (29:19)
Yeah. Cory, can you top that?
Cory Sims: (29:21)
Yeah. I mean, the football memories were amazing. the only, you know, the only caveat there is, you know, unfortunately we didn't win either one of those BCS bowl games. And especially the way that that last one ended with Coach Kelly not coaching and Tim Tebow just having a field day against the Bearcats there. But those football seasons were amazing. There were some small opportunities that I was in Delta Sigma Pi here in the College of Business. We would have a brotherhood weekend every year where we'd go, you know, to a different, state park and just get away as a community and play games and have a good time. So Brotherhood Weekend certainly brings back a lot of memories. In regards to, you know, basketball. Josh touched on it. I got here, I think Coach Cronin's first year.
Cory Sims: (30:15)
We went 8-22, I think. So I think the second year we went 12 and 18. But that first year we beat X at home. We beat WVU at home, to win a couple pretty big games. it was very cool to be a part of that rebuilding process. I take a lot of pride in that too because, you know, freshmen that are coming into the College of Business this year, right? They're probably born somewhere around 2006, which was the year I got here, and the year that Coach Cronin got here. And it took five years to rebuild that program. And it wasn't until my fifth year that we made it back to the NCAA tournament. So I take a lot of, pride in that and, typically wear my NCAA fossil watch that we got for going into the tournament, you know, when I go to UC Bearcat basketball games now.
Cory Sims: (31:07)
So, and then my fourth year we actually, we got to go to the Maui Invitational, and that was incredible, to be over there. We played in the championship game. We lost to Gonzaga in a very heartbreaking fashion. But it was a pretty cool experience to be over there as a manager, even though I was working a lot to be in Maui for seven days.
Grant Freking: (31:30)
Not bad.
Cory Sims: (31:30)
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Got, you know, went to the Big East Tournament a few times as a manager. We made it to the Final Four playing there Friday night, Madison Square Garden, you've got Jay-Z and Bill Clinton and other celebrities sitting right behind your bench. So also a very cool experience as a, you know, 21-year-old, 22-year-old at that time.
Josh Kramer: (31:50)
I'll add on real quick here. So Cory mentioned the Sugar Bowl kind of being devastating that just how that game played out and how Tim Tebow was his last collegiate game and he had a great game and they beat us very handily. I actually, probably six or seven years ago, I was working on the college football playoff, at the Peach Bowl. It was the Alabama Washington matchup and I was talking with Tim Tebow and I had some sort of UC insignia, I don't remember. 'cause I normally don't wear UC gear while at work. It's kind of frowned upon, even though I would love to wear it all the time. Like I am right now. You can't see it, but.
Grant Freking: (32:31)
Mm-Hmm. .
Cory Sims: (32:32)
And I remember asking him, you know, about that game. It just came up and he was so nice about it.
Josh Kramer: (32:39)
He was like, yeah, you know, like, that was a really good UC team. I just was, you know, I was really locked in, you know, for my last college game. He was really nice. And I remember Paul Finebaum was with us another, commentator at ESPN. He was like, Tim, tell him how you really feel. , you, you, you lit him up. You know, it was, it was just really funny kind of hearing, you know, getting Tim Tebow's perspective after he was such an amazing college football player and just how he just, he spoke highly of UC in their program, despite them beating us by multiple touchdowns and kind of blowing us out.
Grant Freking: (33:10)
Sure.
Cory Sims: (33:11)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think at, there were a couple football managers that had headsets on during that game, you know, because we didn't have a full coaching staff anymore, so.
Grant Freking: (33:19)
Right.
Josh Kramer: (33:19)
Yeah.
Cory Sims: (33:19)
The deck was stacked against us.
Josh Kramer: (33:22)
No doubt.
Grant Freking: (33:23)
For sure.
Grant Freking: (33:24)
We'll get you guys out here with some questions that sort of delve into your involvement as alums. 'cause you guys are both a very involved alums of Lindner and of UC. Cory, you were very involved as a student. You've continued that as an alum, as I just noted, notably as president of the Lindner Alumni Council recently. What prompts you to give your time back and energy back to the college?
Cory Sims: (33:46)
Yeah, I touched on this a little bit earlier. Just, you know, being, being taught that as a student, that hey, just, just pay it forward. You know, that, I know there's a Chinese proverb, right? That we, we sit under the shade of trees that were planted long before us. And, you know, the Honors Plus program, the honors program, this beautiful building, this podcast, none of this would've been here unless people prior to us would've given their time, energy, resources to try and keep promoting, you know, UC in this college and the advancement. So, that definitely encourages me to get back. I was thinking about this too recently. 'cause Josh and I are gonna be together tonight for a little award ceremony. And so I've been outta school for a little over 13 years. And I think I have been on some type of committee every year since I've been out.
Cory Sims: (34:43)
You know, I was Lindner Alumni Council for nine years. I was a president of that for four. I was involved with the UC YP organization through the Alumni Association and president of that for a couple years. Sigma Sigma board. So I'm technically a free agent right now. My term is up with the Lindner Alumni Council, so I'm trying to figure out a another way that I can give back. But, you know, ultimately, it, that pay it forward mentality that was instilled in me, I think is, just resonates and, and I want to keep trying to advance this university and college any way I can.
Josh Kramer: (35:20)
Yeah, I mean, I would echo a lot of what Cory said. I think that my involvement is a little bit different than Cory's just living in another state. 'cause I wish I could be here at all the sporting events and all the different events on campus to meet with students in person. I will say over the past 12 years since I've been in Connecticut, I've probably spoken with between 75 and a hundred students. You know, that just reach out kind of blindly with, you know, aspirations of working in sports media or just questions about what I do. I think it's extremely important to answer every one of them and give them your full attention and time. It's something that, I don't know if my wife loves it, that I prioritize that, but she understands it. She understands the pride I take in the school because I understand that I wouldn't be where I am.
Josh Kramer: (36:08)
I wouldn't have the friendships that I have. I wouldn't have the opportunities that I have and probably wouldn't have met my wife. 'cause I wouldn't have gone to ESPN and been in Connecticut without UC, without the Lindner Business School, without the Honors Plus program, without different people such as a Cory or Mark Wood, or a Jack Habig, or Robell Kidane or Ryan Atkins pushing me to be the best I can be to pursue my dreams and goals. So I would say that right there, I wanna be involved any way I can, whether it's just on the phone or Zoom meetings. And then, you know, I got the itch to teach. My wife is a fourth grade teacher and I see her love for, you know, teaching her students inside and outside the classroom and helping them, you know, become the best individuals that they can be.
Josh Kramer: (36:56)
And my mother-in-Law is also a teacher. And I saw that passion she had up until her retirement a couple years ago, and I got the itch. So I actually, during COVID, I designed a course that I could teach. And I started, you know, I reached out to former president of UC, Santa Ono, and we had a good call. And he offered to let me teach the course at the University of British Columbia, which is where he was at the time before he went to Michigan. And, you know, I told him I really wanted to try it at UC first. So I went through a lot of different parties at UC. It took a long time, but eventually I landed, with the CCM College and this intro to Sports Media Production class. And, you know, it's just been an amazing experience connecting with current students that aren't necessarily all just business students, but also, you know, seeing them land jobs. You know, after over a decade at ESPN is the only Bearcat, I'm no longer the only Bearcat.
Josh Kramer: (37:57)
I know that we have Jason Kelce, who, you know, is a good friend of Cory's, is there now, but you know, also seeing some of the students that have taken this four course progression at CCM land jobs there. It just brings me so much joy. so I would say that, and then just the love for the university. I mean, I miss it. I wish I could be here at everything, but you're always gonna be connected, whether it's watching sporting events, whether it's talking, you know, Cory and I will text about the different teams or, you know, other friends that I have from my time here. And, you know, that's, that's stuff that I really look forward to. So, yeah, I would say that's kind of a long-winded answer, but I will always be coming back, whether it's in person or remotely, but I'm thrilled to be here right now. So.
Cory Sims: (38:44)
Yeah, I'll Grant, I've used this analogy before. I think, you know, for potential students that might come here, or parents that are considering sending their children here, you have this four or five year relationship with the university as an undergrad. But if you think about it over the course of your life, that's a very small portion of the potential relationship.
Grant Freking: (39:07)
Right.
Cory Sims: (39:07)
It's kind of like you're dating, right? And then, you know, you graduate and that's kind the wedding. But like, you're committed for life. You're an alumni and you know, there's some obligation. You might not agree with everything the university does, every hire, every decision. But if you do it the right way, if you come here and do college the right way, get involved, have the experiences, you're gonna want to give back, you're going to want to be committed because it truly is, you know, till death do us part in a way. So, that's, that's why I keep coming back.
Grant Freking: (39:41)
My thanks to Josh Kramer and Cory Sims for joining me on Bearcats Mean Business. Attention Lindner Alumni. If you're not an active member of the Lindner community, your involvement matters more than you may realize. If you're interested in donating your time, money, and/or effort to the Lindner College of Business, please visit business.uc.edu/alumni. Please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business wherever you listen to your podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Episode archive
On November 16, Lindner will host the Project Management Institute’s annual summit for the organization’s Southwest Ohio and Dayton/Miami Valley chapters. “Navigating Tomorrow: Employing Virtual, AI & Remote Project Management Approaches” is the theme of this year’s summit.
Chanda Monroe-Willams, adjunct instructor, and executive director of urban impact and project learning at Lindner, and Steven Jones, an assistant professor of operations, business analytics and information systems, and director of the operations and industrial management programs at Lindner, joined Bearcats Mean Business to preview the summit and its learning opportunities, their personal journeys in the project management industry, and more.
Register for “Navigating Tomorrow: Employing Virtual, AI & Remote Project Management Approaches.”
Grant Freking: (00:00)
On Saturday, November 16th, the Carl H. Lindner College of Business will host the Project Management Institute's annual summit for the organization Southwest Ohio and Dayton Miami Valley Chapters. Navigating Tomorrow, Employing Virtual, AI and Remote Project Management Approaches, is the theme of this year's summit. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. Today I'm joined by a pair of Lindner professors to gather additional insight on the summit. Both will also be among the events esteemed speakers. Chanda Monroe-Williams is an adjunct instructor, and executive director of Urban Impact and Project Learning at Lindner. Steven Jones is an assistant professor of operations, business analytics and information systems, and director of the operations and industrial management programs at Lindner. Welcome, Chanda and Steven.
Steven Jones: (00:49)
Thank you, Grant.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (00:50)
Yeah, welcome Grant. And welcome, Steven.
Steven Jones: (00:53)
Yeah, pleasure being here. Thanks for hosting us today.
Grant Freking: (00:55)
Of course. Really excited for the two of you to join me today. Now, approximately 300 project management professionals are expected to attend the summit, which features keynote addresses and breakout presentations across a range of project management topics. Why else should project management professionals attend this summit?
Steven Jones: (01:12)
Well, I think one of the other valuable, opportunities for project management professionals is to continue to expand and grow their network. You know, one of the things we teach our students is that the quality of your career has a direct correlation with the quality of your network.
Grant Freking: (01:26)
Hmm.
Steven Jones: (01:26)
And so as we bring together this many professionals from different industries, different parts of the region, it gives them an opportunity to collaborate together, to form relationships. So as they are actively working in their profession, they have an expanded and a broader network that they can pull from and draw from. And in the project management industry, it can be nomadic, people may change from company to company, or industry to industry. And having a broader network simply expedites that opportunity and the ability for people to maintain a strong and healthy career.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (02:01)
And I think, unlike most of the past summits, I think where we have an opportunity here is that everyone is trying to figure out how to navigate this new artificial intelligence space.
Grant Freking: (02:13)
Hmm.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (02:13)
And I think project management, some people have asked, even our students have asked, is it outdated? And we have to get to a point where we start to see how we leverage that tool, that domain in how we get work done, not just from an academic standpoint, but how we look at it from being able to do capacity models, how we resource remote workers, et cetera. So I think when we looked at the title Navigating Tomorrow and join Virtual, AI and Remote Project Management Approaches, we really sat down and said, how can we get in the game and make sure we're thinking futuristic?
Grant Freking: (02:47)
Cool. Attendees can also fulfill 14 professional development units, better known as PDUs, at the summit. To those unfamiliar with the project management realm, what do PDUs signify, Chanda?
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (02:57)
So we believe that it's important for all project managers to continue their learning cycles.
Grant Freking: (03:01)
of course.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (03:03)
So every three years, you have to go through a process of garnering additional learning, whether it be through practicing or training or giving back to the community. And so it's important for our people to be able to say that they're up on top of the most edge-cutting processes, how we look at project management and really about how we assess how we get work done. A lot of people think that project management is that thing over there that you do to be able to get work done, but it's not. It's a methodology about how you think through things. How do you assess situations in your organization? How do you define them? How do you put a framework around them to be able to execute on solving true problems that are sustainable solutions that can be leveraged for continuous improvement?
Grant Freking: (03:49)
And so, Steven, staying current is definitely of the utmost importance.
Steven Jones: (03:52)
Absolutely. I mean, within any industry, any profession, you want to continue your education, so that way you're always aware of what the latest and greatest is, out there in order to maintain your value, that you bring to the industry in your role, your position in your organization. So the PDUs are essential from that perspective.
Grant Freking: (04:10)
Now Steven, in the UC news release announcing Lindner as the host of the summit, you said, quote, this year's summit promises to be an enriching experience, with facilitators who align with the PMI Talent Triangle and sessions inspired by PMI's Pulse of the Profession. End quote. Tell us more, especially to people like me who may not know much about the PMI Talent Triangle and the Pulse of the Profession.
Steven Jones: (04:31)
Yeah, Grant. That's, it's something I'm really excited about because it's one of the things that brought me into higher ed. I actually, prior to coming to UC, I spent about 30 years in corporate global management roles. And one of the things I found for professionals across the board, it was critically essential to continually build your skills. So much as we just talked about PDUs or the continuing education, what the PMI Talent Triangle really breaks down are three critical elements that are useful, really essential, for any project or operations or quality, any type of manager in business today. And those three aspects are business acumen, the ways of working and power skills. And things that I learned throughout my career is, number one, you must understand business, the business acumen is essential because you have to understand the big picture of not just your operation, not just your organization, not just your industry, but the overall economy in order to make effective decisions that are gonna add value to your organization.
Steven Jones: (05:32)
The business acumen components really get to anything where we get to look at competitive analysis. You know, what are my competitors doing better or differently than my company? And what things can we do to, to have a competitive advantage?
Grant Freking: (05:47)
Right.
Steven Jones: (05:47)
We have to understand legal compliance, particularly if you get into projects in the finance space or manufacturing of food products to ensure that you minimize the risk of liability to our organization. And then of course, organizational strategy. How does our organization function if it's domestic, if it's international, multinational, to ensure that we're making decisions that continue to create value and don't unintentionally create problems. The second leg of the triangle really gets into our ways of working. And that's gets more specifically into the different types of project management and the skills necessary for a project manager to be successful in various environments.
Steven Jones: (06:28)
And that can come from the mastery and the use of traditional project management waterfall. Like if you're building a house, agile project management, where maybe you're looking at application development like you might have on your phone.
Grant Freking: (06:41)
Okay.
Steven Jones: (06:41)
DMAIC, which is a process improvement approach where you're trying to improve the current state or efficiency of a process or a hybrid approach where you're combining different elements of any of these different project management methodologies. And that's really beneficial for project managers to grow their skillset so that they can demonstrate how they can use all these different techniques regardless of the scenario that they're thrust into. But the third leg, I think is, can be the most important leg from many aspects, because ultimately we're always dealing with people. And the third leg are the power skills. And the power skills are really the skills necessary of a manager beyond just the technical skills, beyond the business acumen, that are going to enable them to get the most out of themselves and the people that they work with. So we're talking about things like emotional intelligence and strategic thinking and strategic leadership, but those interpersonal skills that quite frankly, many people have, we've seen an erosion of, especially going through covid and as we've gone more virtual and more remote, how do we build those skills up, so that we can build relationships that enable our professionals to be successful in any aspect of the business that they're working in?
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (07:55)
And a lot of people don't understand that social emotional intelligence is a key part of project management.
Grant Freking: (07:59)
Mm-Hmm.
Steven Jones: (07:59)
Absolutely.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (07:59)
If you can't tap into the people in the room, it's hard to be collaborative enough to be able to figure out how to get them to share so that you can actually understand how to define the problem.
Grant Freking: (08:11)
Well said.
Steven Jones: (08:12)
You know, one of the aspects we consider, especially with project managers is, project managers are unique in this fact that they typically don't have direct authority over the people on their project teams. So they have to lead through negotiation. They have to lead through motivation. And that really starts with the individual. How do you lead yourself? How do you motivate yourself to be able to go above and beyond? And then how do you motivate your team members for them to be able to go above and beyond? And you can have all the technical skills and all the business acumen in the world, but if you're not able to effectively motivate yourself and the people around you, you're really gonna struggle in this profession.
Grant Freking: (08:48)
Makes sense. Now, let's dive deeper into the summit's keynote and breakout sessions. Chanda, what should attendees have their eyes on, aside from your session and Steven's session, in terms of attending and picking out which sessions they should attend?
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:02)
Well, we always say that we have some of the best sessions. I think last year we were voted, in the top three of the sessions that were presented. So that kudos to Lindner for being a trailblazer in that space. But there was a gentleman, Michael Lively.
Steven Jones: (09:15)
Yes.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:15)
He's a former NASA employee.
Steven Jones: (09:18)
Yes.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:18)
And he's gonna be the opening keynote speaker, 'Unleashing the Power of Generative AI Workforce' this year. Last year he had standing room only, he really broke down how AI can be used and how it's a matter of prompts and not code, that makes us more effective in how we get work done.
Grant Freking: (09:36)
Oh, interesting.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:37)
So we really believe that he should have been one of the keynote speakers.
Steven Jones: (09:41)
Absolutely.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:41)
This summit. And so he's gonna be our morning keynote speaker, and then we have afternoon keynote speaker, Ashima Sharma, who's gonna do 'AI for Humans: Workforce of the Future.'
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (09:51)
So again, it goes back to how we think about getting work done is gonna have to change over time. Why? Because technology is outgrowing us and how we think. So I used to say, you know, I walk into a room. If I'm the smartest person in the room, then I'm in the wrong room. Now the problem is I walk into a room, it may be five of us. By the time we walk out that room and add artificial intelligence to it, we're outdated. So we're outpaced. And so we now have to continue to go into a lot of rooms to be able to make sure we're keeping up and being able to use the tools to our advantage. I think the other thing that I am really proud about is we now are offering, this year our lunchtime actually hands-on interactivity, where you'll be able to work with someone to actually create a comprehensive project plan. And they're gonna show you how you can do it 80 times faster than you would've done it without artificial intelligence.
Grant Freking: (10:44)
Wow.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (10:44)
So we're gonna get people registered before the event, the morning of the event, and people will actually be able to bring their laptops and actually create their own project plans.
Grant Freking: (10:53)
Excellent. Steven, what kind of learning skill set should people look forward to sort of adding to their repertoire by attending the summit?
Steven Jones: (10:59)
Yeah, I think Chanda just touched on it and that's really the big one. And how can I do what I do better and faster and more accurately? Because ultimately, you know, one of the concepts or notions I've heard thrown out there about AI is that AI is gonna take people's jobs away. And I totally disagree with that, but what I would say is that people who know how to use AI are gonna become significantly more efficient and more valuable to their organizations. And that could in fact cause them to take on additional scope and responsibility from other people. And so within that is what Chanda just alluded to. Being able to see practically, how can I use AI to improve my own efficiency and my own value, I think is gonna be a really, critical thing to learn and a great value for all those who come to and choose to attend.
Grant Freking: (11:48)
An important distinction. Chanda, tell us more about your session entitled 'Future Proofing Project Management: Leveraging Virtual Teams, AI Teams and Tools.'
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (11:57)
That's a mouthful, Grant.
Grant Freking: (11:58)
It is.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (11:59)
But what I'll say is, is that we have to think differently. A lot of times when I go into organizations, they'll say, tell me how you think, how you, how you figure out how to ask what questions to be able to move projects forward. And I think the first thing is understanding that we have global resources. So at a time where you have companies like Starbucks for instance, who just was in the news about, they had brought on a new CEO who worked at California. They were bringing their resources back into the office. And the question was why? What is the benefit of that? I think if we're gonna get the best out of our talent, we have to figure out how to more strategically work remote. And so that's benefiting the company if people are happy, morale is high, and they can actually say, here's the tools we can use to make sure that the work is being done.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (12:44)
There's a lot of tools out here like Smartsheets Monday, JIRA, that we can use that a lot of people are afraid of. And I think now having artificial intelligence behind it is making it easy for us to better understand it. I think the other thing is harnessing the power of AI for project success. So a lot of us, we go in and say, okay, we're gonna take this project plan and we're going to create it in Project Server. And it becomes so technical that our business users don't understand it.
Steven Jones: (13:12)
Exactly.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (13:12)
We have to simplify that message. And AI will allow us to say, okay, take this project plan and simplify it so I can present it to a group of non-project managers who need to understand the executive summary level. And so to help us be able to tell that story, optimizing remote tools, adapting emerging trends and building resilient processes.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (13:34)
Steve and I are both process experts. I would say he's probably more of a process expert. I'm more of a project expert. And so with that being said, one of the things that we, we tell people is what we do is we create the vision and the framework around what we're trying to do, the business case, but then we gotta figure out how to define what success looks like. And as we move through that process, we have to be able to say, what does that look like? Who's involved in it? How do we know that we actually achieved our goals? And so that's one of the things that we're gonna talk about through this process, is that how do you make sure you're building resilient, sustainable processes so that as you continue to improve them, 'cause they're not static.
Grant Freking: (14:11)
Right.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (14:11)
As you continue to improve them, you understand how you got there. So there's a lot more documentation, a lot more rationale, a lot more tech specs behind it. And I think for a lot of project managers and organizations that will make us more proactive in how we decide to move forward.
Grant Freking: (14:30)
Excellent. A must-attend session for sure. Now, Steven, your presentation is titled 'CI+AI: The New Formula Leveraging AI to Continuous Improvement.' Tell us about it.
Steven Jones: (14:40)
Yeah. So continuous improvement is a core activity in any organization, and it goes hand in hand with what project management is because a project by definition is a short-term activity that creates value. Continuous improvement is basically a long-term activity that creates value. And so in this session, what I'm going to do, I'm gonna go back to my last corporate role I had about six years ago where I was the head of a performance improvement for a large multinational corporation. And I'm going to show how I would've used AI in that environment to go from anywhere of developing my strategic improvement plan for the organization to breaking down the tactical projects and define and building the project charters and actually going through a full improvement project, define, measure, analyze, improving control, using AI in a way that I have a high level of accuracy in my data. And I'm gonna demonstrate that because historically in the past, that kind of an activity literally was something that planning activity alone would've taken me weeks to do. And I'm gonna show how you can do it using AI in a matter of minutes.
Grant Freking: (15:50)
Wow.
Steven Jones: (15:50)
So I think it's a real beneficial application for people who are actually owning and managing project portfolios and having to oversee a large set of projects within an organization.
Grant Freking: (16:03)
Looking forward to seeing that. And wow, that's some efficiency saving right there.
Steven Jones: (16:07)
Yes.
Grant Freking: (16:07)
Now before we close, I'd like each of you to share what the project management industry means to you, Steven, we'll start with you.
Steven Jones: (16:14)
So for me, project management, the industry for me was a treasure that I found that I didn't know existed because it really enabled me to have a very successful career over 35 years, and across 40 different countries. And I'm really excited now because we're able to bring that to our students. We've recently launched, matter of fact, we just got approval yesterday for our project management club, and we are in the process of applying to become a student chapter of the Project Management Institute. And so I'm really excited to have a much more formalized structured support system to help our students learn project management and even earn their own project management certifications while they're students here at Lindner. You know, at Lindner we strive to help our students become as valuable as possible, not just academically in the classroom, but also externally through our co-op experience and now through our student organizations with professional certification. So, I'm just really excited about the whole growth of the industry and how we're able to present this and provide this value to our students.
Grant Freking: (17:25)
Excellent. Chanda, some final thoughts from you?
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (17:27)
Yes. So I like how we are able to come full cycle. So as an alum of the University of Cincinnati, my major was in psychology.
Grant Freking: (17:33)
Oh, interesting.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (17:34)
And so I left UC and went to GE and quickly became known as a problem solver. And I realized how useful that degree was in the business realm. And so in 1995, I was able to start GEs first project management office. I did a lot of research on what it was, we didn't have a lot of information on it, and we were able to craft how we were able to do things like decide what sites we're gonna keep up, how to do champion challengers globally for our different business units, how we were able to look at the value of some of the projects that we were doing and how to prioritize them. And so having a career that has spanned over 25 years doing that type of work, and then to be able to come back to UC again and be able to translate that into something that is more tangible for our students so they can understand that even though Lindner says we enable problem solvers, it's actually a bigger message than that.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (18:28)
What we're enabling is the ability for students to think outside of their natural realm. There's no limitations in how we solve problems. It's really just more of how do you engage with people to be able to figure out how to make sure that you're aligned on what you're trying to do at the end of the day. And so I think Steven and Sachin, I don't wanna miss out on Sachin Modi, who is department head for OBAIS. He's done a terrific job in looking at
Steven Jones: (18:55)
Absolutely.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (18:55)
Where we have opportunities to be able to get our students engaged. We actually had 25% of the 200 students that were involved in the summit last year, who are doing some amazing work. I'll let Steve talk more about that. But I think that it has been a win for us as a college to really not just say, we enable problem solvers, but to be able to have people be able to see what that looks like.
Grant Freking: (19:18)
proof of concept.
Steven Jones: (19:19)
Yeah. Absolutely. So we had over 50 students attend the summit last year. Hopefully we'll have more than that this year. And that's what initiated the students, their excitement over it, caused them to initiate setting up the project management club. And, and again, I'm really excited about it because it's not a major-specific club, but for any student here in the College of Business. And it's again, another way that Lindner is able to help build the value for our students and make them more attractive to the business. And again, I just shout out my department head, Sachin Modi, just for his support in this, because I don't think we would've been able to come this far without his support.
Chanda Monroe-Williams: (20:02)
And it has opened up conversations across the university. That's the biggest thing. I think in our research, we've been able to find that a lot of colleges have some component of project management, but we have not had a structured conversation on what is the University of Cincinnati's model. So Lindner is now having that conversation in a way that's saying, look, we all need to get on the same page and make sure that when we talk about project management and business acumen, we gotta figure out how do we do it in a way that really puts University of Cincinnati and the College of Business on the map when it comes to project management and solving problems.
Grant Freking: (20:37)
My thanks to Chanda Monroe-Williams and Steven Jones for joining Bearcats Mean Business. Remember, the 2024 PMI summit will be held Saturday, November 16th at Lindner Hall. To register, Visit P-M-I-S-W-O-H-I-O.org or click on the link in this episode's description. Please subscribe, rate, and review Bearcats Mean Business wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
What is the Center for Business Analytics’ series Analytics Without Borders? Why is data the common ground that unites disciplines? And why is Cincinnati an ideal location for the convergence of business and analytics?
These questions and more are answered on the latest episode of Bearcats Mean Business with Dungang Liu, PhD, Professor of Business Analytics and Academic Director for the Center for Business Analytics, and Matthew Dowling, Divisional Assistant Vice President, Business Data & Analytics, Great American Insurance Group.
The next Analytics Without Borders will be a virtual event, held at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6. Register today!
Grant Freking: (00:00)
The Carl H. Lindner College of Business, the University of Cincinnati, and the Greater Cincinnati business community, along with other stakeholders, have combined to create a thriving analytics hub. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, I'm joined by Dr. Dungang Liu, professor of Business Analytics and Academic Director for the Center for Business Analytics, and Matthew Dowling, Divisional Assistant Vice President, Business Data and Analytics, Great American Insurance. We'll be chatting about the Center for Business Analytics Series, Analytics Without Borders. Cincinnati as a center for analytics and more. Welcome Dungang and Matthew.
Dungang Liu: (00:38)
Thanks for having me.
Matthew Dowling: (00:40)
Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here.
Grant Freking: (00:42)
Thanks again for both of you being here. Matthew, you're a Lindner graduate. Any fond memories being back in this area? I know the building was not quite built when you graduated here, but how's it feel being back?
Matthew Dowling: (00:52)
Oh, it's great to be back and I'm lucky enough to come back pretty frequently. I get to work with Dungang and the Center for Business Analytics. I spend a number of days every year in the 1819 building, working on innovative strategy for Great American and business data and analytics.
Grant Freking: (01:09)
Mm-Hmm. .
Matthew Dowling: (01:10)
And I also spend some of my weekends in the fall here going to football games and other academic and athletic activities here.
Grant Freking: (01:22)
Awesome. Gentlemen, let's share with listeners a bit more about your backgrounds and how you ended up in your respective positions. Dungang, go lead us off.
Dungang Liu: (01:28)
Yes. So it has been a long journey. So I got my PhD in statistics when data science was still a buzz word. So when I say this, I feel I'm getting old. And, , I had a two years after that, I had two years postdoc experience at Yale University. I really, really appreciate that experience because it gave me exposure to a lot of real and exciting problems. And I think that's, that's the reason I'm here. And after that, I joined UC Lindner College of Business as assistant professor and in the major of business analytics. And I'm now a full professor and serve as the academic director for the Center for Business Analytics. So when I introduce myself, when I talk about my background to my students, I always say life is like a box of chocolates. You never know where you are going to get.
Grant Freking: (02:23)
Forest Gump. Matthew.
Matthew Dowling: (02:26)
Sure. So I have my bachelor's degree in finance and accounting from the University of Cincinnati. I took my first job as an accountant, but you know, back then accountant was a lot more broad than accountant is now.
Grant Freking: (02:42)
Okay.
Matthew Dowling: (02:42)
We didn't exactly have data and analytics positions. So I was doing a lot of data and analytics as an accountant.
Grant Freking: (02:54)
Okay.
Matthew Dowling: (02:54)
I then proceeded to get my MBA in business intelligence from Xavier. That was back when business intelligence was a little bit more encompassing than it is today. You know, when we say business intelligence, now we may be talking specifically about visualization, but you know, back then it incorporated a lot of what we call data science and statistics and business intelligence was sort of coming together at that point. I've worked in quite a few insurance functions throughout my career until I was picked to lead our enterprise analytics group.
Grant Freking: (03:30)
Okay.
Matthew Dowling: (03:30)
Our enterprise and I work primarily on strategy, and I also lead a team of folks that work on some data science and a lot of visualization
Grant Freking: (03:41)
Sure. And you mentioned you studied accounting and finance here at Lindner. How did that form the foundation of your business career?
Matthew Dowling: (03:47)
Sure. So accounting and finance is, may not be as quantitative as statistics, but it's still a quantitative practice. And so that certainly helped. But, you know, overall the Lindner College of Business helped me grow, a lot of connections and friendships. I think the leadership opportunities around campus were really helpful for me. I was in club sports leadership when I was at the university. And then finally the university really invests in practical application of our studies. So, you know, Dungang's going to talk about it a little bit later, but, you know, with Analytics Without Borders, which wasn't around when I was going here, but that same concept was around. And then co-op, you know, the university is a leader in co-op. And that is really helpful in kind of bridging the gap between your studies and your professional experience in practical applications.
Grant Freking: (04:50)
Right. And one of the reasons why we're here today is Analytics Without Borders, as Matthew just mentioned, the Center for Business Analytics series that has educated Lindner and UC students, staff and faculty, as well as working professionals on a range of topics including generative ai, human capital analytics, marketing analytics, and transfer learning for ai. Dungang, tell us a little bit more about the origin and rationale of Analytics Without Borders.
Dungang Liu: (05:14)
Sure. So the motive originates from a question. So I'm asking myself, what is analytics? Of course, different people may have different answers. So I believe analytics is such a broad field that you may not give a definite answer to this question, but my understanding is analytics has at least three pillars.
Grant Freking: (05:35)
Mm-Hmm. .
Dungang Liu: (05:36)
The first one is statistics, machine learning and optimization. So basically these are all the techniques that lay the foundation of analytics. So we cannot do any analytics without all this techniques, but at the same time, we cannot do analytics without domain questions. I think that is the second pillar of analytics. So we need to have domain knowledge, we need to have domain questions, domain experts, and if we create a conversation between these two pillars, right? Statistics, machine learning, optimization, and also the people who have expertise and also questions from the domain part.
Dungang Liu: (06:19)
We have the third pillar is called applications. And, I think ChatGPT is great example, right? You have larger language models, but I can see that in the next few years we are going to have a lot of apps and the B2B solutions that is built on these techniques that create a lot of opportunities. So analytics is area that cause collaborations across different disciplines. But based on my own experience, I have attended so many academic conferences and also industry conferences.
Grant Freking: (06:50)
Mm-Hmm, .
Dungang Liu: (06:51)
what I see is communication is a issue, right? So the reason that people may not get together from different disciplines is we may not speak the same language. So if you think about the term business analytics, it has two words in there. So you have business, you have analytics. So I think we have to do translations. So we translate business problem to an analytics problem.
Dungang Liu: (07:17)
So some people with statistics, machine learning background can solve that, but in the end you have to translate back the result produced by Python Power bi, right back to business. So you always have to do this kind of translation, but it's very, very hard to build that capability across different disciplines. So our approach is to start with lighthearted conversations. So this series is different from traditional seminar where you have this one week communication, right? You watch YouTube videos, you watch, you can take some Coursera courses or you watch Netflix documentaries. It's, they're great, but it's just one-way communication. So the audience has no way to get involved. So that's part of the motive. We do this in Analytics Without Borders, we try to create multi-way conversations in the sense that we create conversations between different speakers. So typically we have two to three speakers from different disciplines in every event.
Dungang Liu: (08:17)
And at the same time, we want to create conversations between the audience and, the speakers using a tool called Mentimeter. So basically our audience can ask any questions at any time. So I think that's the differentiator of our series. And if you ask me to summarize the motive in just one sentence, I will say Analytics Without Borders is an experiment in which we want to engage cross-discipline experts as well as cross section audience including students, faculty, professionals. And, at the same time, we want to ensure that a freshman in a non-STEM field can understand.
Grant Freking: (09:00)
Alright. Now, something that struck me while attending the most recent Analytics Without Borders was the diversity of interests represented. Dungang had attendees state their area of interest or study that appeared into a word cloud. And among the responses were some of the typical ones you would expect, information systems, business analytics, operations management majors or fields that you'd expect to be associated with analytics, but also represented were marketing, sociology, kinesiology, and another areas of study not traditionally grouped with analytics. What can you say about that diversity of interest represented, and the audience that you've managed to sort of group into a single setting?
Dungang Liu: (09:40)
Yeah, I have been amazed by the diversity of the audience, but I'm not surprised.
Grant Freking: (09:45)
Mm-Hmm, .
Dungang Liu: (09:46)
So this goes back to my own background. So my major was in mathematics, and I did statistics by statistics. Now business analytics, and I, because I teach right, I ask student a lot of questions to motivate them. And because I'm teaching a course in the first semester, I often ask them a question, say, Hey, tell me what is the common thing behind all these different fields. You have mathematics, statistics by statistics, business analytics. And 10 years ago, or even five years ago, students were not able to figure out, they think I gave them some hint and eventually say it's data, but it's pretty interesting. Like last year, since last year, many students can immediately say it is data. So data is the common ground across different disciplines.
Dungang Liu: (10:38)
And I think no matter what discipline you're working, I think people now have the mindset, Hey, how can we use data to solve our problems?
Grant Freking: (10:47)
Right.
Dungang Liu: (10:47)
I think that's the reason we bring people together to this Analytics Without Borders. And this is another motive behind this series. So we want to bring people with diverse background together, and we do observe that diversity produce eye-opening conversations. So I said conversations, conversation is not traditional seminar, it's conversations. And I still remember one conversation I had with the audience. It was two months after the ChatGPT was launched online. So I asked them question, Hey, tell me do we as humans, do we have any strengths that ChatGPT does not have? And you can imagine, wow, this audience throughout all these kind of different answers to the screen, right? We produce that in the World cloud.
Dungang Liu: (11:41)
And I still remember vividly there are two answers. One is arms , one is arms.
Grant Freking: (11:47)
Yeah, true.
Dungang Liu: (11:50)
So yeah, that is true. You say that is true, right? But I think this person may not mean the physical arm. Physical arm is a differentiator, right? That means if I have physical arms, I can give you a handshake, I can hug Matt sitting beside me, right? But I think that hug or handshake means something more than a physical activity. It is a gesture, it is a willingness to make a connection. And this is something that chatGPT may not have. And the other answer is heart. That's right. That's true. Right? But again, I think this person means something beyond that physical heart. So we humans may do something that may harm our interest, but we still, we may still want to do that because of our beliefs or moral standard. So I think this is something that is really, really interesting.
Grant Freking: (12:43)
Alright. Matthew, what does this intersection mean to you now as a sort of, now that you're well versed in your field and you've attended some Analytics Without Borders yourself?
Matthew Dowling: (12:52)
Sure. So I think it represents a continued commitment by the university to practically apply the studies that Dungang and his colleagues do here at the university. I think these cross field studies really enable somebody who is in industry to kind of see and think about things a lot broader than they would in their day to day jobs. So I think it's really helpful in developing strategy, in understanding what is next for your industry based on some of the leaders in other industries.
Grant Freking: (13:37)
And building off that, tell us a little bit more about your role with Great American and the company's relationship with analytics and how that's maybe evolved since you've been with Great American.
Matthew Dowling: (13:46)
Sure. So Great American is a primarily a specialty property and casualty insurance company. And insurance is full of data, but that data isn't always organized in the right way. So in some ways we saw the opportunity as an industry to utilize our data very early. And actuarial as a science is a great example of how we've done that. But because of the fact that our data is not always organized appropriately for analysis, we only went, you know, an inch deep for decades in data and analytics. But over the past 10 to 15 years, insurance has become a whole lot more data-focused across the industry. And Great American has been a leader in that area. So currently we're doing all of the interesting work, with ai, machine learning, natural language processing, advanced visualizations. We use a lot of the same start, or we use a lot of the same tech and a lot of the same techniques as startups, but we have 151 years behind us.
Matthew Dowling: (15:13)
in terms of stability. We have great benefits, excellent work life balance, and we have a lot of continuing education opportunities, including our partnership with the Center for Business Analytics. And above all, we like to apply what we know and what we've learned in an ethical way. You know, there, you know, Dungang mentioned that there's a lot that humans have that machines do not have. Some of that is heart. Some of that is that ethical foundation that's really hard to build into your, into your machine learning and into your ai. We are very intentional about being ethical with our application of data science.
Grant Freking: (15:58)
Yeah. Let's focus a bit more on Cincinnati itself, the city and the area around it as a hub for business and analytics. Dungang, you're not from here originally, but you've lived here for over a decade now. Matthew, we were talking before the show started. You are born and raised Cincinnati like myself. I'm interested in both of your perspectives on this topic. Dungang, we'll start with you.
Dungang Liu: (16:17)
Yeah. I'm glad that you asked this question. So I was not born here and I did not grow up here, but I want to speak strongly for Cincinnati. So I grew up in a popular city in China. So at that time the population was probably 5 million. Now it's approaching 8 million.
Grant Freking: (16:36)
Wow.
Dungang Liu: (16:36)
And I spent seven years on the East coast in New Jersey and Connecticut. I would say both my wife and I love Cincinnati. We truly love Cincinnati and we think this is our hometown. And in May actually, I went back to my hometown because my mother-in-Law had a surgery and we spent two weeks in our hometown. And in the last three days I really miss Cincinnati, so I want to come back. So I think we should redefine, actually, I search the definition of hometown. I think we should redefine the definition of hometown.
Dungang Liu: (17:12)
It's a place you want to go back when you feel tired and lonely. It's not a place you were born or grow up. It's something you really miss.
Grant Freking: (17:20)
I like that.
Dungang Liu: (17:22)
I think we have everything here. We have football, we have soccer, we have baseball teams, and if you love tennis, you can watch Cincinnati open every August. The tickets are much cheaper as compared to US open. Right? So, but basically you see all the players, right? And Kings Island, I live in Mason and Kings Island is just five minutes away from my home. I think that's fantastic. If you like, if you like music, we have Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and if you like Broadway shows, you can still watching Cincinnati, I think unless you want to watch Broadway shows every week, probably there is no difference like as compared to living New York City. So I think Cincinnati have everything that they can offer.
Grant Freking: (18:02)
Matthew, let's hear your pitch for Cincinnati.
Matthew Dowling: (18:05)
I think Cincinnati is a great place to live. It has, as Dungang said, had almost all of the benefits of a larger city without the traffic and the high cost. We have the arts as Dungang was saying, with the symphony, with the May Choral Festival with a number of other shows. We have the entertainment with sports and what Dun didn't mention in terms of our national presence, but I find I really enjoyed this year was the LPGA Queen City. And it's presented by some of our fabulous companies here in Cincinnati. Cincinnati companies really invest in Cincinnati and it shows with things like the Cincinnati Open and the LPGA Queen City, it's a great place to do business. We have great corporations with a rich history that work together really, really well. We have our innovation district, we have a number of incubators including probably the strongest in 1819 of which Great American Insurance is a member.
Matthew Dowling: (19:13)
And our business leaders are advocates for the Cincinnati area. The Lindners have invested so much in the Cincinnati area and John Barrett, who, you know, was a key member in keeping that Cincinnati Open in Cincinnati has done so much to grow the business community here in Cincinnati. The hospital system is wonderful, including the best children's hospital in the country. We have extremely strong universities led by the University of Cincinnati. And you know, you think, okay, what does Cincinnati and how great Cincinnati is have to do with Analytics Without Borders? But I really think that with so many national and international companies in Cincinnati, there are Bearcats around the world and it's important that we stay connected. And I think Analytics Without Borders and the university really act as that glue to keep us connected with everything that Cincinnati and the university has to offer. It makes sense to have Cincinnati at the center.
Grant Freking: (20:25)
Yeah, I agree. Now, Dungang, we talked a little bit beforehand about the Center for Business Analytics and the need for some student leaders to sort of help drive the the center forward. Can you tell me about, and tell the audience about, what you're looking for in those student leaders?
Dungang Liu: (20:40)
Yes. So in the past, our center have involved students in different company projects, but of course Analytics Without Borders, we are looking for student leaders. It's not just the doers, but we want student with vision, with passion, with the willingness to contribute, to lead, to promote other students. And I'm looking forward to working with someone who want to drive this Analytics Without Borders further.
Grant Freking: (21:09)
Awesome. Well thanks to Dungang and Matthew for joining me today. Appreciate you guys coming on the podcast.
Dungang Liu: (21:14)
Alright, thanks. Thank
Grant Freking: (21:15)
You Grant. My thanks to Dungang and Matthew for joining me on Bearcats Mean Business. Please join us at the next Analytics Without Borders slated for Wednesday, November 6th at 3:30 PM at Lindner Hall. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Denny Zhou, founder and leader of the LLM Reasoning Team in Google DeepMind. The event will be live streamed so Bearcats can watch from wherever they are. Are you interested in studying analytics, US News and World Report recently ranked Lindner's undergraduate business analytics program among the top 25 programs in the country. Please find out more information at business.uc.edu. Please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Two third-year Lindner students, Annabella Black and Liana Gabrelcik, joined Bearcats Mean Business to chat about balancing day-to-day college life with studying and involvement, transferring to Lindner/UC, thoughtful Lindner faculty, and how Instagram helped one of them select Lindner/UC.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Since 1906, the Carl H. Lindner College of Business has placed students at the forefront of the business world by offering rigorous academics and harnessing the power of greater Cincinnati's vibrant business community. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. Today we'll find out if my opening statement matches the reality experience by a pair of third-year Lindner students, Annabella Black and Liana Gabrelcik. Welcome to Bearcats Mean Business.
Annabella Black: (00:25)
Thank you so much for having us. I cannot wait to share a bit about my experience here at Lindner so far.
Liana Gabrelcik: (00:29)
Yeah, thanks. I'm really excited to be here today.
Grant Freking: (00:32)
Alright, let's begin with some introductions. Can each of you share a little bit about where you're from, how you ended up at Lindner and what you're studying?
Liana Gabrelcik: (00:38)
Yeah, sure. So I am, this is Liana and I am from Beloit, Ohio, which is a really small village in northeast Ohio. It's about four hours northeast from UC. And I'm currently studying business law and ethics certificate. I am getting a degree in econ and in finance. And I actually ended up at Lindner because of Lindner Ambassadors, which is a really great organization we have at Lindner that Annabella and I are both a part of.
Grant Freking: (01:05)
Awesome.
Liana Gabrelcik: (01:05)
I saw a current ambassador on Instagram actually.
Grant Freking: (01:09)
Oh, okay.
Liana Gabrelcik: (01:10)
And that really piqued my interest in Lindner.
Grant Freking: (01:11)
Awesome. A couple episodes ago I talked to someone who found a co-op on TikTok. So good to know your social media stuff's working. How about you, Annabella?
Annabella Black: (01:19)
Yeah, so I'm Annabella Black. I'm a third year and I'm from Cincinnati, born and raised here and everything, so it's great to be back in Cincinnati and at Lindner. I was actually a transfer, so I'll touch more on that here in a minute. But I'm so happy I ended up here at Lindner eventually and after trying to find my way and everything.
Grant Freking: (01:35)
Yeah.
Annabella Black: (01:35)
And I'm studying finance with a certificate in business law as well. So kind of similar, academic paths for us.
Grant Freking: (01:42)
Awesome. Now Annabella, as you mentioned, you're a transfer student. That's not something we, I think you might be the first one we've had.
Annabella Black: (01:47)
Mm-Hmm. .
Grant Freking: (01:47)
on the podcast. I'm interested in hearing a bit more about your story. Why did you decide to transfer to Lindner and UC and what was that process like for you?
Annabella Black: (01:55)
Yeah, for sure. So I spent the entirety of my freshman year at a college town university. So I would always say it's kind of like a night and day like shift in experience for me. A college town's a little more slow pace and I realized that just wasn't for me after experiencing it for a few months. So I wanted to still give it my best shot and everything. So I stayed there for my whole freshman year, gave it a shot, try to get involved in as much as I could just to make an impact on that experience. After, you know, a trial and error, I still realized that that place just was not for me.
Grant Freking: (02:24)
Okay.
Annabella Black: (02:24)
And I was like, I still need that busy urban environment. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna come back to Cincinnati, come back home and everything. And it's been a world of a difference for sure.
Annabella Black: (02:33)
It's definitely a hard choice to make to like actually decide to transfer 'cause it's a big decision in and everything and kind of like admitting that, okay, maybe I picked the wrong college and everything at the first place, but I can always change my environment and everything.
Grant Freking: (02:47)
Yep.
Annabella Black: (02:47)
So after talking with my family, my friends, my parents' friends and everything, like any trusted person in my life, I was like, Hey, it's time to come back to Cincinnati. Yeah. So it was just, it was a big, big decision. Lots of self-reflection and everything.
Grant Freking: (03:02)
Mm-Hmm. .
Annabella Black: (03:03)
But I'm so happy that I did. I've had an amazing experience, just a complete shift to my personality and my experience here. So it definitely was a learning process, but it worked out completely in my favor.
Grant Freking: (03:14)
Awesome. Well we're glad to hear it.
Annabella Black: (03:16)
Thank you.
Grant Freking: (03:16)
Liana, what do you remember about your college selection process? How did that work out for you?
Liana Gabrelcik: (03:20)
My college selection process was not exactly the traditional way that most students go about. So all of high school I thought that I wanted to go to Ohio State University.
Grant Freking: (03:31)
Okay.
Liana Gabrelcik: (03:31)
I had fallen in love with the band as like an eighth grader and I just thought that that was the place for me and that was my goal. But you know, then application season comes and I of course apply to Ohio State. I applied to a few other universities but still know that that's where I wanna go. But once the college selection process comes, you know, you get your answers and you actually have to choose. I spent a little bit more time at Ohio State and realized it was not the place for me. It's still a great school, but it's not the school for me. So I started to panic a little bit 'cause that was always the plan.
Grant Freking: (04:03)
Sure. Yeah.
Liana Gabrelcik: (04:04)
But so I, you know, I had talked to, again just as Annabella did, I talked to my loved ones and everyone really just said, you know, maybe you'll go to a community college and then you'll transfer somewhere else. 'cause again, I hadn't applied for that many universities.
Grant Freking: (04:21)
Okay.
Liana Gabrelcik: (04:21)
However, I had thankfully applied to UC because a friend of mine mentioned on free application day, the University of Cincinnati. And I applied and I never really looked at it again. However, as I said, I saw an ambassador on Instagram and her name is Anna Lou. She's great. She's still here. She's a fourth year. And she was just talking about the living learning communities in Lindner and how communal it is. And it was, it was just everything she ever dreamed of. And she was only a first year. And so I decided to really look into UC and I'm so grateful I did because obviously I'm here today. I fell in love with the university I visited and I committed that day. So yeah. The college selection process was definitely not normal for me.
Grant Freking: (05:03)
Yeah.
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:03)
But here I am and I, I'm couldn't be happier that I ended up here.
Grant Freking: (05:08)
Oh, we're glad you're here. And that's crazy that there's an Instagram takeover, I'm sure.
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:11)
Mm-Hmm. ,
Grant Freking: (05:12)
I'm guessing what you're referring to.
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:13)
yeah.
Grant Freking: (05:13)
We gotta keep doing those, those appear to be working .
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:15)
Yeah, definitely.
Grant Freking: (05:16)
I have to pitch that back to my office. I know we've got a lot lined up. We gotta keep, keep 'em coming here. . Liana, what recommendations or tips would you give to prospective students and their parents or guardians that are stressing out about filling out applications and trying to rank college choices?
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:30)
My best advice would definitely be flexible and open-minded. You know?
Grant Freking: (05:34)
Yeah.
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:34)
Even though I thought that my plan was set, if I hadn't been open-minded, I wouldn't have ended up here. And again, I'm very pleased with my decision.
Grant Freking: (05:42)
Mm-Hmm. .
Liana Gabrelcik: (05:43)
So I know that it seems terrifying and overwhelming and it is, and your decision matters. But same with Annabella. You know, she didn't feel like she made the right decision and so she transferred because she was open-minded to that. So I think that students need to know this is a big decision, but also don't feel like your destiny is set. You can always change your mind.
Grant Freking: (06:03)
Right. That's good advice. Annabella.
Annabella Black: (06:05)
Yeah. So, you know, backing up what she just said, I would say it's a bunch of self-reflection, being open to everything. And just being true to your personality, as well. For me, like I said, that college town environment, the slow paced experience that it brought just wasn't for me. And I had to figure that out on my own. So I think just being honest with yourself. So if you like a busier environment, maybe like an urban campus, like UC would fit best for you. 'cause it definitely worked well for me.
Grant Freking: (06:38)
Sure.
Annabella Black: (06:38)
And also just think that yes, this is such a big decision, but the college that you pick in high school is not where you might end up and that's totally okay. And so just being open and flexible, like she just said, is just such a big deal and so important in making those decisions and everything. Yeah. So I think we just have some similar advice for people who are listening just with some different experiences.
Grant Freking: (07:02)
Yeah. It's okay if your first choice or first inclination is wrong, you can always go back and change it. Transfer in, as you mentioned. Now both of you are very involved with activities and organizations at Lindner and UC. Annabella, can you please share how you determine which activities and organizations were the best fit for you?
Annabella Black: (07:20)
Yeah, for sure. So, you know, my freshman experience wasn't what I was, you know, initially hoping for and everything. So I came to UC and Lindner, I was like, okay, I'm gonna get involved in anything I'm interested in. And that's why I love Lindner and just being here because it's just so flexible. My schedule can be so open where I can work, where I can do the classes I wanna take, and then also partake in different organizations. It was all very strategically chosen and that's given me the greatest skills ever. So I started off in Greek life from the beginning, so I wanted to have that social foundation and I'm so glad that I chose to do that even before classes started. So it gave me some friends and some faces on campus that I knew right from the beginning. And then joined Lindner Ambassadors, so the organization where I can present in front of prospective families and their students and just tell them all about the amazing things that Lindner has to offer.
Annabella Black: (08:11)
So the presentation skills, working with others, and just, you know, being concise and well-spoken and everything are great skills. And then I'm in Queen City Consulting, so it's our consulting organization here in Lindner. And I really fallen in love with the consulting based problems and that kind of framework. So just trying to, it's taught me to carry that ideals forward into job opportunities that I'm looking for. And then I'm loving how I'm able to work and everything. I've had a part-time job since I've been here. So balancing that with school and any other organizations. So it's been a lot to balance. However, because of that, my time management skills have 100% developed into, you know, just a great asset for me that I'm able to leverage in anything I wanna be involved in. so I cannot speak more highly of all these opportunities that this organization in school gives me. And I think it's just gonna set me up for so much success in the future.
Grant Freking: (09:07)
I would agree. How about you Liana?
Liana Gabrelcik: (09:09)
Yeah, so choosing the best organizations is definitely a process. I knew from day one I wanted to be in Lindner Ambassadors considering the profound impact it had on me. But some of my other organizations has been kind of a process to decide which ones I fit best in. The beautiful thing about pretty much any campus organization is you can always test drive it. You can usually go to one meeting.
Grant Freking: (09:31)
Right.
Liana Gabrelcik: (09:31)
or maybe even two before really joining. And so currently I'm involved in economics society, of course, Lindner ambassadors, scholars of Finance and UC thrift. And I've become really involved with our economics society. But that wasn't until really the end of last year, my second year that I became involved. I had the opportunity to go on a D.C. Trip with the Economics Society. It was about five days. It was fully funded by Lindner. And that was an awesome opportunity. And so yeah, I am, I just test drove a lot of different organizations until I found the ones that really aligned with what I was looking for.
Grant Freking: (10:04)
Awesome. So how do you, the two of you building off this balance your day-to-day life with your studies involvement and any other interest or obligations that you may have?
Liana Gabrelcik: (10:15)
Yeah, I always say that Google Calendar is my best friend.
Grant Freking: (10:17)
Yeah.
Liana Gabrelcik: (10:17)
I put every, every minute of my day on the Google Calendar. You find as you get older, you have to schedule hanging out with your friends more formally than you might have had to in the past.
Grant Freking: (10:28)
Very true. .
Liana Gabrelcik: (10:29)
Starbucks has definitely also become a huge asset of my life. You know, we grab up coffee in between classes and again, of course put it on the Google calendar. So a big thing is just yeah, keeping track of everything and communicating with everybody and planning.
Grant Freking: (10:43)
Awesome.
Annabella Black: (10:44)
Yeah, so Google Calendar is also one of my best friends too. It's so helpful just making sure I can actually see every involvement that I have so I'm not double booking. I'm giving myself enough time to dedicate towards each organization or involvement that I'm a part of. I also remind myself like when my calendar gets extra busy, when things pop up here and there, that everything I am a part of is because I genuinely want to be a part of it. There's not an an organization that I just don't wanna be a part of because I learn the skills, I enjoy the people that I'm around and everything. So yes, it's a busy schedule, but it pays off because I'm learning so much. And just, you know, having that as a reminder of it's, I'm genuinely enjoying what I'm doing, so I'm okay with having that, you know, packed schedule and everything.
Grant Freking: (11:31)
Sure. Did the two of either of you feel like you maybe overextended yourselves in the past by signing up for maybe too much stuff and had to trim down to sort of fit enough into those Google calendars of yours?
Annabella Black: (11:41)
Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I would say last semester in the spring I was doing full load of classes. I was doing all my organizations and I was also working two part-time jobs, all between the hours of eight and five.
Grant Freking: (11:55)
Wow.
Annabella Black: (11:55)
During the weekdays. So I wanted to do all of it and everything. That's why I was telling myself, 'cause I was getting the experiences. It was a job at a law firm and a job at a finance organization. So lots of balance and everything. However, I made it work for that semester. But afterwards I did a little self-reflection and I was like, okay, Annabella, you're not really enjoying, you know, racing back and forth and having to always be in your car and traveling to all these different commitments. So I definitely was like, okay, I'm going to dial it back the next two years.
Annabella Black: (12:26)
I have left in college and I definitely did this semester while still being, you know, heavily involved. So I think it's just that self-reflection, trial and error and just seeing what works best for me. And I didn't learn that until actually experiencing it. Experiencing it.
Liana Gabrelcik: (12:44)
Yeah. I've unfortunately had a similar experience where, you know, you just, you're so ambitious and there's so many awesome opportunities in Lindner and just at UC in general, and you wanna try 'em all. But you know, you really learn how valuable your time is, so it's great to test drive them, but you, you eventually learn you can't overextend yourself. You can't pour from an empty cup. And so you just have to again, pick the ones that really align with your goals and your values.
Grant Freking: (13:08)
Pouring from an empty cup. That's a good way of putting it. Now, as both of you know, Lindner's mission is to empower business problem solvers. I'm interested to know if the experiences both of you have had inside and outside the classroom have prepared you for your careers which are not imminent, but are coming up, you know, next year or two.
Liana Gabrelcik: (13:26)
Yeah. So our curriculum here at Lindner is very comprehensive. We do so many real world application based projects where sometimes we work with a company in Cincinnati and we'll conduct like a SWOT analysis on those companies. In our economic stock market class, we do a mock investment experience. So you're, you're, you know, trading on the stock market and reflecting what actually is happening in the market. And with that, I've done our experiential learning or co-op program. And so a lot of those skills that I've learned in the classroom have then transferred into that experiential learning. And again, that experiential learning is a part of getting my degree throughout, and it's an essential part of being in Lindner.
Grant Freking: (14:09)
of course.
Liana Gabrelcik: (14:09)
And so that obviously is helping me build my career in the long run. You know, those skills have become really transferable when I go back to class after completing a co-op, I now, I know a lot of the terminology that I'm learning in class already.
Liana Gabrelcik: (14:22)
And so it just, they, they go back and forth. It, it's really very beneficial.
Annabella Black: (14:26)
Yeah. So I'll talk a bit more on that too. So all these lower core classes and the required classes that all the business students take, like their business analytics, their first finance class, their marketing class, I think all these create well-rounded students with a great foundation of business knowledge. And I feel like, especially being, you know, a first year, a second year, you might not know what you wanna go into right away. So having those classes that are going to then set you up for a foundation in your first, internship, your first co-op and everything is just so helpful and such a great experience and everything. So I think in the classroom, I think having that foundational knowledge has been such, such an asset for me.
Annabella Black: (15:08)
And then any organization that I'm a part of, I'll particularly call out Queen City Consulting. I've looked at multiple organizations and companies that we've worked with and partnered with for our projects. And I've learned to look at market research, competitor analysis, risk and, you know, financial plans. So I'm practicing what I'm learning in the classroom at a, you know, foundational and overall level. It's just been a great experience to kind of apply those consulting based questions and that critical thinking then back into the classroom or even outside the classroom and other experiences and internships.
Grant Freking: (15:46)
Awesome. Thinking back to my days as a student, I still remember the instructors who left a mark on my education for all the right reasons. Do the two of you think you'll feel similarly about any instructors you have here at Lindner?
Liana Gabrelcik: (15:58)
I'm very confident that I'm going to feel that way about instructors we've had at Lindner. So I have to say last year was a pretty tough year for me. I had a lot of family issues. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer and I was just really struggling to find my priorities right. Being from four hours north, I wanted to be home and take care of my mother, but I'm a full-time student, and I had some instructors notice that I wasn't really being myself and noticed that I was struggling to turn in assignments. And they reached out to me. So some notable instructors are Richard Curry, Anita Ingram, Chauncey Joyce, and so many others. I can't ever list them all, but they provided such a great support system for me. Snd I, I know that I'm gonna remember their names for a long time. They, they took good care of me. ,
Grant Freking: (16:46)
Thank you for sharing.
Annabella Black: (16:47)
Yeah, for sure. I feel like all the professors want to be here and teach. I found so much passion within the, the faculty who are here at Lindner. I had my business law professor, Jeff Ruble, and he was, he just loved talking about business law. And that was kind of a first-year class that I was taking right when I got here to Lindner, his passion for all the cases. He was just so engaging and everything. So having him, if I have got questions and for, law school and everything, I know I'll definitely be able to go back and say, Hey, I know I wasn't there, you know, going to your office hours, however you made an impact on me, and I know that you're going to be an asset if I ever have those sorts of questions. It's a reminder that these professors are always there for you, no matter where you are in your college career and experience and everything. Sno with that being said, if you're a current student or gonna be a future student here, don't be afraid to go and talk to those professors whenever the time is right for you. You might not have the questions in class for your assignments or for your exams, but a lot of them come out with so much experience, like in the business field, like hands-on and they come back and teach that. It's just gonna be amazing being able to have them, you know, in your corner when it comes time for that.
Grant Freking: (18:08)
Right. Yeah. They're always happy to share their personal and professional expertise with students and that their professional expertise may even go beyond academic. And maybe, as you mentioned, Anabella, you know, working for a Fortune 500 company in the area or some, some, some other sort of venture field that you may just may not know about. Let's close with some top tips for students thinking about attending Lindner and UC as well as current students.
Liana Gabrelcik: (18:30)
I would highly recommend that students don't be afraid to take advantage of the opportunities at Lindner. And a huge aspect of that is being willing to take advantage of new opportunities beyond your first year. I think a lot of people get stuck. They feel that if they didn't take advantage of something their first year, it's too late to join. They see their peers going ahead. But it's really important to remember that comparison can be the thief of joy.
Grant Freking: (18:55)
Mm-Hmm. .
Liana Gabrelcik: (18:56)
And you do not want, you don't wanna focus on that. It's, again, I joined economics society at the end of my second year, and now I'm incredibly involved. And I was a little intimidated at first because I felt like maybe it was too late for me, but it wasn't. So I think that it's, it's important to remember that not everyone's story is the same and it's never too late to start again. Right.
Grant Freking: (19:16)
Right. Go at your own pace.
Annabella Black: (19:17)
Yeah, for sure. And then touching on that, I feel like I'm surrounded by so many, like high achieving individuals that it's amazing 'cause I'm, I'm constantly inspired by everything that they're doing. However, just always keeping in mind that each path that you're taking and each path that you're around is gonna be so different from each person. Just, I think just keeping that in mind as, as Liana just said as well, and also just being comfortable with, you know, being told no sometimes, and knowing that maybe you're gonna be told no, but just give yourself a shot. You don't know, like, what's gonna happen. If you're gonna be applying to an organization or to a job that you think you might not a hundred percent qualify for. Give yourself a chance and give yourself a shot. You never know what's gonna happen. Be comfortable with no, but also, you know, take advantage of all these opportunities. Yeah. And just, just give yourself a shot, give yourself a chance and everything.
Grant Freking: (20:12)
Great. My thanks to Annabella and Liana for stopping by the Lindner Podcast Studio today. Are you interested in becoming a business problem solver? Look us up@business.uc.edu. Please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats mean business wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
At Lindner, we believe that global knowledge and experiences are essential to developing innovative business leaders.
In the first portion of this two-part episode, Lee Armstrong, Director of International Programs at Lindner, is joined by third year student Jenna Liette, and fourth year student Matthew Telscher. Jenna and Matthew explain how they selected their study abroad experiences, secured housing, navigated their courseload overseas at Lindner's exchange universities, and more!
Later in the episode, Juan Jose Cabrera of Tecnológico de Monterrey, a university in the Mexican city of Santiago de Querétaro, chats about studying abroad in Querétaro and why international business experience is so meaningful for students.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
At the Carl H. Lindner College of Business, we believe that global knowledge and experiences are essential to developing innovative business leaders. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. In the first part of today's two part episode, Lee Armstrong, director of International Programs at Lindner, is joined by third year student Jenna Liette, and fourth year student Matthew Telscher to demystify studying abroad with Lindner. The second part of today's podcast is Lee's interview with Jose Juan Cabrera, who works for one of Lindner's exchange partner universities in Mexico. But that's enough for me. Here's Lee Armstrong, Jenna Liette, and Matthew Telscher.
Lee Armstrong: (00:36)
Thanks, Grant. Jenna, Matthew, thanks for joining me today. Could you introduce yourselves to the Bearcats Mean Business audience?
Matthew Telscher: (00:44)
I'm Matthew Telscher and I'm a fourth year studying finance and insurance risk management. And I'm expected to graduate in the fall of 2025.
Jenna Liette: (00:53)
And I'm Jenna Liette. I'm a third year majoring in finance and international business with a minor in information systems. And I am expected to graduate in May 2026.
Lee Armstrong: (01:04)
During the 2023 to 24 academic year, 450 business students studied abroad visiting a total of 33 different countries across all of our study abroad programs. Students visited 58 companies and studied at six different partner universities. Lindner's International Programs Office helps students to find study abroad programs by their location and length of time that best fits their needs. Lindner offers faculty led, which are short programs that have international travel embedded in a UC semester long class. They're the most popular way to study abroad and include the support of faculty leaders traveling with students. These courses travel over spring break or after semester exams in December or May break. We offer flexible summer options through our European partners, which range anywhere from two weeks to eight weeks long. Our longest and most immersive option is to study for a full semester on exchange at one of our partner universities. Matthew, tell us how long you studied and where you studied.
Matthew Telscher: (02:10)
I studied for pretty much a full five months in southwest Germany in a city called Mannheim, Germany, which is about an hour or so south of Frankfurt.
Jenna Liette: (02:21)
I studied for nine weeks total. Last summer I did two separate programs. The first program was six weeks long at the Audencia Business School in Nantes, France. And the second program was a two and a half week long study abroad at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.
Lee Armstrong: (02:41)
And can you tell me how the International Programs Office helped you choose those programs and decide where to go?
Jenna Liette: (02:47)
Yeah, so I chose both programs mainly because I wanted to be in Europe as long as possible, and Lindner international programs gave us a lot of different options for the summer and I chose the two that sounded the most interesting to me. I had one of the advisors, Karina, she helped me a lot with figuring out the technical parts of doing two different programs in the summer. I emailed her many, many questions and she always gave me good answers. And then we also had a couple meetings before study abroad to meet other students going and learn more about the places we were going.
Lee Armstrong: (03:29)
And Matthew, how did you choose Germany?
Matthew Telscher: (03:32)
Yeah, to kind of piggyback off what Jenna said, I met with Karina and Emily, who are the two other international advisors, and we sat down and kind of hashed out. I knew I wanted to do a full semester. It kind of came down to Cork, Ireland or Mannheim, Germany and ultimately Mannheim for kind of the longevity of it, but also for the price range fit a little bit better and my schedule and kind of where I was comfortable with spending. And I wanted to be more centrally located, which they helped me out kind of figure Mannheim is is pretty dead center of Europe and we had meetings with past students that had gone to Mannheim and actual students enrolled in Mannheim that were over at UC for a semester. And we kind of compared the likes and differences between life in Clifton at UC and life at Mannheim enrolled in Mannheim .
Lee Armstrong: (04:20)
Thanks. You both took part in longer programs, which are programs where coursework is taught by the local professors. Matthew, what classes did you take and were there any differences in teaching style or academics from UC?
Matthew Telscher: (04:36)
Yeah. I took six business courses over there. One was a financial markets and human capital, which was biweekly, which was one of the main differences. I'm used to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or a Tuesday Thursday kind of schedule. I had a sustainable investing class. I had an investments and asset pricing course. I had a long course called Immigration Integration and Dislocation. And then I had a human resource and management course that I took over there. And I would say the biggest difference especially is courses were once a week for an hour and a half only, and that was the lecture period. Then they have another day you would meet in class called an exercise period where they kind of rehash actually kind of working through what you learned in the lecture, which was a lot different than what I'm used to especially. And it's also kind of difficult figuring out what your schedule's gonna be as an international student because you're handpicking these courses versus the students already in Mannheim have their whole semester laid out until they graduate, since they don't get nearly as many free electives and wiggle room to play around like we do here, was definitely the biggest thing of just overall class navigation for sure was was the biggest difference to me.
Lee Armstrong: (06:03)
What was your favorite class and why?
Matthew Telscher: (06:05)
I really liked my immigration class. Our class at max I think was enrolled was 12 people. It was me, my girlfriend Ella, who also goes here. And then the other Americans were, a kid named Charlie from South Carolina and another guy Jack from Alabama. And the rest were from all over. And it's kind of neat to see how different countries and different people handle immigration and where different people tend to go towards. So we had a lot of your more difficult conversations with people. It kind of gives you a more real world experience that each country's different and the different wants and needs of people immigrating are always different. It's always changing, so you get a much more real experience than if you kind of just talked with only kids from America or kids only from whatever country. So I like that class a lot.
Lee Armstrong: (07:02)
Okay. Now, Jenna, the summer schools are different in that you're taking intense week long programs. I guess what types of courses did you take and were there differences in teaching styles?
Jenna Liette: (07:16)
I took a lot of classes that correlated to my international business electives and a couple that were also considered finance electives. some of them included international finance, cross-cultural management, the psychology of money and business plan development startups, to name a few. I would say there were a lot of differences from summer classes in Europe compared to semester long classes at UC. For example, I didn't have as much homework abroad and we had one big final exam or group project at the end of every week. And I feel like the grading was a bit more lenient because the work was a lot more collaborative with the students that I was in class with. So I liked that aspect because I got to work with people from all over the world and learn about their different working styles and being able to get to know them at the same time.
Lee Armstrong: (08:17)
Did you have a favorite class and what was that?
Jenna Liette: (08:20)
. My favorite class was Cross-Cultural Management in France because the professor I had was a professional public speaker and he was very expressive in the way he taught. And that really grabbed my attention, especially during the long class days. And he really caused me to step out of my comfort zone and think about things that I don't normally think about. So it was a really, you know, eye-opening class for me.
Lee Armstrong: (08:52)
Okay. Now to transition to some of the practical questions of studying abroad, Jenna, where did you live during the summer? And how did you afford to be gone for, you said eight weeks?
Jenna Liette: (09:04)
Nine. Yeah, nine. In France I lived in Airbnb apartments with one of my other friends that did the program with me. And we kind of just found it on the website. UC offered a housing program, but it was more expensive than the Airbnb, so that's why we chose the Airbnbs Plus they were also closer to the city center and around things that we wanted to be around. So it just made sense for us. And then in Ljubljana, we opted in for the housing package and that was in a hostel, so it was kind of like a freshman year dorm in a way. Everyone was living in that hostel and I honestly loved it. It was so cool to, you know, just walk into the common space and have all your friends there. It was, it was a really good way to meet people and live all together for a couple weeks.
Lee Armstrong: (09:58)
Okay. What about Matthew? Where did you end up living?
Matthew Telscher: (10:00)
Yeah, I lived in a student house in Mannheim . It's not technically university owned. It's a partnered corporation called Studierendenwerk Mannheim. And it's essentially kind of like a Morgan's or a Scioto dorm where it's four, four rooms, a full kitchen and then you just share a bathroom. And that was probably a light 20 minute walk from campus. So we're kind of right in the heart of the city of Mannheim. And I was able to afford it 'cause I, I knew I had wanted to go abroad for a while, so I had saved up for just about two semesters worth and kind of figured out how much I wanted to spend, what apartment would best fit. 'cause some apartments too, when you get there, they're not furnished. There was even an international trip to IKEA you could do to get some sort of furniture when you were there. So we went with the cheapest option that was furnished enough that it was livable for the five months.
Lee Armstrong: (11:03)
For both of you, which, how did you afford the study abroad experience?
Jenna Liette: (11:09)
Yeah, so I have the Cincinnatus scholarship, so I use that and also the loans that I have. And then the international office awarded me some scholarships, so that was also very helpful in affording the study abroad. And then, like Matthew said, I knew I wanted to study abroad for a really long time, so I'd been saving up for a couple years, so I definitely had some money stored away to help. But yeah.
Matthew Telscher: (11:34)
And I also got the, one of the international scholarships, which helped alleviate some costs too, as well. But yeah, just saving and planning and and budgeting was probably the largest aspect before I had left to figure out what I wanted to do and what money I had and what I could do with that.
Lee Armstrong: (11:51)
Okay. So they both bring up a good point that many students don't know that financial aid travels with you. And then the college of business, as well as UC international, offer scholarships. Here's a very practical question that we hear a lot. Do you need to speak the language and how did you overcome language barriers?
Matthew Telscher: (12:11)
I tried, I took three years of German in high school and pretty much forgot just about everything. And I tried learning through Duolingo and Babel. They do, if anyone's listening is interested every Christmas or every major holiday they do a large sale. So I got a lifetime subscription for 65% off and then I did that every day to get at least a tiny bit conversational. But Germans, English, I would say out of a lot of the other European countries visit is perfect. They'll tell you it's not very good, but then they'll speak with you for two hours and not miss a word or mispronounce anything. I do think people really do appreciate if you try to make an effort, if you're ordering at a restaurant, at least saying hello or thank you or how's your day or at the grocery store and just, you know, have a nice day when you leave. I think they appreciate, I don't, I think it's, I don't know if it would be fair for travelers to be expected to be able to speak a fluent language, but I think if you at least try shows that you kind of have that level of respect and I feel like they're a little bit more open and friendlier towards you if you at least try.
Lee Armstrong: (13:23)
How about Jenna and France?
Jenna Liette: (13:24)
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I did not know anything in French. I also did Duolingo for a couple months before I went abroad, but I quickly learned that I didn't really learn enough at all. So most people did speak English, so if I needed to they could help me. But also since I was there for awhile, I tried to learn a couple things by, seeing what the people around me did and said. But yeah, at like restaurants and stores, if there was a language barrier there and there were very helpful in trying to accommodate with what I was trying to say or communicate. And if I was at a restaurant and they didn't speak English, I could just point to the menu point to what I wanted on the menu and it always ended up working out. There were some difficulties, but it really wasn't an issue to me.
Lee Armstrong: (14:20)
And how about Slovenia, because I'm sure probably none of us know any Slovenian.
Jenna Liette: (14:25)
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Luckily I was in the capital of Slovenia and that is a place where pretty much everyone speaks English as well. Slovenian is not a very popular language, so I feel like they, they don't expect anyone to really, any travelers to know it at all. So they also were able to accommodate to speaking English to me.
Lee Armstrong: (14:50)
Great. Okay. this moves us to the essence of life abroad. Putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and experiencing a different culture. what was one thing that surprised you about the culture?
Matthew Telscher: (15:06)
I think the biggest thing that surprised me was that I think German people tend to kind of be in a little box almost where they have their rules and how they do things and that's it. I'm used to walking a grocery store being greeted, excuse me, hello, how's your day? Things like that. Over there I would never talk when I was at the grocery store, I would go through, I would pay and no one would speak to me. And I think they're very, if only speak when spoken to kind of ordeal that I thought was a lot different. Especially going in and I might look confused, kind of going aisle after aisle and workers just won't say anything unless I ask. So they're kind of a don't ask, don't tell situation I thought was, the biggest difference for me.
Jenna Liette: (16:00)
There were a couple things in France specifically. I would say their emphasis on work life balance is a lot more focused on the life part rather than the work part. I feel like whenever I got out of school you would always see people outside at restaurants talking to their friends. So I feel like they focused a lot more on, you know, enjoying life, spending time with friends or family, things like that. And then another thing in both places was the public transportation, honestly. I don't really ever use public transportation here in America, but over in Europe I used it everyday and I grew to be very fond of it. It was so useful, and especially not having a car down there, it was so nice to use instead of having to walk or Uber anywhere.
Lee Armstrong: (16:54)
Are there things that you miss about the culture now that you're back here in the US?
Matthew Telscher: (16:58)
I would say mine would be the public transit, would be number one. I think grocery shopping over there, even if the Euro is is or a dollar is less than a Euro, I believe, if my conversions right. But I think a euro in terms of grocery shopping goes a lot more where I can get almost a whole week's worth of groceries and less than half of what I can here. But I also miss Mannheim is perfect to go bike riding or running anywhere, so I miss just being able to hop on a bike 'cause students actually get the first 30 minutes free and then after that you pay like 10 cents or something like that. So just miss kind of just riding a bike around a park or, by the river and just being outside more than I am now.
Jenna Liette: (17:44)
Yeah, there are so many things I miss about it. A big thing is just like the food and drinks because there are certain like food items that I loved there that you don't really see here at all. And just like being able to go get a grab a drink with friends on an afternoon, I feel like that's not normalized here, but there it very much is. So I miss that part about it a lot.
Lee Armstrong: (18:11)
And then, what are some of your lasting memories or what is I think the thing that stands out the most of your time abroad?
Matthew Telscher: (18:19)
I think my biggest memory was probably just the how overwhelmed we were when we first got to Frankfurt Airport and just the hustle and bustle of a busy international airport and then trying to navigate the train stations and then eventually being able to overcome that and then figure out like it was, it was second nature almost. We did have some difficulties with some flight delays and, and we had a bus break down halfway between Cork, Ireland and Dublin, Ireland. I'll never forget 'cause I thought we were gonna miss our flight and we would've been stuck in Dublin's airport for two more days till the next flight to Frankfort came out, which was, but I think it in more of a serious sense, I really did learn to appreciate the culture and the history a lot more. I've always loved history growing up, so to be able to see old churches or monuments and old architecture I thought was really, really cool to see somewhere I've always wanted to be, to actually being there and get to experience is something I won't forget.
Jenna Liette: (19:18)
So when I was abroad this summer, we traveled to different places every weekend and those are some of the memories that I definitely am gonna miss the most. One of the weekends a group of friends and I, we went to Morocco and that was an incredible experience, just like seeing their culture and how different it is from Europe and America. I loved every minute of being there and I definitely made some lifelong friends and memories while I was there, so I'm gonna miss that the most. And just like the certain places that I went to all the time with my friends, like not being able to go back to our favorite restaurants or pubs, things like that is definitely something I'll miss.
Lee Armstrong: (20:03)
So only 6% of our Lindner students study abroad. So what advice would you give to students to really encourage them to take this opportunity to study abroad before they graduate?
Jenna Liette: (20:16)
I think it's definitely an opportunity that everyone should take advantage of. It's a great way to not only further your academic career, but also to immerse yourself in a different culture and see what life is like outside of America. It's also a great way, if it's your first time leaving the country, it's a great way to do it because you're surrounded by other students that are in a similar, in a similar situation as you. So I would just say if you have the opportunity to do it a hundred percent, because if there's anything holding you back, the international office would be able to help you work through it.
Matthew Telscher: (20:55)
And I agree. I would definitely encourage people to do it earlier than later. 'cause I think as life goes on and you start a family or a full-time job, just to be able to take long weeks or months off to be able to travel is gonna be a lot harder. And I think that there are plenty of other places abroad that give really, really good student discounts that can make things a lot cheaper. And I think that if you're worried about finances or traveling, I would just say to do it. And I, I think it comes with, its, its ups and downs for sure, and homesickness and whatnot, but I, I don't regret ever doing it and I'm glad I took that opportunity and did it. So I would encourage everyone, too.
Lee Armstrong: (21:41)
Study abroad applications are due October 15th, so if you are interested and think that study abroad is something that you wanna take advantage of, please go onto our website, and look at those faculty led programs. Our applications will be due October 15th.
Lee Armstrong: (21:59)
The second part of today's episode is my interview with Dr. Juan Jose Cabrera from Tec de Monterrey, UC's partner university in Mexico to talk about Lindner's partnership with their campus in Santiago de Queretaro. So semester exchange is made possible through agreements between partner universities where we agree to accept each other's students at our home tuition rate. Did you know that all students pay in-state tuition when they study on exchange? Today I have Dr. Juan Jose Cabrera, director of the international office for Tec de Monterrey, based in Chicago. He's here with me today to talk a little bit about the university in Mexico. So can you tell me, Juan Jose, what is your relationship with the Tec?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (22:48)
Thank you Lee. I am honored for this invitation. Ss you already mentioned, I am in charge of promoting the collaboration between Tec de Monterey and all Midwest universities. And one of our top partners is of course, University of Cincinnati, which we are very, honored to be part of their network of partners.
Lee Armstrong: (23:11)
And we've worked for many, many years with Tec and the Queretaro, the Queretaro campus. Can you tell me what makes that such a special place?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (23:20)
Wow, that's a great question, Lee. Myself, I was born and raised in Queretaro, so I really love our city. It's a medium-sized city in which you can find all kind of opportunities academically speaking in terms of culture, in terms of tourism, and it's of course a very safe city. I really love Queretaro and I believe this is one of the reasons because it's one of the preferred options for all our international students.
Lee Armstrong: (23:53)
Can you tell me, many of our US students who have studied Spanish in high school choose to go to Spain. Why would you encourage a student to take a semester and go to Mexico?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (24:05)
Well, that's also a great question. First of all, geographically speaking, we're closer. So if you want to avoid long overseas air trip, Mexico will be your option because we're just probably even including connections are four to six hours flight from Cincinnati to Queretaro or to any place in Mexico. That would be the first option, I would say logistically speaking is a more convenient location. Secondly, I believe there is a lot of cultural heritage in Mexico that is common to the US because as you may know, there is a very important Latin American and Mexican heritage population in US. So that would be a great opportunity for you to understand better this kind of culture, which will open a lot of opportunities for doing business. And I will close with that one. Mexico is a very important commercial partner for US, and I have seen a lot of US students looking for opportunities to do business with Mexico. So those are the two reasons, I will summarize as, location, closest cultural opportunity to understand Mexican heritage, and to business opportunities.
Lee Armstrong: (25:27)
And when you say business opportunities, Querétaro and Cincinnati have several industries that we have in common. What are the most common industries that you see that are now based in Querétaro?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (25:40)
Wow. I really love this question because myself, I used to work for a big, Cincinnati based company, Procter and Gamble. I started my career in Mexico and I spent several assignments in US in Costa Rica. And this is just an example of a company that we have in common, P&G that has eight plants in Mexico. And of course, it's based in Cincinnati, the one my understanding is General Electric. We also have an important recess facility of General Electric based in Querétaro. So, I believe we share a lot of common ground in terms of industry partners with Cincinnati.
Lee Armstrong: (26:22)
We do. Thank you. And, for a student who would like to get into international business for a career, do you have any advice to students on how they would expand and gain that international experience?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (26:39)
Wow, I love that, that question. Now let me tell you why, I myself did an international career. I was mainly in engineering, but then I moved to the business side, which, I will be honest I like more, the, the business side, that engineering part of my career. And it is only until you live in a foreign country that you really understand what it takes to make business with international partners. You cannot do it remotely. You have to leave it yourself to understand the day-to-day challenges that business face in the different geographies. So I spend as already mentioned time in US, in Costa Rica, in Europe. So, after having all those opportunities, I, I have a more holistic, view of how to do business globally.
Lee Armstrong: (27:35)
Thank you. Thank you Dr. Cabrera. And thank you for joining us here in the studio in Cincinnati. And may we meet again in Querétaro?
Juan Jose Cabrera: (27:43)
Sure. We look forward to see you there, Lee, and all the, students from Cincinnati that would like to visit our great facilities and institution in Mexico. Thanks.
Grant Freking: (27:52)
My thanks to Lee Armstrong, Jenna Liette, Matthew Telscher, and Juan Jose Cabrera for joining Bearcats Mean Business to demystify study abroad at Lindner. For more information on Lindner study abroad, visit business.uc.edu/study-abroad, or email lcbgoabroad@uc.edu. Please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Scott Dust, PhD, Kirk and Jacki Perry Professor in Leadership and the senior director of Lindner Professional Programs, joined Bearcats Mean Business to discuss why professional programs, micro-credentials and non-degree offerings are in demand, the launch of Lindner’s LevelUp Leadership Development program, and the college’s breadth of open-enrollment and custom, direct-to-employer programs.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Lindner's professional programs are short, concentrated bursts of in-person classes in a cohort model where participants can earn microcredentials, making them different from the formal degree or certificate programs offered by the college. These immersive learning experiences are open to business professionals at every stage in their career across all industries. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. To learn more about Lindner's professional programs, I'm joined by Dr. Scott Dust, an associate professor of management, and the senior director of Lindner Professional programs. Welcome to Bearcats, Mean Business, Scott Dust.
Scott Dust: (00:36)
Thanks, Grant. Excited to be here. Excited for the conversation.
Grant Freking: (00:39)
Alright, Scott, I've supplied listeners with a brief snapshot of Lindner professional programs. Let's discuss the full picture. What other the details can you offer just right off the bat?
Scott Dust: (00:48)
Sure. Well, professional programs think of them as non-degree offerings, and typically they fall within one or two categories, at least currently. One being leadership development in particular is one that there's huge demand. People constantly are wanting some way to upskill or reskill in terms of leadership development, whether that's negotiating, teams, organizational change, any type of work type dynamics from a social science perspective. And then also, all of the general business management topics you can think of. So operations, finance, accounting, data analytics, you know, all of our majors essentially that we have in the business school. People want to know that language very quickly and they want to know the details of specific tools or frameworks that they can apply immediately for all the different business subjects. And, those tend to be the big two of what, primarily people are interested in for professional programs.
Scott Dust: (01:49)
And these are more, like you said, these quick burst type of modules. You know, think of it as being anywhere from a three hour module to a all day module of potentially six to eight hours. And sometimes they might be spread out, or three days in a row, or it might be every week or every other week for a certain amount of time. And that way people can still be working, but get this really specific knowledge, for things that they're interested in immediately right away.
Grant Freking: (02:19)
Mm-Hmm. .
Scott Dust: (02:22)
For a custom topic that makes the most sense for them. And also it's important to recognize that you can do professional programs as an open enrollment. Meaning you can be anybody from the public that's interested in a certain course or a specific program and sign up yourself or maybe even get reimbursed by your employer, all of it, or a portion of it. And then the other is to get a custom program where an organization, is saying, Hey, we're gonna send this entire cohort of however many, 20, 40, 60 people to get trained on a specific collection of some of those module topics of interest.
Grant Freking: (02:58)
Right. And as the head of Lindner's professional programs development here, why are, why are, why is the college focusing on them, aside from the reasons that you just stated, what sort of philosophy are you taking in, in building up Lindner's professional programs?
Scott Dust: (03:16)
Yeah, great question. So one way to think of it is, this is really important for, for Lindner for three interconnected reasons. Number one, the community counts on us to be the experts in these areas that are going to allow them to upskill or re-skill in a way that's gonna keep them competitive.
Grant Freking: (03:37)
Mm-Hmm. .
Scott Dust: (03:39)
So, you know, graduate education is a good outlet for that, but there is also an opportunity to get some of these smaller and, arguably more specific topics where you I need this today, right? I need to be able to go to this training or this workshop on a Friday and be able to apply it on a Monday. And so that is really important for our community. We have the people here at Lindner that are the best of the best at whatever their subject matter expertise is, and we should be offering this to the community in as many different formats as we can.
Scott Dust: (04:15)
And non-professional programs is a good way to do that. in addition to that, this is a, a really good way to diversify all the ways that we're interacting with our community, whether it's undergraduate, graduate, non-degree, whether it's online or hybrid, or face-to-face. There's so many different ways that we can get in contact with the people that we wanna serve. And then finally is also from a faculty engagement standpoint, right? Or whether it's an instructor or adjunct or just anybody in our UC community, they love this stuff and they're the experts in this stuff. Why not give them an outlet for doing something that they're passionate about and excited about, beyond you know, just the traditional confines of an academic approach. But so that's, I think why it's important. And then in terms of philosophy, I also think it's important to point out that the whole approach to learning and training and development, it is moving very quickly towards not only being experiential learning, which Lindner takes of course, very seriously.
Scott Dust: (05:19)
And we talk about that all the time. And that's really the core of
Grant Freking: (05:22)
.
Scott Dust: (05:23)
Who we are in terms of education.
Grant Freking: (05:24)
Yep.
Scott Dust: (05:24)
But it's also making sure that you can do it quickly and in a cost affordable manner and have it personalized or customized to your specific situation. And what that means is that when you get a custom program, for example, being able to put it into the language of your industry or your job, to have someone that can have a conversation where they can present their issue that they're having right now and they want solved when they go back to work on Monday and have that level and depth within the conversation is, is hard to come by. And, so that's why it can be really unique in terms of that opportunity for growth and development. Right? It's customized, personalized, it's in the moment.
Grant Freking: (06:06)
Mm-Hmm. .
Scott Dust: (06:07)
And it's digestible something that you can use. But then another reason this is so important that also aligns with this philosophy is the future of the industry, higher education is inevitably gonna change. Every industry changes over time. So if you're not adjusting and adapting and trying to figure out what's next, you're gonna get left behind. And if you really look at some, what I would call peer industries, look at the music industry, look at the movie industry, the news industry.
Grant Freking: (06:35)
Interesting.
Scott Dust: (06:35)
And how some of those have developed over time, right? They become less about a big bulk option of take it or leave it. They've started to been, they've started to be put into smaller pieces that are available in a way that's easy to access in a way, that is quicker to access in a way that you can find exactly what you need when you need it. And higher education needs to do the same in terms of making sure that we have all of these opportunities for our customers and our clients to learn, but do it in a way that is more, I would say futuristic.
Grant Freking: (07:13)
Right. So two big things, two attractions are the subject matter expertise.
Scott Dust: (07:17)
Mm-Hmm. .
Scott Dust: (07:18)
And the flexibility is what people are, are going after to recap.
Scott Dust: (07:22)
Yeah. Yep. That's a good way to put it.
Grant Freking: (07:24)
The pandemic initiated many shifts in workplace thinking to tie this back into like more holistic worldview, I guess.
Scott Dust: (07:29)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (07:29)
How does the realm if you will, of non-degree offerings fit into this? How does it fit into this for, I guess, in a general sense, and also for a Lindner sense here?
Scott Dust: (07:41)
Yeah. And I think when the pandemic hit there was, inevitably the need to adjust and make things, more digital and offer things online. And people very quickly figured out how to use all the technology and the tools that were available to communicate and to help people learn and understand things. And that was great. I mean, in a way it kind of put into fast forward all the things that inevitably probably would've happened.
Grant Freking: (08:08)
Yeah.
Scott Dust: (08:08)
But instead of it happening over a matter of 10 years, it happened over a matter of 10 months.
Grant Freking: (08:12)
Right.
Scott Dust: (08:12)
And so, in a way that forced us to be able to use technology in a way that was more integrated into our learning and training and development. So that's one component of it. And I think that is something that definitely with Lindner professional programs, we're taking very seriously for figuring out how can we leverage some of those best practices to make sure that all of the things that we do in terms of learning, experiential learning, et cetera, are taking advantage of those best practices for learning in this digital world.
Scott Dust: (08:49)
In addition to that, there's been what feels like this evolution of we are all in on remote, we're all in on virtual, and in essence there's pros and cons to anything. But in that situation, people are losing some of the things that they had previously when it was more of a live, in-person environment. And the trends that I'm seeing in leadership and team development, organizational research at large, is that now they're starting to come back the other direction.
Grant Freking: (09:20)
They miss the connections, don't they?
Scott Dust: (09:21)
They miss the connections. They miss some of the water cooler chitchat. People miss the opportunity to learn from people, build the trust.
Grant Freking: (09:28)
Yeah.
Scott Dust: (09:28)
From the people that they wanna learn from.
Grant Freking: (09:30)
Yeah.
Scott Dust: (09:30)
And there is a lot of interest in coming back to learn together in a in-person environment. So sure, you can do the more maintenance oriented type of work virtually, but when it comes to training and learning, a lot of people want to do it live in-person with other people, whether that is with their organizational constituents or externally on their own.
Scott Dust: (09:57)
And so I think that is, you're starting to see even more demand because of that. People really want that connection and to learn live. But also it's important to recognize that we need to embed this sense of hybrid or high flex into all of our in-person environments.
Grant Freking: (10:15)
Hmm.
Scott Dust: (10:15)
Now the expectation is if you're gonna host something live, there's an opportunity for people to also view it virtually if they need to. If circumstances just evolve to the point where, Hey, I just can't make it and I on the fly need to know that there's a resource available for me to do that.
Grant Freking: (10:30)
Or to purely meet accessibility concerns, too.
Scott Dust: (10:32)
That's exactly right. Right. That's now the new mentality.
Grant Freking: (10:35)
Mm-Hmm. .
Scott Dust: (10:36)
So those are two big ones. I think a third, and actually some of my research gets into this as well, is that the pandemic really, for better or worse, messed with people's heads.
Scott Dust: (10:48)
And there are theories that help recognize why this happens. One of them's got a funny title called Tear Management Theory. And this recognition that we're all in this life that is not infinite, and that we need to recognize that how we spend our time, we need to do it purposefully. And so what the pandemic caused and the management research is showing this over and over, is that people are starting to actually look for more types of work that are more meaningful, more satisfying, things that align with their values. It really costs people to do this little bit of a gut check here on, is this what I want to do?
Grant Freking: (11:30)
Right. Yeah.
Scott Dust: (11:30)
And so interestingly, you're seeing tons of people come back and say, you know, I'm looking for something a little bit different. I'm really, now I want to be more in tune with what my skillset is. I want to figure out how to parlay this experience into a new experience. So they're all starting to think more in those terms, which dovetails nicely into our mentality, Hey, we're here to help, help, we're here to upskill and reskill so that you can find that match. So in a way, the pandemic, I think has had a huge effect on professional programs.
Grant Freking: (12:01)
Right. Scott, your research, touches on leadership and team development, something you just mentioned. How do these shifts in non-degree offerings fit into those buckets?
Scott Dust: (12:11)
Sure. So yeah, my research background is in leadership and team development at large. I like to say a lot of my research is just evaluating and creating interventions to help people play nice in the organizational sandbox.
Grant Freking: (12:28)
Hmm.
Scott Dust: (12:28)
Because people are complicated. And inevitably, it's kind of funny because when I have undergraduates who take some of my classes like introduction to management MGMT 3080, you know, you might find some people that are kind of like, ah, this is common sense, or I can figure this out on my own. This isn't as challenging maybe as one of my quantitative classes. And every time they come back after they graduate and they say, you know what? Yeah. People, people is the hard part of my work.
Grant Freking: (12:56)
It is.
Scott Dust: (12:56)
It not the ex
Grant Freking: (12:58)
Haven't been in the real world yet.
Scott Dust: (12:59)
I know. That's right. Right. So it never fails. Like that's what we focus on even more when we start getting into, you know, the MBA level and beyond. But those adult learners start to recognize how important those factors really are. And, that also it's even more complicated 'cause there's no perfect answer. So, you know, Dean Lewis talked about both/and thinking that's not an easy formula to apply where you say, oh, here's the decision tree. You go here and then you go here. It takes a level of self-regulation and self-awareness and contextualization that is really heady.
Grant Freking: (13:36)
Just overall effort. Yeah.
Scott Dust: (13:37)
That's right. And so to be able to give people those experiences on their own terms when they're ready, and in a way that, again, is contextualized for your business, for your industry, with your peers in a custom program, you really see the growth. And the research that I've done, also is about what works and what doesn't work for those leadership and team development interventions. Well, there's some items that can really increase the odds of it being successful. And number one is that it can't just be a one and done experience where they call it the backseat effect, right? Where you come in and you maybe do this assessment and you learn about something and it's entertaining and it's fun in the moment, and then you just forget about, you know, a week later. You never go back to it. The training that we're doing in professional programs really needs to force people to engage in regular self-reflection.
Scott Dust: (14:36)
So what did you learn? Did you learn that language of that specific topic? Did you apply it to your own situation? Were you then forced through a prompt or through an exercise to talk with a manager or a peer about how that actually resonates for your situation that you're in today? And then come back and talk about it with a coach or a consultant or a facilitator that's running your program. It's that level of personalization that's really necessary to see an increase in what we would call self-regulation or behavior change. So the whole model is self-aware, self-awareness. Great, that's fine. But self-awareness does nothing unless it leads to self-regulation. And to do that really takes a proactive, thoughtful approach to how you're designing the overall professional program. So we really try and bake that into everything we do.
Grant Freking: (15:29)
All right. Let's talk about some examples of custom offerings from Lindner professional programs that can help people achieve some of those goals, or at least strive in the, those, those upward arrows that we can hopefully get them on.
Scott Dust: (15:41)
Yeah, absolutely. So, one, example would be Great American. Obviously Lindner's a big part of our ecosystem. And, Great American is a wonderful partner on a variety in a variety of different ways. Well, great American actually was working with 1819 on a few different initiatives in the innovation, in the innovation development space. And one thing that they realized was that people stuck around longer and were more invested and were better contributors when they were mentored and, and or, were better at mentoring. And so they wanted to create a program, a custom program that would teach individuals how to be a great mentor and how to be a great mentee. And so they hand selected a group of, I think it was maybe 15 or so mentors and 15 or so mentees, and we went through this whole multi-month program together that had multiple different intervention types.
Scott Dust: (16:50)
We had a kickoff where everybody got together. There were exercises that were asynchronous in between, there was follow-up events, there was check-in events. Some were virtual, some were face to face. And throughout this entire experience, we made sure that they were paired up with somebody that was gonna be a match for them. So we went through this whole essentially speed dating matchmaking process.
Grant Freking: (17:11)
That's what I was thinking of. Yeah.
Scott Dust: (17:13)
It literally was right. They stood up next to each other and got to talk to each other for three minutes apiece. It was a riot. And, interestingly, everybody got somebody that they wanted to be paired with. It was like in their top three in terms of overlapping interests.
Grant Freking: (17:26)
Okay.
Scott Dust: (17:26)
And we gave them the frameworks for what is a good mentor mentee relationship look like in general. We gave 'em the tools, we gave 'em the frameworks, and then we also split 'em out and did subgroups where we looked at all the mentors and what are the best practices and mentees and best practices.
Scott Dust: (17:40)
And then we were able to be that third party behind the scenes to help kind of encourage them and figure out what to do. And so the overall effect is was number one, they learned how to be better mentors and mentees, but it also led to this really interesting side effect was that they really felt like a cohort where now the mentees now wanna start mentoring the next level down, and the mentors want to come back and give presentations to say, here's what we did that really worked. So it ended up not just being about learning, it was also about creating a sense of community and Warren Bennis Leadership Institute, through Lindner College of Business, was a big part of that. And,Donna Chrobot-Mason and her team do wonderful work in being able to talk through how to be a better manager, mentor, coach, and leader.
Scott Dust: (18:29)
And we're a big help in putting that together. Another example is Valvoline. We're talking with Valvoline leaders now, and they are in some interesting times right now. So Valvoline is a Lexington based company, but also has some presence here in Cincinnati. They were acquired by Aramco, which is a Saudi owned company.
Grant Freking: (18:50)
Hmm.
Scott Dust: (18:50)
And so you can kind of just look at the difference in these two companies and their culture and their, both culturally and just socially and see the writing on the wall. This is gonna be an interesting transition. And so they originally started the conversation saying like, how can we really upscale our leaders to get prepared for the changes that we're probably gonna see structurally, socially, culturally, and knowing also that anytime you get in an acquisition, there's gonna be lots of change.
Scott Dust: (19:22)
And so what can we do to upskill them, to prepare them for that? And so we've done a custom program across 10 different modules. We've done everything from cultural competence team collaboration. We had 'em climb, Mount Everest together through a simulation through Harvard Business Publishing that we love doing. They did Marianne Lewis' both/and thinking. They're doing org change negotiations and a handful of other things. So finding out, Hey, what's the problem? What do you picture these leaders needing to deal with over the next couple of years?
Grant Freking: (19:54)
Mm-Hmm, .
Scott Dust: (19:55)
Let's work backwards and go through our pretty long list of modules or offerings that we can customize for this specific group. And then have conversations also at the level of what do you want us to know about these people, about their demographic, about the history? Like getting at that level of understanding of a client is our sweet spot. We want to hear the story, right? We're not just here to just dole out more modules. We really wanna understand it in a way that can help them learn as much as possible.
Grant Freking: (20:24)
And help the future clients as well build better modules. Now, what are some examples of what you refer to as open enrollment offerings? What are those about?
Scott Dust: (20:32)
Yeah, so again, the open enrollment offerings, those are, an individual can sign up and, go directly to what's called Skills at UC, which is our one-stop shop to be able to see all of the non-degree offerings across all of the University of Cincinnati. And register, pay, and that is the portal for everything about signing up for all those different classes. Some that are currently available, for example, through Lindner professional programs is our LevelUp leadership program. The LevelUp leadership program, so it's a Lindner offering through Warren Bennis Leadership Institute as well, where there are 12 modules. And each day, on a Friday starting in late January, in the morning, you'll do one module, then you do lunch, and then in the afternoon you'll do your second module. And so we space that out one to be every two weeks on a Friday. And they can start enrolling for this open enrollment program, and they'll come face to face at Lindner and take courses with people from all over the city and be able to learn from them as well. Again, getting at that sense of community, which is really important.
Grant Freking: (21:50)
And also in this case, interdisciplinary as it reflects also.
Scott Dust: (21:52)
That's right.
Scott Dust: (21:53)
Lindner, Warren Bennis and other stakeholders as well.
Scott Dust: (21:55)
That's right. Absolutely. So those are big. And then we also have, lots of Center for Business Analytics offerings. The Center for Business Analytics right now is in high demand to say the least, people really want to upskill, whether it's what the heck is AI and what do I do with it to, how do I use Python, to data analytics basics 101, whether it's using a certain tool or different theories, et cetera. So they have like dozens and dozens of offerings that are really helpful. And so organizations interested in getting some of those trainings can actually become members if they're not already, where they get access to a certain number of trainings as well as specific projects that Center for Business Analytics personnel can offer for those members, or individuals can sign up for trainings as well, on a one by one basis.
Scott Dust: (22:47)
And then there's a few others that are in the works that we're pretty excited about doing. Human Capital Analytics, compensation, marketing, branding yourself.
Grant Freking: (23:00)
Mm.
Scott Dust: (23:00)
There's also a few in the works, that are more about finance, operations, project management, you know, we're pretty much hitting 'em all. And so Skills at UC will eventually have all these offerings so that people can just sign up as needed. They can look and see when the dates are and the times are, and, or even make requests for, Hey, this is what I'm looking for. Do you have anything similar to this? And I think Skills at UC can have a conversation about, Hey, here's your, here's our recommendations,
Grant Freking: (23:29)
Sure.
Scott Dust: (23:29)
Or here's when things are coming online.
Grant Freking: (23:32)
Right. My thanks to Scott Dust for appearing on Bearcats Mean Business. Learn more about Lindner's professional programs by visiting business.uc.edu/about/professional-programs or by clicking the link in this episode's description. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
In-state and out-of-state students find a home at Lindner.
Take it from current student and Alabama native Miller Anderson: “I really loved the city and all the opportunities and that there was so much to do. And that it was a big school, but also that Lindner could feel like a really small, tight-knit community.”
On the latest episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Anderson and fellow student Francis Christian offer their advice for prospective students; walk listeners through life at Lindner; share how they landed co-ops; talk student engagement opportunities; and much more!
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Place, age or stage, students from a range of backgrounds become business problem solvers at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. Today I'm joined by fourth year student, Francis Christian, and third year student Miller Anderson, to hear about their journeys to Lindner, what the everyday life of a business student looks like, tips for prospective and current students and much more. Welcome, Francis and Miller.
Francis Christian: (00:27)
Hi Grant. Thanks for having us.
Miller Anderson: (00:28)
Yeah, it's good to be here.
Grant Freking: (00:30)
Francis, I'll start with you. Can you share a bit about where you're from, how you ended up at Lindner and where do you study?
Francis Christian: (00:35)
Yeah, so I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio, so two hours north from here. I went to to Olentangy Orange High School. I'm currently studying finance with a certificate in business analytics and I ended up at Lindner, because a college recruiter in my junior year came to talk more about it and they brought something about, said something about internships and co-ops. And as I did more research on it, I realized that would be the best way for me to succeed and set myself, set myself up for postgrad. And I found out Cincinnati was the number one co-op school in the nation. So then I ended up coming here.
Grant Freking: (01:09)
Good to know those high school campus visits pay off for undergrad admissions team. Miller, how about you?
Miller Anderson: (01:15)
Yeah, I was drawn to the same values of Cincinnati, but a little bit of a different story. I'm from Birmingham, Alabama, originally, and Cincinnati was not on my radar at all until one of my high school friends wanted to tour DAAP for the interior design program. So I came for the sake of a fun road trip, and then ended up falling in love with Cincinnati and the university as a whole. I really loved the city and all the opportunities and that there was so much to do and that it was a big school, but also that Lindner could feel like a really small tight-knit community. And I also had toured a lot of colleges and found that Lindner does experience-based learning really well. Like Francis mentioned and just was drawn to the co-op program. And then I was really sold when I attended a college closeup, and heard Lindner ambassadors, who are students representing the college, talk about their experiences specifically within the Lindner Business Honors program. So yeah, just from like touring and getting to know the college better, I really loved it and found that there wasn't another college that measured up to it.
Grant Freking: (02:19)
That's great to hear. Now it's not uncommon, of course, for out-of-state students to be at Lindner and UC, but I think you're the first one I've ever met that's from Alabama.
Miller Anderson: (02:25)
Yeah, I get that a lot. Most people are like, oh, why are you here? ? But it's fun.
Grant Freking: (02:29)
Right. Let me, let me build off that. What do you remember specifically, I guess about the admissions process, especially since you were not only from out of state, but a little further out of state than most normal students from UC and Lindner?
Miller Anderson: (02:39)
Right. So, I applied to like a wide range of colleges, mainly through the common app. And so Cincinnati was pretty easy to tag onto that common app and then, submit my essays through that. And then I was contacted later to be interviewed for the Lindner Business Honors program. So, further steps kind of followed, throughout the admissions process. But what I do remember is that there were admissions advisors always ready to answer questions I had and that reached out to me about different aspects. So, I never felt like I was like stranded or alone 'cause I know that that time can be really overwhelming and there was just a lot going on in my life too that I was, you know, trying to find the best college and keep everything on my radar, make sure I didn't miss any deadlines. But, the communication between the university and applicants was really great. Yeah,
Grant Freking: (03:27)
Yeah, picking a college is like your first career decision almost, right?
Miller Anderson: (03:30)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (03:30)
Yeah. Francis, what about you?
Francis Christian: (03:31)
Yeah, for me, almost very similar. My application went through the common app, so it was very easy to navigate in my original essay and my supplemental essays as well. I remember signing up to multiple like, resume or essay review sessions, so like what Cincinnati was looking for in their essays, what kind of stuff not to add. Also more stuff about the college overall, what I would be doing if and when I decided to go there.
Grant Freking: (03:56)
Mm-Hmm. .
Francis Christian: (03:57)
So just signing up to those optional programs really helped out and really made my decision a lot more easier when it came to the time to decide where I want to go for college.
Grant Freking: (04:06)
An informed decision. I like that. Miller, what recommendations or tips would you give to prospective students and their parents or guardians since those are big factors in choosing college too, who are definitely surely stressing out about filling out applications and trying to rank college choices?
Miller Anderson: (04:20)
Yeah. Gosh, it's so hard. It does feel like a really heavy decision. I would say not to like limit your options. If you're interested in the school, I would say just to go ahead and apply to it and really put in the work and the effort, to give it your best shot. I had parents and counselors and college students review my essays and my applications and kind of like give me feedback and advice and then when I had to do interviews, practice doing mock interviews. So, I think there's ways like that to set yourself up for success better, but at the end of the day, just to give it your all and take a deep breath and know that it will all work out and it's not, it doesn't need to be as, as much pressure as sometimes we can make it.
Grant Freking: (05:01)
Sure. Francis, what about general thoughts? I know you went into specifics in your previous answer, but sort of general thoughts about maybe some time management or your personal pathway to success to finding your college?
Francis Christian: (05:10)
Yeah, I would definitely say or reaffirm that idea of signing up to those optional events and workshops, they're definitely worth it. It gives you a peak insight of what your life could be like as a college student. Also to choose a school that best fits your interest overall. So if you're looking to do like engineering or business, I really do recommend Cincinnati 'cause we have, amazing business and engineering programs in the internship and co-op program. Really support them and set our students up for post grad success versus if you want to go for school, if you will, and study something like English or forensic science or something like that, go to a school that focuses on that and will give you the best resources available there. And it's okay. It's not go to a school that all your friends are going to or your best friends or that your parents want you to go to. At the end of the day, you're the one who has to experience that. So do what's best for you, not what what's best for others.
Grant Freking: (06:05)
Yep. Stay in control of your own journey. Now Francis, you're at the end of your academic journey, at least for undergrad. What are some of the classes you're taking right now and some of the activities and organizations you're involved in?
Francis Christian: (06:15)
Yeah, so some classes I'm taking right now is spreadsheet analytics, which is, very simple, just an Excel class.
Grant Freking: (06:22)
Mm-Hmm .
Francis Christian: (06:24)
Learning how to fully utilize Excel with all its functions and how to apply that to real world work. I'm also taking cases in corporate finance as well. Just learning about different financial cases that have gone on in the past and how to fully utilize and how to be in the mindset of a financial analyst overall. And another fun class I'm taking, I'm doing a study abroad later in December. And I'm currently going to Dubai, so that's been one class I'm taking right now. So I'm learning more about the culture there and how they conduct business. And that's just some of the classes I'm taking this fall semester.
Grant Freking: (06:59)
Awesome. Miller, I think I might need to sign up for Francis's Excel class 'cause I'm pretty weak in that area, but what about you and your interests and academic course load?
Miller Anderson: (07:07)
Yeah, so I'm studying marketing. In tangent to that I'm studying psychology and professional sales as minors. So I wanted to come in and get an education that was in the business school, but as people focused as I could get it. So I'm taking a lot of marketing electives right now. One of those being branding, which is my favorite class I think I've taken to date at the University of Cincinnati. So that's really fun when something that you're passionate about and that you enjoy, you can take in a class, it makes the learning part really easy. And then I'm also taking operations management, and a couple psychology classes, and then some other marketing electives as well.
Grant Freking: (07:44)
Cool. And what about some stuff that's outside the classroom? What are you involved in? Yeah,
Miller Anderson: (07:47)
So I am involved in Lindner Ambassadors, an organization I mentioned previously.
Grant Freking: (07:52)
Mm-Hmm .
Miller Anderson: (07:52)
Which is really fun just to get to know other students at the Lindner College of Business, and get to build relationships with them as well as to give back to UC and Lindner and tell prospective students and their parents about the college and what I love about it, why I decided to go here. It's really fun to share my story in that way. And then I'm also involved in Young Life, which is a volunteer organization giving back to local communities in the area. And then the Lindner Business Honors program, like I mentioned previously, has just been a really great community and way to network with other students and find out about, different opportunities, whether that be a co-op or an organization or just an event at UC that I should be involved in.
Grant Freking: (08:30)
So you're already firmly entrenched, entrenched in the ways of time management already here?
Miller Anderson: (08:34)
Oh yes.
Grant Freking: (08:34)
About the involvement.
Miller Anderson: (08:35)
Yeah. You gotta be.
Grant Freking: (08:36)
Francis, what about some of your organizations you're involved in?
Francis Christian: (08:38)
Yeah, so I've been involved in multiple organizations, but my active involvements include Business Fellows, which is an organization for Native Americans, African Americans, as well as first gen students as well, as a safe space for them as well and how to navigate college overall. I'm currently on the exec board for that as the Vice President of Professional Engagement. I actually had my first event last night with Cintas where they got to come in and talk about their internship programs and how post-grad life works.
Grant Freking: (09:05)
Great.
Francis Christian: (09:05)
Previously last year I was also the vice president of recruitment, so working closely with Lindner admissions, and working with prospective students and convinced them why they should come to Lindner and join Business Fellows as well. And then other than that I'm an active brother of Delta Sigma Pi, which is one of our business fraternities here.
Grant Freking: (09:24)
Okay.
Francis Christian: (09:24)
I just recently joined, but it has been a very fun experience so far. I've met a lot of amazing people, expand my own personal and professional network. And those are just two of my active involvements right now.
Grant Freking: (09:35)
Awesome. Now, a couple weeks ago within the building there was the student organization fair, so to speak, where you can, especially the first year students come through and they kind of get the car wash of all the different opportunities they have in front of them. I'm sure you two did something similar. You experienced something similar during your first years at Lindner. Francis, when you were going through that experience, how did you determine which organizations and clubs sort of best fit your interest and which you had, how many you could take on to fit your time needs? Walk me through that process.
Francis Christian: (10:02)
Yeah, I guess, freshman year I just joined organizations and clubs. I felt best aligned with my personal professional goals. Like, okay, will I be able to like professionally develop and be ready to like set myself up for interviews, or like full-time, part-time work and all that stuff. I also went based off of friends' recommendations.
Grant Freking: (10:23)
Okay.
Francis Christian: (10:23)
And what seems to interest me as well. Would I see myself being an execs position? Like would I enjoy going to these weekly or biweekly meetings overall and just try and see if the values of those organizations align with my own personal values.
Grant Freking: (10:38)
Right on. Miller was It something similar for you?
Miller Anderson: (10:41)
Yeah, I had a similar experience to Francis. I just really paid attention at the different org fairs and postings within Lindner and friends and upperclassmen that I had met within Lindner and really got to like ask them and hear about clubs that they're involved in and organizations that they recommended getting involved in. And then kind of went through the same process of like, if this aligns with something that I would wanna do my values and something that's gonna benefit me as a student and as a future professional, then I would try it out. So there's been a few that I have been involved in and then had too much on my plate, so you kind of do like trial and error of like getting to meet people and do different clubs for a certain semester and then trying something else the next semester. So, it's been fun to just meet a lot of people and try different organizations and there's definitely something for everyone and for everyone who has like different passions. I have friends in different organizations across campus that it's just really fun to like hear about their experiences as well.
Grant Freking: (11:35)
Sure. Thanks for sharing. Now you've both completed multiple co-op experiences, Miller, you've spent time with Kinetic Vision and Ulliman Schutte Construction. Can you walk listeners through how you pursued and ended up securing these co-ops?
Miller Anderson: (11:47)
Yeah, so, when I first got to campus I was nervous about finding a co-op because everyone talks about it and it's a big deal within Lindner College of Business, rightfully so. And so, I first went to different career fairs and researched a lot of the companies before going to those, applied for jobs before going to those. And then, talked as many employers as I can and followed up with them. And then UC also uses Handshake, which is a platform, I believe just for students, to network with different employers, kind of like LinkedIn, and hear about different jobs and apply through that platform. So I did that as well. And then we also have just a huge alumni network that career coaches have helped set me up with different alumni, that are interested in similar things as I am. So I've gotten coffee with them before, and talked to my career coach about different people that I should reach out to, for certain opportunities that I was exploring.
Grant Freking: (12:37)
Sounds like a textbook journey to me.
Miller Anderson: (12:39)
Yeah, .
Grant Freking: (12:40)
Career coaches would be proud to hear that one. Francis, you've done co-ops with Bank of America, General Electric and Key Bank. How did you land those co-ops?
Francis Christian: (12:47)
Yeah, so I can go in chronological order. So with KeyBank, my friend told me to apply for a diversity summit Key Bank, a diversity summit that KeyBank was hosting after I got to talk to the recruiter a bit more and told him how I was more at the time I was interested in financial advising and wealth management and he sent me the application. I was able to go through the application process and end up securing an internship with them where I worked as a wealth management intern.
Grant Freking: (13:12)
Okay.
Francis Christian: (13:12)
In Cleveland last summer. And then with GE, I actually got an email from Handshake saying, you are qualified for this position, would you like to apply? And I was like, you know what, why not? I did a bit more research. I do have some friends who worked there full-time, so I contacted them who did the internship and asked them more about it, how they liked it and why they ended up going full-time.
Francis Christian: (13:35)
So I just put in an application after hearing good things about them, did my interview after that. And ended up doing an internship with them, or a co-op, this past spring semester, while I was also taking some classes as well as a financial management program intern in the internal audit section, which was a really amazing opportunity. I loved it a lot. And then with Bank of America, it's actually a funny story. I found it through TikTok actually. A consultant TikToker was on my for you page and the video was like DM me for a list of consulting internships. So I thought, why not? I DMed him. He emailed me the list of multiple, like consulting firms along with banks and accounting firms that had consulting arms. And I was very surprised to see Bank of America had one, but I thought, why not? So I applied, ended up getting a hire interview, then I had to do a case study in behavioral and then a month later they gave me an offer, which was really awesome. So I really like telling that story, how I found my that job through a TikTok.
Grant Freking: (14:36)
Yeah, that's a, that's a first for me. And hearing that story, an internship gathered through TikTok, but hey, as long as it worked out for you, that's great to hear.
Grant Freking: (14:42)
Now, co-op is just one component of Lindner's experiential learning apparatus, which is meant to provide students like Miller and Francis with a litany of real world applications to try on for size. Students can get involved with anything from case studies, classroom role plays and capstone projects to study abroad, study away, and linking up with one of Lindner's nine centers and institutes. Miller. Aside from co-op, what other experiences at Lindner do you feel have increased your readiness to be a professional?
Miller Anderson: (15:21)
Yeah. Honestly, I would say every experience at Lindner has increased my readiness to be a professional. Within the classroom, I have gotten to do a lot of different role plays, whether that be for like intro to marketing, we got to like pretend run a business, with different groups working on a lot of group projects for companies. So my freshman year, I was placed on a team with six other students in my cohort and we did a project for Cintas, and got to run a SWOT analysis for them, which is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and then come up with a strategic innovation and then presented it to them within the first semester of my freshman year. So the classroom itself is a great way to gain these experiences. It's not always just getting lectured at. And then, also organizations that I've been involved in have really helped prepare me, as well as different networking events and things put on by the Lindner College of Business.
Grant Freking: (16:14)
Mm-Hmm. .
Miller Anderson: (16:14)
And then I would say the most impactful one is study abroad. So I've completed two study abroad trips and they've been probably my favorite experiences during my time here so far. the first one was with my business honors cohort to Queretaro, Mexico, during spring break my freshman year. And then the second one was this past summer. It was a May mester trip to Czech Republic and Albania. And so, both of those were more short, short term trips, so I wasn't studying in a classroom over there, but visiting different businesses, communicating with employers up there, working on projects as well as doing a lot of cultural excursions and experiences. So those were just really fun to kind of round out my education and learn about business and different cultures. And I got to meet a lot of really cool people that attend UC on those trips. and they're just, it's just fun to get to go different places and experience new things.
Grant Freking: (17:05)
Yeah, that sounds like some well-rounded experience. It's good to see you've been able to kind of pick some different tools outta the toolbox to continue my metaphor there. Francis, what about you?
Francis Christian: (17:12)
Yeah, definitely I'll hammer in the first year experience. My freshman year, project impact and innovation and SWOT analysis. Definitely I feel like helped prepare me, for Project Impact I was the project lead. So organizing, my classmates and making sure we were able to do the best case for that nonprofit we were working with. But I will say I feel like the most development I've gotten is outside the classroom. My involvements. I've been involved in multiple organizations such as Residence Hall Association as a director of finance, so welcome week and all those events. And we were in charge of that and I was like the one making sure like, can we afford this? Yes or no?
Grant Freking: (17:53)
Yeah, some big responsibility there.
Francis Christian: (17:54)
Yeah. And making sure maintaining our budget I feel like helped me understand the finance portion of like running a business organization. With Lindner Tribunal, which is the College of Business Tribunal, working directly with the dean's office along with student government, I served as the external vice president, so, hopping on those career fair calls and organizing them to make sure everything went smoothly. Gathering volunteers like how to get people to want to help out and give back as well. And last year I served as the president. So, looking over all the operations, working very closely with the deans and remaking the president's cabinet, organizing monthly meetings with each president of every organization within Lindner to like, hear how we can better support them as students, as well as business problem solvers. I was part of NEO Initiative, which is a consulting organization.
Grant Freking: (18:45)
Mm-Hmm. .
Francis Christian: (18:46)
Last fall to, 'cause I knew I wanted to get into consulting. so that really helped me get a better understanding and idea of how consultants think, how it works. And we were doing real world work with black-owned businesses within the Cincinnati area. So the projects we were doing were very impactful and were very real in fact. And off campus as well, or on campus, I also work as a RA, or a resident advisor. So hosting multiple events a month or throughout the semester and connecting with residents to make sure they feel welcome, helping problem solve with any issues they may have between roommates or neighbors and all of that. I was also a PACE leader my sophomore year, which was a very good experience. So it's really tested my leadership skills at the time. And I will say I wasn't really the best PACE leader, but I think it was good. It made me realize that there are things I need to work on. I do need to work better with connecting people on a personal level and I would not have realized that if I had not done that experience.
Grant Freking: (19:50)
That's good. You've got that nice diverse array of experiences. 'cause that's similar to working in the real world of like, you're not gonna just be insulated to your team. You're gonna have to reach out across departments and divisions and work with people to advance whatever objective that your team or your company has. So that's all great real world experiences we'd like to say.
Miller Anderson: (20:08)
Absolutely.
Grant Freking: (20:09)
Yeah. We'll close with this, fondest memory or most poignant moment from your time at Lindner. Miller, I'll start with you. Put you on the spot.
Miller Anderson: (20:16)
Yeah. Goodness. I would say I, I talked about my study abroad, experiences. I think those are my fondest memories. One in particular in Mexico, my classmates and I hiked up the Pena de Bernal, which is basically just a big mountain and we were like hanging on the side of a cliff. There's like a rope you have to hold onto and we're just shuffling our feet and our professors leading us like, I don't know if this is safe, but you guys are doing great. Just keep going. And so experiences like that where you just get to have fun with your classmates while also like learning. Yeah, I would say that those are my favorite. And I've also just made a lot of really good friends through the Lindner College of Business and through taking classes with them that, Cincinnati has quickly become my new home. And just like the community that I've built here, specifically through Lindner has just been like really special, and impactful to me as a person. And also I know will impact my future as a professional as well.
Grant Freking: (21:11)
Great. Well we're glad you feel welcome here. Francis.
Francis Christian: (21:14)
Yeah. Wow. That's, that's a really tough one. There's so many I could choose. I would say not one specific moment, but like anytime I'm working on a group project and we're working late and strategizing on like how to solve this specific problem or finish this project or even studying for like a math exam, getting together with classmates and friends, like they were, they were very, one of my favorite times just goofing around for a little bit. It's saying, okay, okay, let's focus and then messing around again saying, okay, let's focus again. I think just that those small, tiny moments of camaraderie, I cherished and value in some of my favorite moments here so far.
Grant Freking: (21:50)
Awesome. Well, my thanks to Francis Christian and Miller Anderson for dropping by the Lindner podcast studio today. I appreciate you guys being here.
Miller Anderson: (21:57)
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Grant Freking: (21:59)
Of course. Please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
The mission of UC’s Center for Business Analytics is to connect, teach and promote the application of business analytics and AI through a community of industry of academic experts.
On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Center for Business Analytics Executive Director Tim Cholvat is joined by Jeff Shaffer, an assistant professor educator in Lindner’s department of operations, business analytics, and information systems, to chat about:
- The Data Science Symposium, held at Lindner Hall on October 11.
- Ways for students to engage with the Center for Business Analytics.
- And why professionals should consider the Center’s vast array of training courses, including the new Generative AI in Business training.
Space is limited for Data Science Symposium 2024! Register today to secure your spot.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
UC's Center for Business Analytics, housed within the Lindner College of Business, empowers local and global organizations with the cutting-edge analytics capabilities they need to become best in class in their industry. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Center for Business Analytics Executive Director Tim Cholvat is joined by Jeff Shaffer, an assistant professor-educator in Lindner's department of operations, business analytics, and information systems, to engage in a slew of topics, including October's Data Science Symposium, ways for students to engage with the Center for Business Analytics, and why professionals should consider generative AI in business training. Without further ado, here are Tim Cholvat and Jeff Shaffer.
Tim Cholvat: (00:40)
Thank you, Grant. It's a great pleasure to be here today. as Grant mentioned, I'm Tim Cholvat. I'm the Executive director of the UC Center for Business Analytics. Joined today by Jeff Shaffer. Jeff is an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati in the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. Hello, Jeff, and welcome to the podcast.
Jeff Shaffer: (01:01)
Great to be here. Thank you.
Tim Cholvat: (01:03)
Jeff, why don't, you start off by telling us a bit about yourself.
Jeff Shaffer: (01:07)
Sure. I've been teaching at Lindner for about 13 years, I guess. I started as adjunct faculty, and a few years ago I joined a full-time faculty teaching in the business analytics, department. Prior to that, I was, in the financial services industry, ran a fintech, was the Chief Operating Officer, and then before that, 10 years running IT and analytics and data science.
Tim Cholvat: (01:31)
Good, good. Thank you, Jeff. I wanted to start off with an introduction to the Center of Business Analytics. There might be a number of people in our audience who don't know who we're about. So we've been around for 12 years, and it was initiated by a couple of professors here within the Lindner College of Business. We have three stakeholders. One is the external groups, and those are the companies and members that we work with within the region. Then we have two stakeholders within the university. One, of course, is the students, and the other is the faculty and staff. Our mission is to connect, teach, learn about, and promote the application of business analytics and AI through a community of industry and academic experts. We do that through a number of offerings and engagement across those three stakeholders that I mentioned.
Tim Cholvat: (02:33)
We do leadership forums on a monthly basis where we bring in experts, either from the University of Cincinnati or externally and present to the members within our community. The second offering that we have is around technical training. I'll get into this a bit later on, but our technical training, our two-day courses, and they're instructor-led, and, we'll, dive into some of the areas that we have topics that we cover in those ones. Third offering that we have, we run a couple of large conferences every year, and we have about 300 people in each of those conferences. And one is coming up in October, which I indicated with Jeff, who's going to be at our conference. And, we'll talk about that. And a couple of the keynotes that we're gonna have in that conference. And finally, one of the most exciting offerings we have is projects throughout the year with our members that are student led and faculty advised. So we run about 20 to 25 student led projects throughout the year, and our members engage with that, and they get value from working with the students and from the output from those projects. Jeff, you've been involved in the center activities for a long time. Can you tell us about some of your experiences that you've had with the center?
Jeff Shaffer: (04:01)
Yeah, that was a great summary. I've been involved in all of those in some form or fashion. The training, of course, from the beginning. Done Tableau training, data visualization and storyteller, data visualization and storytelling training, and also, generative AI, more recently. The case studies class has also been interesting, because we have student led projects, usually with a faculty sponsor. And so, I've been fortunate enough to be on some of those projects as well with the students and see their work, and that's been exciting to see. When I was at the fintech, we actually had a project for a number of years, and so we had a couple teams come in and had the projects kickoff at that company. So, yeah, that's been exciting. And then always fun, you know, the Analytics Symposium and the Data Science Symposium always attracts great speakers, so I always enjoy that.
Tim Cholvat: (04:58)
It's been interesting as the center has evolved over those past 12 years as to where we are, but we, what we're always watching is where the market's flowing. And that's either from the needs of our members and their need to be able to hire and be able to move their business ahead, and what we can do to act as a catalyst for that. And on the other side, with our students, what's the primary need for student? Probably get a job as they come out. So, that's been a really, good match. But, one of the, items I wanted to talk about that's coming up in the next six weeks is gonna be our Data Science Symposium for 2024. And, that's our fall conference, and it's being held on October 11th at the Lindner College of Business. And it's gonna kick off at 8:30, and we're gonna go through till about two in the afternoon.
Tim Cholvat: (05:55)
It's designed for corporate analytics leaders and practitioners, plus faculty, plus students, who are eager to enhance their data science capabilities and learn about industry trends. We have a lineup of expert speakers and thought leaders who are gonna share their insights and experiences in the field of data science. We have people who are gonna talk about how they're applying analytics and AI into some large businesses such as Fifth Third, and we're gonna have some faculty who are gonna talk about some of the methods that they're researching and, what we're gonna have, what they see coming up in the future as they look at being on the forefront of research for, in, data science. The other reason that we hold these is the networking side of it. Just like all conferences, there's components of networking. And when I talked about those three stakeholders, this is a melting pot where we try to bring those groups together, and the members looking to the students as to who might be a good hire, and the faculty. We often have connections with that, and I'll talk about that later on about how the faculty is now, we're trying to get more engagement with the members. Jeff, you'll be one of the keynote at the conference. Why don't you tell us a bit about your talk?
Jeff Shaffer: (07:22)
Yeah. Well, not surprisingly, the talk is gonna be on AI, right? That's what everybody's talking about. And I got the idea of working with AI, generative AI specifically, a few years back when it, when it was getting popular. I've been doing AI for 10 years plus. But, it really, the power of the generative AI aspect coming into the market really started to get me thinking about the future of what that would be and what we could do with that. And it's super powerful. And what's interesting, I think, is that the market is moving really, really fast. Technology always moves fast, but when you talk about technology speed, it's, you know, year over year, you know, the new iPhone or the new program or the new operating system. But with AI this past the past few years, it's been moving so fast that tools come out every day.
Jeff Shaffer: (08:16)
You have to be on it every week. And so thinking about, okay, everything's changing so fast, what's the future gonna look like with that? And so that's really the focus of the talk is where's that gonna, where's that gonna head? What does that technology mean for our workplace? What's the future of work? What does that technology mean for our roles and our jobs? For an average, non-technical worker, you can skill up on generative AI tools and make you more productive. But if you're a technical worker, and maybe you're a programmer, it might make you more productive as a programmer. So thinking about all the aspects of where generative AI hits, it's just really interesting to me. It's not just gonna be the technical tool for technical folks. It's gonna hit everybody.
Tim Cholvat: (09:03)
Oh, the evolution of AI is incredible. And that's a pretty, pretty well-known statement, right? But the tentacles of it, which is really what, I don't know, where it's not going to head, right? Everything from the components of what our students are gonna be seeing as they go out there and our faculty as they research, but where the impact is not only from the technical build side, but also in the market around how that's affecting the rest of the organizations.
Jeff Shaffer: (09:40)
Yeah. I won't give away my whole talk, but, you know, part of it is it's gonna be in our workflow, so it's gonna be in our tools like Excel and PowerPoint and Tableau and Power BI. It's just gonna be integrated with the things we work every day. It's gonna be integrated into our devices, where we already see cell phones with AI chips. We already see laptops coming out with AI chips. And so you'll be AI friendly on your windows device or your Android device. And then you have all the productivity tools that are just gonna happen where, now I can get an instant summary and notes taking from my meeting. You know, I was in a meeting for two hours the other day, and I turned on this little recording device. Well, you know, in the previous days, that would just be a sound, right?
Jeff Shaffer: (10:24)
And I'd have to listen to it and take my notes. Now I can just put that in and instantly get my two page, you know, summary with bullet points. And so it's my, note taker. It's my planner. And then I know Rehgan gonna talk in her keynote about agentic workflow and the future of agents. But, you know, that's even more mind blowing, that I'm gonna have computer agents working for me 24/7, you know, I can have them schedule my meetings and schedule my airplane and schedule my hotel and things like that.
Tim Cholvat: (10:52)
Well, not only that, but from a, something, let's choose an industry manufacturing with, autonomous agents, right? And being able to, make decisions not only in a small component of that, but looking at the end to end. And those autonomous agents being able to reason, be able to predict and be able to adjust. And, how does that come into? And you can probably go through all the different industries with healthcare and financial industry and all those other elements that are, especially with the agents as they come through. And they're able to possibly reason and augment what we're doing. And, it can be a bit scary for some people.
Jeff Shaffer: (11:38)
That's the latest. OpenAI was just in the news and in front of regulators because of the reasoning model. So, yeah. It's coming.
Tim Cholvat: (11:46)
Yep.
Jeff Shaffer: (11:46)
It's coming quick.
Tim Cholvat: (11:48)
Indeed. You mentioned Rehgan. Rehgan Bleile is going to be our other keynote at the Data Science Symposium. And we are specifically bookending our symposium with Rehgan opening and with Jeff closing with the keynotes. Rehgan is co-founder and CEO of AlignAI. And it's an AI adoption and governance platform that helps companies integrate AI into what their workplace is. She's also the founder of Women in Analytics, and they run a data connect conference up in Columbus, Ohio every year. And they get about 1,000, 1,200 people up there. Whereas Jeff is gonna talk about the future of AI. Rehgan's gonna open the conference by talking about how we got here. What she's gonna do is look at the last 10 years of support for machine learning and what's happened as it's evolved over those 10 years. As we shift towards AI, there's technical differences with AI, be it in the architecture, there's security, risk management, data differences, and agent architecture that we just talked about. So, we'll look at having Rehgan on for another podcast, and she can go into a bit more detail, but it's gonna be an interesting bookends for the conference.
Jeff Shaffer: (13:24)
I'm a big fan of Rehgan. I was at the inaugural conference for the Women in Data Analytics. It's a fantastic conference up in Columbus. And, she's a great speaker, so if you've not heard her speak, she's really good. She's got a great background. So, I can't say enough good things about that. Definitely catch that talk.
Tim Cholvat: (13:42)
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting as we sandwich that between the speakers that we have as well. We're gonna have five breakout sessions, two periods in there, so 10 speakers, and they're gonna be talking about the current of AI. So it's, as I said earlier, it's gonna be everything from industry to faculty. So it's gonna be really interesting to go through with this. You can register, at the UC Center for Business Analytics website. You can do that by going to the Lindner College of Business website, going to the About tab, and then you will find the Center of Business for Business Analytics under that. And, under the events page, you can get down to the Data Science Symposium. We're limited on the attendance at this symposium because of the lecture hall, main lecture hall we're gonna be doing.
Tim Cholvat: (14:40)
And it has a 250 person limit. So we're gonna cut off the attendance at 250 people. Right now it's $195 to sign up before September 10th, and after that, it'll be $295. So it's gonna be about 75% of the people there will be industry, and about 25% will be students and faculty. Now, I mentioned before about that whole student engagement side, and this being a great opportunity for the students to be able to network and to be able to learn a little bit from the members. That's something we're extremely proud of within the Center for Business Analytics. And one of our reasons for being. Interesting statistic is the center members, of which we have about 24 right now, 23, 24, hired 30% of our business analytics graduating class over the last two years.
Tim Cholvat: (15:48)
And so you can see the pipeline there and the engagement is really working. We play a pivotal role, or we like to think we play a pivotal role, in connecting our partners and our employers through the co-op and full-time positions. We do that through a couple of ways. One, I mentioned it with projects. We run projects through that go through a semester, and it really gives a chance for the members and the students that are involved in the projects, to be able to feel each other out and understand what they're about, what the students are about. Students get experiential learning over that, and they gain practical experience. Second way we do that is through the, is through networking sessions. Just last week, we had a networking session between about 70 students that we have in about, 10 to 15 of our members.
Tim Cholvat: (16:46)
And they spend a couple of hours just getting to know each other. And when we look at the year, the members, our members start hiring our students as early as October of this year for graduating next year. So it's really important that we build those bridges right now, going into it. And the final part of it is, an interesting initiative that we're gonna be looking at possibly doing next year. And that's gonna be launching case competition. And the case competition would be, including students and teams and working with members. And, once again, that interaction. Jeff, can you tell us a bit about, how you construct your courses as you go through? Which is another component that we mentioned is an offering, that we have within the center. And, because you mentioned you do a number of courses for us.
Jeff Shaffer: (17:46)
Yeah, so I teach at the university, the students that you just mentioned, and talking about, you know, their skillset coming out, at the university. I teach data visualization. I teach descriptive analytics and data vis. I have a data vis two class, a new Gen AI class. For the center, that is training for the public, the general public. Anybody can come do that or private training for companies. But a lot of it is the same training that I would give my students in the classroom. So it comes from my course, obviously not as long. I have full semester courses on data vis. But we distill that down to a one day, two day course, so that people from all over the world, especially now that we can teach those remotely, from all over the world, can take those classes that our students can take.
Jeff Shaffer: (18:34)
And so we feel like we're training those students, as Tim talked about, to come out, you get to, I dunno, you get to try 'em before you hire 'em, but you get to see the skillset that they have in sitting in my class, for example. They'll be, maybe not experts, but they'll be really, really good at tools like Tableau or Power BI, or sql or Data Mining or, or data science tools, Python and R and things like that. They learn those in those classes. We do the same exact thing for corporate training and public training. We just do it in a more condensed way for a one and two day training.
Tim Cholvat: (19:10)
Yeah, those training classes, it's a great way for people to be, retain their skills and or upskill. And, we touch on both, as you said, public and private training classes. And organizations will come to us and say, geez, we want to upskill our people in Power BI. And we'll run that, or with the new Gen AI course. So, with the new Gen AI course in business training. Why don't you get a little bit into more details of what you cover in that course?
Jeff Shaffer: (19:48)
Yeah. That training was really, for the general public, not a technical audience, not a coding, not anything about specifically coding. But just, day-to-day understanding how generative AI can affect your workflow, how it tools, productivity tools. We talk about really understanding what they're good at, what they're not good at, because there's a lot of hype out there about AI, right? Where it's gonna take over the world, but the tools aren't very good at certain tasks. And so really kind of understanding what is that task and what is it it good at? We have to be a little bit careful with generative AI. You know, the analogy that always gets used is, you know, you have a hammer. And so every problem is a nail. In this case, my generative AI analogy is, you now have a really fast, powerful nail gun, and so you're just shooting nails into everything.
Jeff Shaffer: (20:42)
And if you have a nail problem, it's a great tool, but if you, have to do something else like paint a wall, it's not. So, same thing applies. And that's really what the class is to understand more in depth what the tools are good at, what tools are available, how to use them,. Very, the hot topic, about, you know, your data, especially if you're a company or, you know, imagine we're here at the university or a hospital, where's your data go and who has that data and what's being used in that data. So if you're using these generative AI tools, you gotta be careful about that. Who has your document? Are you putting your document on a website that is using generative AI or is that something internal and has the appropriate guardrails?
Jeff Shaffer: (21:24)
And then the final topic we talk a little bit about, and this is where, you know, my talk, the future is the Wild West. We don't really know, you know, legislation is way behind on this, the ethics and the governance of these systems. The systems, again, are moving so fast with a new tool coming out every day or a new model, and it's just going to keep at that pace at least in the coming years. And, we have to, we struggle, right? As to, okay, how do we control it? How do we put the appropriate guardrails on there? You know, one of the examples I always use, good or bad in the generative AI classes, you know, I always go to a tool, any tool that's out there and I always check, you know, can I break the guardrails down?
Jeff Shaffer: (22:07)
And, you know, you can ask, you know, a terrible question like, you know, how to build a bomb or something, right? You would expect that these tools would have the appropriate guardrails on them to be able to handle a question like that. And that's an easy one, okay? We can guard against that. But as we get into more creative questions that could be nefarious or not ethical or things like that, especially in our business, we have to be really careful about that. So in essence, that's the summary of what the class covers, sort of what the tools are, how do they work, how do you implement 'em, how do you govern 'em, if you can. And, you know, talk a little bit about the future.
Tim Cholvat: (22:44)
You know, it was interesting. When I walked into your office about an hour ago, and, as we were just talking before we came onto this podcast and you said, geez, I'm running an LLM on my desktop here, and I'm trying to get this some things printed out as well. Can you imagine saying that two years ago, it's, or even a year and a half ago, right, ?
Jeff Shaffer: (23:07)
Well, the joke was, is I had a local LLM running on my laptop doing a pretty complex task of, you know it's a project for one of the professors here and some medical records. But, and I was just trying to print a piece of paper and I couldn't get the piece of paper to print, but I can run an LLM model . And so, yeah, it's just bizarre, you know, some of the tools that we have available to us.
Tim Cholvat: (23:28)
Well, even the tools, and say they're more advanced, but they're never gonna get, they're always gonna get better than they are today. They're never gonna go back. So, it's interesting with that whole, you know, I talked about upskilling and being able to look at where a professional's career point is right now with their skillset. It's extremely important for all these professionals out there, that are especially possibly in the analytics area, to be able to upskill. If you look at just the job prospects over the next eight years growing at about 20% a year across the across generative AI. And a lot of those will be in natural language processing and machine learning, computer vision as they go through. And, that's really reflecting a growth in the whole gen AI market.
Tim Cholvat: (24:35)
And estimate I saw the other day was over the next 10 years, we're gonna be looking at going from about a $150 billion to a 2.3, sorry, $1.3 trillion growth over the next eight years. And that represents about a 40% compound growth every year. And, it's just, if the students, or I should say, if the professionals are not upskilling and going out to classes like yours, I think it's gonna be, they're gonna regret it over the longer term.
Tim Cholvat: (25:21)
But not only, we don't inside the center, we don't only do courses like the Gen AI course, but we also, do technical training. You mentioned, Tableau, Power BI. Power BI is probably our most sought after course right now as they grow. We do applied training in visualizations, storytelling, and then we do, training for executives and professionals who want to improve their knowledge of analytics as customers. That next class, when's that next Gen AI class?
Jeff Shaffer: (25:59)
October 30th.
Tim Cholvat: (26:00)
Okay. And people can register by going to the, the Center for Business Analytics website?
Jeff Shaffer: (26:07)
That's correct.
Tim Cholvat: (26:07)
Yep.
Jeff Shaffer: (26:07)
Yeah. And as you talk about upskilling, I mean, we'll plug our programs here, but you have a buffet available right here in Cincinnati, right? If you wanna go all in, come back, maybe get your master's degree in Business Analytics. If that's, you know, something you wanna do full-time, you can knock that out in about a year. If that's too much, take it part-time and take some classes. If that's too much. We have a certificate program in business analytics, and so you can sign up for the certificate program and take classes in that. And then if, if all of that, you know, you don't wanna sit through a class for a whole semester or multiple classes, well then right there at the Center for Business Analytics website. Hey, how about about an afternoon or a day or two, and you can skill up, and so we really have it available. You could start, and see if you like it. You can skill up in at your pace, or at whatever level you want to do that.
Tim Cholvat: (26:59)
Yeah. October 30th, it should be a good time. This will be the third time I think you've taught it, or do I get that right?
Jeff Shaffer: (27:07)
I think that's right. We did some private trainings, for the same topic as well.
Tim Cholvat: (27:10)
Yeah.
Jeff Shaffer: (27:10)
So yeah, it's probably six or seven at this point.
Tim Cholvat: (27:14)
Yeah. One of the other areas that, we provide as we work with our members, and it's an interesting point, around moving to, and you touched on it before, where AI and analytics is gonna go. It's no longer the domain of data scientists, right? It's going into the multifunctional elements of marketing and economics and engineering and different areas of expertise.
Tim Cholvat: (27:46)
What we're doing here is we're, within the Center for Business Analytics is we're starting up something called Analytics Fellow Program, and it's relevant to students. And, we're going to be bridging the gap between academic research and industry practice. It's something that we've really pushed out over the last 12 years. And, it always comes up in different flavors. But this is where we're going to have, we're gonna sign up a number of faculty across the university, not only within the analytics department, but in other multifunctional areas that I spoke about.
Tim Cholvat: (28:27)
And they're gonna be involved in projects. They're gonna be involved in something called a community of practice. And, that's going to be meeting to talk about their research, the application of it, and then we're going to have that interdisciplinary collaboration. I have, I'll bet you I have half the members that we work with to say, geez, you know, I really want the project to be, any projects that they work with, to be, to have a component about how should I apply it. So, this is, I think this is gonna be an exciting initiative, and we've just engaged our first couple of faculty to be able to go into that.
Jeff Shaffer: (29:12)
I think the members of the Center are public knowledge.
Tim Cholvat: (29:14)
Mmm-Hmm, .
Jeff Shaffer: (29:16)
But, you know, just for folks, you know, those, those are the largest companies in Cincinnati are part of that, but it's also, not just big companies, people, you know, there's medium size and smaller companies on there as well. And what I think is interesting is they're all at different points in their analytical and AI journeys, right? And so we try to meet them where they are. But I think what is interesting about this program is that we can integrate some of that together with the faculty.
Tim Cholvat: (29:42)
Well, and we really try to have a diverse group there, not only from size and expertise and where they are in their journey. I just met with a specialty chemical company the other day who is looking at just starting out in their analytics journey, but also across industries. So the healthcare industry learns from the finance industry, and that comes into the multiple multidiscipline as well, to be able to learn from each other and this community, which is what we create, being more than just a transactional, transactional element.
Tim Cholvat: (30:27)
You know, it's great to sit here in the first week of classes, as we come back into the university after having the summer of this building being empty. We're and for those people that, don't know, we're in the podcast studio in the Lindner College of Business. And as we look out seeing some of our 6,000 students that we have, in the college, and recently announced that we just grew the university by another 2.1% to 52,000, this year. So, it's an exciting time at the university. It always is, every single year, just as an exciting time within the analytics and AI business community.
Grant Freking: (31:06)
My thanks to Tim Cholvat and Jeff Shaffer for a thoughtful discussion surrounding the Center for Business Analytics. Remember, the 2024 Data Science Symposium will be held Friday, October 11th at Lindner Hall. To register, visit business.uc.edu/analytics-events, or click the link in this episode's bio. One more thing, Bearcats Mean Business is now on Apple Podcasts. Please subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Lindner dean Marianne Lewis, PhD, joins Bearcats Mean Business to welcome and supply advice to first-year students, preview the new edition of Portfolio magazine, and discuss the breadth and depth of the college’s experiential learning offerings.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Welcome to the 2024 2025 academic year! My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner dean Marianne Lewis stops by to preview the new school year at Lindner and offer advice to our new students. We'll also chat about the 2024 issue of Portfolio, Lindner's annual alumni magazine, which will be released in print and online in September. Hi, Marianne. Welcome back to the Lindner Podcast Studio.
Marianne Lewis: (00:29)
Oh, hi Grant. I'm so glad to be here today.
Grant Freking: (00:31)
By the time this episode airs, we will be just days into fall semester 2024. Marianne, how are you feeling about the new academic year?
Marianne Lewis: (00:39)
Oh, I'm excited. I'm energized. You know, I was saying to President Pinto this morning, it feels like in the last couple of weeks, a starter's gun has gone off.
Grant Freking: (00:49)
.
Marianne Lewis: (00:49)
People are just revving, excited. I mean, because really the campus comes alive. And I enjoy summer, but I much more enjoy when all the students are here.
Grant Freking: (00:59)
Right. And there's some energy in the atrium, actually right now, because there's a new faculty orientation that's wrapping up. So if listeners hear a little bit of conversation going on between our new faculty members, that's what that is. Now, the onset of a new academic year also introduces us to a new class of first-year Lindner students. This group happens to be the most diverse and academically accomplished first-year class in Lindner history. Marianne, what do you learn about our first-year students when you converse with them in the initial days and weeks of their time here at Lindner?
Marianne Lewis: (01:27)
You know, I think that typically, I feel a really good sense of energy from them in terms of being excited and leaning into what's possible. I can also sense that they're a little nervous. I mean, it's, it's a wonderful big bustling university, and they're trying to find their foothold. And I think that is part of the leaning in and really trying to find, okay, well, where, where is it that I want to engage? Because there are so many opportunities on this campus, and that's what we love. So you say, take a deep breath, enjoy it, and start to just explore and explore early and often.
Grant Freking: (02:03)
And one way they can explore is to get involved. And one way to get involved is to find a student organization that fits their interest. As someone who's played a role in lots of student organizations at Lindner over the years, how can Lindner students sort of find their way by getting involved in a student organization and sort of ramping up their interest in certain business aspects of their education?
Marianne Lewis: (02:27)
You're right. Grant, I'm a huge believer in student organizations. I have been my entire career. I think for a lot of reasons. One, they help make a big university feel small, there is so much variety. I think we're nearing about 30 student organizations within Lindner alone. I think there are nearing 300 at the university, and each one of them has a different size and shape. Some of them are, as you said, are professional. They're like, explore your career. Some of them are very social from everything from, you know, ultimate Frisbee to something more artistic. And pretty much everything in between, which is very cool. One of the things that we've worked on, we started working on last year and we've spent the summer working on, is how do we leverage tribunal, which is our student government, to help us connect and support and further the great work of our student organizations. So we're kind of thinking of tribunal as our hub and spoke. I and other people in the dean's team will be meeting monthly with those student leaders because student leaders just do, I mean, they're tremendous. They're great models for other students, but they can also help us make sure that, you know, we don't know what we don't know. I'd love to always know if there are concerns or opportunities among students. And it's nice to have some eyes and ears among students who we can be partners with.
Grant Freking: (03:52)
Absolutely. Marianne, I'm going to turn this episode in an admittedly selfish direction now. September brings the release of the 2024 edition of Portfolio, Lindner's annual alumni magazine that I oversee as part of my duties with Lindner's marketing communications team. Marianne, I know Portfolio means a lot to you, and your input is always appreciated in this publication, which I view as both a recap of the last academic year and of our mission of empowering business problem solvers.
Marianne Lewis: (04:18)
You're absolutely right, Grant. I love it. And I'm so grateful to you and all the great work you do leading the magazine. And so many people are involved. I mean, every year I do, similar to what you just said, the Portfolio is just this beautiful way to showcase what's been and to tell stories that some of us haven't heard. And then it's in a physical format that I can share both physically as in printed, but also digitally.
Grant Freking: (04:44)
Mm-Hmm.
Marianne Lewis: (04:44)
And it's nice to have a vehicle to do that. 'cause not everybody gets to be you and me and see what's going on in this building. And I get to see so much around alumni and others. So there are wonderful stories. They inspire me all the time. And it's great to be able to share.
Grant Freking: (05:01)
It's something different when you can actually show someone. It's one thing to tell, and I think, you know,
Marianne Lewis: (05:04)
Oh yeah, tell 'em.
Grant Freking: (05:05)
That ... show 'em, don't tell 'em. And, Portfolio obviously serves a great example of that. We try to leave some copies around the building, and remember to do that. But leaning into that, the cover story of Portfolio 2024 is a familiar one, experiential learning. But my colleague Haley Fite went to great lengths to explore the depth of the college's approach to experiential learning. I'm talking about going beyond the confines of a quote, traditional co-op experience and providing students with a toolbox of real world knowledge that they can pull from.
Marianne Lewis: (05:36)
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, our focus right now is to be the nation's leading co-op business school. And when I say that it is about co-op, we love co-op, we do it like nobody else, but we think of co-op as this bigger umbrella of experiential learning. And if I can add just a couple of things to think about. I mean, one is, when we think about our leadership in this realm, and we did invent co-op here at UC, we really do think about the intersection of three areas. Yes, there's the co-op, there's the professional, paid, multiple experiences, one, so it's professional. The second is it's in the curriculum. How do we harness these great classroom opportunities we have to do hands-on experiential learning? And then three, you just said it, right, it's the co-curricular, what's going on in student organizations. I mean, we've got phenomenal organizations, for example, doing student consulting and a host of other experiential leadership and problem-solving opportunities. So that triumvirate, professional curricular and co-curricular, is really powerful.
Grant Freking: (06:48)
Now let's highlight several of these experiential learning opportunities that you kind of hinted at in the broader sense with your response there. We have the first-year experience with all which all Lindner first years go through in their first year here at Lindner Hall. We have case studies, we have capstone projects, we have classroom role plays. We have project-based learning on both study abroad and study away, study away being domestic experiences, that students can get involved in. We have students launching start-ups independently or with a team, and we also have students working with and for our nine centers of institutes, whose interests span the entire spectrum of the business education here offered here at Lindner.
Marianne Lewis: (07:23)
I mean, that's, that's quite a remarkable list when you think about it.
Grant Freking: (07:26)
And it's not inclusive.
Marianne Lewis: (07:27)
Oh, no. It's a tip of the iceberg.
Grant Freking: (07:28)
Not comprehensive, I mean.
Marianne Lewis: (07:30)
Completely. I agree, and I think that's the point of being the leaders in co-op. It means that we are not an ivory tower. We absolutely love the power of a classroom, but boy, the problems in the back of a book, they are not real. They are not messy enough. They're not challenging enough. And the point is to get your arms around the uncertainty and the complexity of this world. It means being in it or bringing it into the classroom. I mean, it's something I've always loved about Cincinnati is we can have executives and leaders in this building at a moment's notice. We certainly are good at bringing them in on video or I mean remotely, I should say. And bringing their living case studies in. Let's talk about real problems, the messy problems, and how do we work through them? That's how we empower business problem solvers.
Grant Freking: (08:19)
And that's how to be best prepared for their career prospects and for students looking for more information or to maybe look beyond traditional co-op experiences, definitely talk to your own career advisor, career coach in Lindner Career Services. They're always obviously happy to hear from you and that's why they're there. They love to talk to students.
Marianne Lewis: (08:38)
You know, and if I may, there's something so important to what you're saying here too as well, because it's not just that we want you to be, you know, in the mess of real world problems. It's that that mess builds not only your skills at whatever problem you're trying to solve, that kind of work. It also builds your resilience because you will have failures. And that is life. And getting good at working through them is important. And it builds confidence because every time you have to work through a real challenge or a failure, and you get back up again, you know you can. And boy, that power of skills, resilience and confidence does wonders.
Grant Freking: (09:20)
And what better time to start doing it when you're enrolled.
Marianne Lewis: (09:22)
Right now.
Grant Freking: (09:23)
in college, and you don't have to necessarily answer to exactly -- you're doing real world problems without necessarily real world consequences, right? Now, Marianne, we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the community investment that is necessary to make these opportunities that we've just talked about happen for our students, whether it's from our faculty and staff, to our employer partners and alumni partners. When you speak to our stakeholders, what rationale do they give to you for investing in our students?
Marianne Lewis: (09:49)
You know, I love that question, Grant, because it's really one of the blessings of my job is I get to meet these wonderful people, typically alumni, but not always, right?
Grant Freking: (10:00)
Yeah.
Marianne Lewis: (10:00)
Who truly invest in our students and in Lindner. I think it's a couple of things. I mean, one of the things that I often share is just the beautiful transformation that is the student experience right now. I mean, I would, I could say this at the undergraduate as well, but I mean, if I think about an undergraduate, the difference between a first year and a graduate is remarkable. It is just a time of life where so much happens. And especially with an alum. Actually, I was just talking to one yesterday and I'm gonna go back to the student organizations, and he talks about within, he was president of his social fraternity and how much he learned about leadership in that work.
Marianne Lewis: (10:43)
And it was his first foray into both the challenges as well as opportunities of leadership. And it took him so far and he said, and then he amplified it with a co-op experience and then another, and he added a minor to his major. And I said, that is what we are putting on steroids. That powerful combination of, again, the curricular, the co-curricular, the co-op, the professional, right? That takes off and people get excited. And I love talking to people who say, look, I want, I want that to happen again and again and again. 'cause those are our future leaders, not just in the business world, but in our community and society.
Grant Freking: (11:21)
Agreed. And what you just listed out is a great compilation of a student's career, and it doesn't have to happen all at once.
Marianne Lewis: (11:27)
Oh, no.
Grant Freking: (11:27)
It sounds like a lot when we sit here.
Marianne Lewis: (11:29)
It does.
Grant Freking: (11:29)
And we list it out and it sounds daunting. And I think it can. And for an 18-year-old student, 17-year-old student walking in these doors for the first time, it'll sound daunting. But if you realize it's part of the progression and all the help you'll have along the way, it'll be very rewarding.
Marianne Lewis: (11:42)
It's a journey.
Grant Freking: (11:43)
It is.
Marianne Lewis: (11:43)
You're absolutely right. And when you asked about the first-year students, I think they can feel like they're drinking through the fire hose because there are so many opportunities. You don't take 'em all at once.
Grant Freking: (11:52)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (11:52)
You start to explore, you figure out what makes sense for you. And that's where it becomes personalized because this is not a cookie cutter. Every single student experience is gonna be different. And it's gonna depend on what you lean into, and what you lean into should depend on what skills you have, wanna develop, your interests, your passions, and that's how it comes together. I mean, it's not rocket science. And at the same time, it really is beautiful and it's fun to talk with people who've both been there and wanna see it happen more, better, for all.
Grant Freking: (12:26)
Marianne, what advice would you have for first year students who maybe feel a little overwhelmed by the experience and exploring the options available to them in terms of advisors, consulting with faculty, consulting with other coaches that are available to them within the building?
Marianne Lewis: (12:41)
Yeah. It's an important question, Grant. I mean, what my advice would be is recognize that you are part of the Lindner community. It is a really caring, mutually supportive group. And there are some very key players who are waiting and willing to help. I mean, you just mentioned your advisor, right? A student's academic advisor is so valuable. They know so many of the ins and outs. So is your career coach in Lindner Career Services? So is your PACE leader or other student leaders on this campus, because they've been there, they have done that. And then I would tell you, you know, as you start to feel more comfortable with those individuals who are literally in Lindner, in this building here to help you, I would also say that, you know, it's our employers. It's our alumni. We have this wonderful external community of partners. It's what co-op actually means. It means cooperative. We work together to fuel that learning because they're seeking to hire. And employers, anyone on this listening to this call, please reach out. We have wonderful, talented students. And students, that's why they're there. They want your development. They wanna help and they wanna hire. So think of that community and know that we're here for you.
Grant Freking: (13:58)
Absolutely. Marianne, thanks for coming by the Lindner Podcast Studio today. Happy fall semester.
Marianne Lewis: (14:02)
Thank you, Grant. Thanks for all you do.
Grant Freking: (14:04)
Are you a prospective student thinking about applying to Lindner? Are you an alum or employer looking to get involved with the college? Visit business.uc.edu to find your pathway to Lindner. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider subscribing or leaving a five-star review for Bearcats Mean business, so that we can continue to bring you enjoyable content. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Learning is a lifelong pursuit. Lindner’s portfolio of graduate degrees can help students boost their business knowledge, hone their expertise and cultivate their network of connections.
Andrew Harrison, PhD, associate dean for graduate programs and an associate professor of information systems, joined Bearcats Mean Business to discuss how Lindner's graduate programs open doors and create opportunities for students, as well as the college’s new Artificial Intelligence in Business graduate certificate.
Interested in enrolling in AI in Business or another Lindner graduate certificate? The priority deadline for the spring 2025 semester is October 15.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Learning is a lifelong pursuit. Lindner's portfolio of graduate degrees can help students boost their business knowledge, hone their expertise, and cultivate their network of connections. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, I'm joined by Dr. Andrew Harrison, Lindner's associate dean for graduate programs, and also an associate professor of Information Systems. Andrew supervises the college's graduate portfolio, ensuring alignment with Lindner strategy, UC partners and professional markets. Hi Andrew. Thanks for stopping by the Lindner Podcast Studio.
Andrew Harrison: (00:35)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be able to share something about the graduate programs here.
Grant Freking: (00:39)
First off, let's get you acquainted with our audience since you just joined the Dean's team. Tell us about your background.
Andrew Harrison: (00:45)
So originally I'm from Iowa. I got my doctorate at Iowa State University, and then I moved here. And, I've been in the OBAIS department, that's operations, business analytics, and information systems. My research is primarily on how people abuse technology for fraud.
Grant Freking: (01:03)
Oh.
Andrew Harrison: (01:03)
And then, yeah. And then, I have been the assistant department head and department head of the OBAIS department, as well as the new role I took on starting this fall as the associate dean for graduate programs.
Grant Freking: (01:17)
And you're a familiar face around here at Lindner to me and others, but how long have you been at Lindner?
Andrew Harrison: (01:20)
Right around 10 years.
Grant Freking: (01:22)
Okay, great. Andrew, let's first introduce the scope of Lindner's graduate portfolio. Prospective students have a lot to choose from nine master's degrees, 22 graduate certificates, and six doctoral programs. With that depth of learning available Lindner can help students achieve their personalized goals. What would you say to students considering a graduate degree from Lindner?
Andrew Harrison: (01:42)
Graduate degrees here at Lindner are a great idea. They provide a ton of upward mobility for people, and it's mainly about opening doors and creating opportunity. We have a lot of specializations in different programs that can provide them a very specific set of skills that are gonna be useful for their careers.
Grant Freking: (02:01)
Absolutely.
Andrew Harrison: (02:01)
But we also have programs that create a broader set of management skills if they're looking to go into sort of management role in an organization. So it provides a lot of upward mobility and trajectory within the organization.
Grant Freking: (02:14)
So more specifically, Lindner graduate certificates allow students to gain specialized business knowledge to boost their career options. What do you hear most from students who take a graduate certificate course at Lindner and how that has helped their careers?
Andrew Harrison: (02:27)
So each graduate certificate can be a little bit different depending on what skillset they're trying to acquire.
Grant Freking: (02:31)
Right.
Andrew Harrison: (02:31)
So most of the professional program degrees are about acquiring a very specific set of skills or the ability to manage them. So those would be things like business analytics or human resources. So they, they tend to target on a very specific type of business, and you become a world-class expert in those areas, whereas other degrees tend to be a little more general. For example, the MBA is probably the best example of that.
Grant Freking: (02:58)
Mm-Hmm.
Andrew Harrison: (02:58)
Where you get broad managerial skills to be able to build, develop and mentor teams within organizations.
Grant Freking: (03:06)
Right. And the college recently launched a graduate certificate that I know you were involved in, and that can be completed online and in person here at Lindner, and that is Artificial Intelligence in Business. So what was the thinking for creating the AI in Business graduate certificate?
Andrew Harrison: (03:22)
So, a lot of our programs develop actually from sort of a grassroots approach. And so we hear a lot from students about these are a specific set of skills that they need to develop. We hear from employers that these are the skills that we're looking for in terms of placing our students. We hear it from a lot of different directions. And when there's this preponderance of demand for programs, so we're hearing students want these skills, employers want these skills, the CEOs that we bring in talk about how important these skills are going to be in the future. Professors are saying, these are the skills that are in demand. When all the audiences tend to agree upon that, then we recognize that this is gonna be an important area for the future. And we try to build some curriculum in that.
Grant Freking: (04:07)
AI plays a central role in the way business is conducted. How does this certificate empower students to meet the needs of modern employers?
Andrew Harrison: (04:14)
Sure. So modern businesses incorporating AI in a lot of different ways. In the last five or 10 years, it's changed quite a bit because not all organizations had the infrastructure necessary to be able to use AI in an effective way. However, in the last few years, this infrastructure has been evolving and businesses are using AI to do a lot of the heavy lifting for analytical work that they hadn't been doing before. And a lot of our students, because business problem solvers are rooted in analytics in some regard.
Grant Freking: (04:47)
Absolutely.
Andrew Harrison: (04:47)
They're incorporating AI more and more into their work to be able to either gather data for them, aggregate, collate the data together, so that they can make better decisions when they're managing businesses.
Grant Freking: (04:58)
Andrew, AI covers many different topics. What are the areas that Lindner focuses on with this graduate certificate?
Andrew Harrison: (05:05)
Sure, so the parts that are the most germane to AI or to business for AI are predominantly, large language models, which are LLM and automated agents. So those are the types of things that we tend to teach. It's a type of generative AI that's gonna be used in businesses for problem solving and analysis.
Grant Freking: (05:25)
Okay. And so we're not, students here, they can't learn how to program a robot to, you know, zoom across the factory floor?
Andrew Harrison: (05:31)
Yeah, well, they can at UC, but that's probably more in the College of Engineering's domain, whereas we would probably be teaching you how to use an analytical model or analytical AI to help you decide how many robots to build or, how many robots you need on the factory floor at the same time.
Grant Freking: (05:48)
An important distinction.
Andrew Harrison: (05:48)
Yes.
Grant Freking: (05:48)
Now, what can you say about your fellow faculty members who will be teaching this course, particularly when it comes to offering students that firsthand, hands-on experience with AI tools and their research expertise?
Andrew Harrison: (06:01)
We have a great suite of faculty members teaching, particularly the core in the first few go-rounds of the AI certificate are wonderful. So we have, Craig Froehle, who's a professor out of operations. He's a huge proponent of technology and is always on top of cutting edge technologies. Jeff Shaffer is teaching one of the core classes. He's considered a guru in data visualization, but he's also an expert in AI and he teaches and lectures how to build chatbots. In addition, we have Liwei Chen, who is an expert in data movement and transference, which is the foundational parts of how the AI models work. And then finally, Rajeev Chhabra, he developed our course on AI governance, and he does AI governance work for Proctor and Gamble at scale. So all four of them have extensive, world-class, hands-on experience with AI. And they're, because the class is experiential or the courses are experiential, the students will be getting their hands dirty and building things like bots and analytical models using AI as well.
Grant Freking: (07:09)
And across a variety of topics based on the expertise you just listed from our esteemed faculty.
Andrew Harrison: (07:14)
Yeah, they should get a, a pretty nose to tail familiarity with AI all the way from how it's integrated into a business and organized, right down to how the actual models are built and implemented.
Grant Freking: (07:30)
Right. Let's zoom out a little bit and examine the benefits of potentially pairing the AI in Business graduate certificate with a Lindner MBA, for example, or a master of science in business analytics, perhaps a master of science in information systems, or even another degree from Lindner.
Andrew Harrison: (07:46)
So one of the great things about having as many programs as we do with 22 of them, is that that you get a sort of mix and match for what's the most applicable to you. And, for some people, they might really want to get into, say, analytics. And in that case, AI provides a second form of analytics that's not traditional, statistical or stochastic. So it gives them a different tool in the toolbox. Whereas say someone who's planning on go taking a management track will probably wanna know AI because they're going to have to create the rules, guidelines, directives within the organization, how AI is going to be used. Similarly, if someone goes into say, human resources, they need to know about how the AI policy should be developed in the next 10 years in the organizations. So, depending on what you want to pair it with, with either other degree programs or other certificates, gives you a lot of options and flexibility for tailoring the knowledge that you need for your career.
Grant Freking: (08:50)
And there are graduate advisors who can help you push you in the right direction when it comes to your interest in marrying many of the degree options and interest areas that you just talked about.
Andrew Harrison: (08:58)
Yeah. Our graduate programs office has some great advisors and coaches to help, not just sort out the curriculum so it fits students the right way with their schedules and what they wanna learn, but also to try to make sense of where this fits in their bigger career plans. And they're a tremendous resource. I wish I had them around when I was a student.
Grant Freking: (09:21)
Mm.
Andrew Harrison: (09:21)
Because I've seen how effective they can be at helping people learn exactly what they want, so that they can reap the best benefits when they get back into the work world.
Grant Freking: (09:30)
Andrew, thanks so much for stopping by the Lindner Podcast Studio. I appreciate your time and your expertise.
Andrew Harrison: (09:36)
Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you about it.
Grant Freking: (09:40)
Of course. Attention prospective students considering enrolling in AI in business or another Lindner graduate certificate, the priority deadline for the spring 2025 semester is October 15th. For more information and to apply, visit business.uc.edu/graduate. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please consider leaving us a five star review for Bearcats Mean Business, so that we can continue bringing you enjoyable content. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Access and engagement. Cultural competence. Crucial conversations. Ethics. Lindner’s four pillars of inclusive excellence supply students with a soft skills toolkit for becoming empathetic, responsible and respectful problem solvers.
On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Nick Castro, Lindner’s assistant dean for inclusive excellence, walks listeners through the principles by which Lindner strives to celebrate the uniqueness of our students, faculty and staff while cultivating an inclusive and collaborative environment.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
The Lindner College of Business Office of Inclusive Excellence Partners with the University of Cincinnati's office of Equity and Inclusion to further the university's commitment to inclusive excellence. At Lindner, we are firm believers that a supportive and inclusive culture is one that builds upon everyone's diverse strengths. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, I'm joined by Nick Castro, Lindner's assistant dean for Inclusive Excellence, to walk listeners through how Lindner cultivates an inclusive and collaborative environment for its community of students, faculty and staff. Hi Nick, thanks for stopping by the Lindner Podcast Studio.
Nick Castro: (00:39)
Hi, Grant. Thanks for having me. Very excited to be here.
Grant Freking: (00:42)
Nick, let's wind the clock back a few years, but only a few. Where does your passion for inclusivity come from?
Nick Castro: (00:49)
Oh, Grant, that's a great question, and I actually have to wind back quite a few years.
Grant Freking: (00:52)
All right. All right.
Nick Castro: (00:53)
Back to the eighties and nineties. But my passion for inclusivity comes from my own personal experience, you know, just like everybody else. Our lenses are formed and how we see the world by where we grew up and the people around us. And I grew up on the southside of Chicago in a very urban environment, typical Chicago news that you see in terms of low income, high crime, that kind of stuff. I grew up with my mom, who is a Mexican immigrant, so very much had that first-generation American upbringing, and many of the people in the neighborhood were like that as well. So, when I went off to college as a first-generation college student, neither of my parents had finished high school.
Nick Castro: (01:39)
It was culture shock for me, and there was a steep learning curve, 'cause I didn't know how to do college. Right? And I saw others that did know how to do college. So when I saw that, I realized that there were different areas where I felt like I could thrive and I knew the rules and I understood the culture and the expectations. That was the area that I grew up in. Right? Then you go to college and there's a whole new set of expectations and rules and requirements and ways to act and ways to do things. And I thought, wow, that's, that's hard. That's really hard. What it's led to now, though, is a place where I can live in different worlds, you know, so to speak. Whereas I have the ability to, to connect with folks who, you know, might have a similar background to me, and then connect with folks that have very professional lives and have gone, you know, had family members go to college and, and have high advanced degrees.
Nick Castro: (02:42)
And I have been able to grow and learn from that. So being able to have that experience of growing up in a very unique environment and then going to a new place, and I think college is that place right where we first experience those things and see new people and hear new ideas and challenge what we learned, as young individuals with our families or in our neighborhoods. So that's, that's kind of where I realized that there are, we all come from different places. We all have different ways of seeing things, and we all have to learn from each other in order to be successful.
Grant Freking: (03:19)
Sure. Thank you for sharing.
Nick Castro: (03:20)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (03:20)
I wanna push on your educational background a little bit more. What specifically did you study in your college days? And I know you went to law school as well to sort of prepare you for this role.
Nick Castro: (03:32)
Yeah, so I studied political science, and I don't know that it necessarily prepared me for this role.
Grant Freking: (03:40)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Castro: (03:40)
But the college experience, as I said earlier, prepared me for this role. And some other professional experiences prepared me as well. So I worked at the NCAA for a few years and their Office of Equity and Inclusion, and was able to work to get scholarships and grants to underrepresented individuals who wanted to be coaches and athletic administrators. So, another example, going back to your first question of, of things that made me passionate about this work, we were seeing that student athletes were overwhelmingly from diverse backgrounds, but the leadership in coaching and athletic administration was not reflecting that. So we wanted to make sure we did our part to, to level that playing field and encourage and promote people from different backgrounds into being coaches and athletic administrators. So I'd say that college, the college experience itself, outside of the classroom is, is really what helped me learning about this, this area and this job. But it's also those professional experiences early on in my career.
Grant Freking: (04:52)
Thank you. Well, we're happy to have you at Lindner. And our mission here at Lindner is to empower business problem solvers to tackle the world's challenges. How does inclusion fit into the college's mission and principles?
Nick Castro: (05:05)
Great question. So when I think of problem solvers, I think of a group. We can't solve problems on our own.
Grant Freking: (05:13)
Right.
Nick Castro: (05:13)
We need diverse ideas, diverse thoughts, diverse backgrounds and perspectives to be able to do that. So when we're asking students to learn in the classroom and learn outside the classroom so that they can tackle the world's toughest problems, how are they going to do that if they don't have some of these tools for inclusive leadership, tools that we'll talk about in a little bit, like cultural competence, like ethical and moral reasoning, like the ability to have a difficult conversation. We have to do it .
Grant Freking: (05:45)
We do.
Nick Castro: (05:45)
I've learned that not a lot of people, and I wasn't either at, at a certain point, trained to be able to have tough conversations, and most people try to avoid 'em. But to be an inclusive leader, we have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and having those, those conversations. So really the mission of Lindner is the mission of the Office of Inclusive Excellence. You can't separate the two. It's to prepare students to tackle problems and do it in a way with character and integrity, with a view of right and wrong, with a view of what's just, and what's unjust. To do that is to create a really empathetic and aware, inclusive leader and a problem solver.
Grant Freking: (06:33)
Now, building off that, let's expand more on the why of inclusive excellence at Lindner by providing our listeners with the college's four pillars of inclusive excellence and discussing the meaning behind each pillar. First up is access and engagement.
Nick Castro: (06:48)
So thinking about what we can provide students to be, as I had mentioned earlier, inclusive leaders, we thought of tools, right? We, we learn so much. Our students learn so much in the classroom. They learn so much through co-op through student, student organizations and activities. And I know in my professional career, I've been to countless conferences and workshops and I leave energized and I think, great, this is really cool, but how do I apply it? And I don't necessarily, a week later, two weeks later, know how to apply what I learned. So when thinking of our pillars and our why, again, we are building problem solvers. And to do that problem solvers need tools and tools that they can say, oh yes, I actually know how to use them. I learned it in the classroom or I learned it through some, some trainings and opportunities with the Office of Inclusive Excellence, and now I can apply it. So the why is really so that we can create a better business world and have students that know how to use these tools to be successful, successful individually, successful within a community, successful with the teams that they put together. It's, it's really important for them to learn that in order to be successful and to get a return on of investment on hard work here at Lindner.
Grant Freking: (08:17)
And syncing up with that as our second pillar, cultural competence.
Nick Castro: (08:21)
So this one's huge, Grant. This one I think is one of the biggest, and again, think, referring back to, to my story of going from the south side of Chicago to I didn't say it then, but Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was very different, culture shock. And our students have to navigate different cultures every day. I know when we think of cultural competence, we think of, oh, if I go on study abroad, I need to learn the history of the country I'm going to, and the cultural patterns and things like that and be able to adapt. But, and that is important and it is true.
Grant Freking: (08:56)
Mm.
Nick Castro: (08:56)
However, culture is in everything, right? Your team, marketing and communications, has a culture that's different from my team, my Inclusive Excellence team. Lindner College of Business has a culture that's different from Arts and Sciences or any of the other colleges here.
Grant Freking: (09:13)
Yep.
Nick Castro: (09:13)
One student organization might have, does have, a culture that's different from another student organization. So our students have to be able to navigate that effectively. And it's hard, it's hard work. So there'll be times where our students are new to the group and don't understand the rules, the culture of that group. Then there are times where our students are longstanding members and they have to be the ones to welcome new members and help alleviate that confusion, that shock when you don't understand the cultural norms or the expectations or the requirements. So, cultural competence is critical because it's a two-way street, and we're on both sides of those streets at different points in our life. There are times where we, like I said, know the rules and can help people adapt and times where we don't, and need that assistance. So when I engage with students, with my, when my team engages with students on cultural competence, it's really to let them know that, Hey, you're doing this every day.
Nick Castro: (10:10)
You're doing this constantly daily, and we just wanna make sure that you have the tools necessary to do it. We want you to make sure that you are aware of how you view the world, how the, the lenses in which that you have, you see things, know about other people, and then have the skills to be able to interact with others. And it's not rocket science. I wish I could say I was a rocket scientist and my team we're all rocket scientists, but it's really, you know, about things like effective communication. Are you actively listening? Are you, if you are talking about a different point of view, are you talking to debate and to win? Or are you talking and so that you can listen and learn?
Grant Freking: (10:56)
Mm-Hmm
Nick Castro: (10:56)
And these are all tools that students need to learn to be culturally competent, and to be effective members of the Lindner community.
Grant Freking: (11:06)
Well, your team may not be rocket scientists, but your work is still very crucial to the college's mission.
Nick Castro: (11:11)
I appreciate that.
Grant Freking: (11:12)
Our next pillar is something you've touched on a couple of times already. Crucial conversations.
Nick Castro: (11:17)
Yeah, absolutely. So crucial conversations I think is really important as well, because a lot of people are afraid to have difficult conversations, and there are a variety of ways to do it. And by difficult conversations it can mean anything from, Hey, we disagree, we're students in a group, we're doing group work. We disagree on the path we should take to complete this assignment. How do we talk about that? How do we get to a, a common ground? It could be, you know, faculty and staff on political issues. We are coming into an election season and we know there is gonna be back and forth about the election and views and things like that. So how do we have those conversations and do it in a way that is not detrimental to the Lindner community and in a way where we all still feel like we can share our opinion and be safe and heard and listen to others as well.
Grant Freking: (12:22)
Alright. Final pillar, ethics.
Nick Castro: (12:25)
Yeah, that's a good one too. Of course, I'm a little biased, so I think they're all good ones, but ethics is important in thinking about how we approach those problems. If you connect it all the way back to a few questions ago, and that the mission of Lindner, the mission of our office, it's to help promote effective business problem solving and business problem solvers.
Grant Freking: (12:49)
Right.
Nick Castro: (12:49)
And to do that, you have to look at those problems again, through a lens of character, through a lens of integrity. You have to look at those problems in a sense of right and wrong. And specifically from our inclusive excellence lens, look at those problems from a just or unjust perspective. So talking about ethics and moral dialogue and moral reasoning really just puts a spotlight on students and helps guide them to think about how they approach the problem and what layers of things they need to analyze to be able to do that. But you put all those things together, right? The cultural competence, the crucial conversations, the ethical and moral reasoning, and you've got that toolkit for students to be able to tackle some of those tough challenges and tough conversations and tough situations that they're in where they don't know the rules, where they don't understand the rules or requirements. It's really all about having our students prepared when they, when they leave Lindner.
Grant Freking: (13:51)
Absolutely. And let's help our listeners visualize those four pillars you just talked about. What are some ways for alumni, Lindner stakeholders in the community to see these four pillars in action?
Nick Castro: (14:02)
Grant, they just have to engage with our students. I think our employers will see it in co-op when our students are there and leading great teams and leading great groups, or contributing and feeling safe and contributing great ideas, being okay with being wrong.
Grant Freking: (14:19)
Hmm.
Nick Castro: (14:19)
And knowing that failure is okay, as long as we continue the conversation. Our alumni will see it, and that our students should come out more prepared right? Than other students with some of those soft skills, with the ability to have tough conversations, with the ability to adapt culturally to different cultures and environments, and to have that ethical perspective. It's one of those things where you'll know it when you see it, and I think our stakeholders, our employers, they'll know it when they see it, when our students are interacting and have a different level of effectiveness and ability to interact with others and be part of the communities that they're in.
Grant Freking: (15:06)
How do students benefit from your team and its partners?
Nick Castro: (15:10)
I'm so proud of my team and the work they do, Grant. We provide wraparound services for students, particularly students from different backgrounds, different experiences. We are able to support them academically, socially, that we are the go-to individuals for a lot of our students. The cool thing about my team is that we have the ability to interact and support every single student here at Lindner. So one of the things that we enjoy doing most in the springtime is my team and I are invited to present in the spring first-year experience courses. And we engage with every single section of that first-year experience, talk about inclusive leadership, to talk about crucial conversations. Well that's coming up this year. Last year we certainly focused on cultural competence. So we engage with all of our students, and we do it in a way where we meet them where they are. We find out what they need to be successful, and we do our best to either answer the questions for them, get them the resources they need or point them in the right direction. But we know that it takes a village to support students. And we are just one group of many. And I am always proud of all the stakeholders we have here at Lindner from academic advising to career services, that make that village, to graduate programs, that make that village to support our students. And we develop those one-on-one relationships with them, and they know that we've got their back.
Grant Freking: (16:48)
Before we close, can you expand on how Lindner's inclusive excellence standards intersect with UC's guiding principles and perhaps more specifically, the Bearcat Bond?
Nick Castro: (16:59)
So let me ask you a question, Grant. Have you, had you heard of the Bearcat Bond before you and I started talking about it?
Grant Freking: (17:07)
I had not.
Nick Castro: (17:07)
You had not. So you're not alone. There are a lot of faculty and staff that I've spoken to over the past six months, maybe even more, talking about the Bearcat Bond. What is that?
Grant Freking: (17:19)
Yep.
Nick Castro: (17:19)
And I know it's primarily for students, which is great, but when I stumbled upon it as well in thinking about how we build out these pillars and this mission for the office and how it lives in the college, I stumbled upon the Bearcat Bond and I read it and I said, wow, this really encapsulates pretty much everything that we are thinking. And so I'm gonna read it right now so that folks have, a understanding of what it means, right?
Nick Castro: (17:48)
So Bearcat Bond. As a member of the University of Cincinnati, I will uphold the principles for a just community and the values of respect, responsibility, and inclusiveness. I will promote the highest levels of personal and academic honesty, aspire continuously to better myself, the Bearcat community and the world.
Nick Castro: (18:09)
So Grant, I don't know that I could have said it any better in terms of the community that we want to create for our students, for our faculty and staff, and the community that we want our students to create when they are out in the business world. Particularly respect, I'm focusing on the words respect, responsibility, inclusiveness.
Grant Freking: (18:28)
Yeah.
Nick Castro: (18:28)
And when you think about a just community, UC's principles overall talk about celebrating the uniqueness of each individual, of creating an environment that's safe and affirming, that nurtures independent thinking. And those just community principles ask us to practice civility, promote justice, and to seek integrity. So this shouldn't be the first time those words have come across the podcast desk here, right? We've talked about this pretty much the whole time.
Grant Freking: (18:56)
Mm-Hmm, .
Nick Castro: (18:57)
So our efforts align directly with the university and what the university wants all of our students to learn and to promote when they leave the University of Cincinnati. And this aligns perfectly with what our college wants as well for our students.
Grant Freking: (19:14)
Nick, thanks so much for stopping by the Lindner Podcast studio today. I appreciate you and your expertise.
Nick Castro: (19:19)
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Grant Freking: (19:21)
If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review Bearcats Bean Business so that we can continue to bring you enjoyable content. Our next episode will feature Dr. Andrew Harrison, Lindner's associate dean for graduate programs, who stops by to chat about the college's robust graduate program portfolio and the recent launch of the new artificial intelligence in business graduate certificate. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Ranked second among Ohio public institutions by both Bloomberg Businessweek and Poets&Quants, Lindner’s full-time, one-year MBA program is customized for each student.
But what is it really like to be a student in the full-time MBA cohort? Vidita Kanniks joined Bearcats Mean Business to provide the lowdown on full-time MBA cohort culture, program curriculum, capstone projects, company connections, career leveling-up and more!
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Ranked second among Ohio public institutions by both Bloomberg Businessweek and Poets&Quants, Lindner's full-time, one-year MBA program is customized for each student. A close-knit cohort atmosphere, and real world problem solving engagement with the Cincinnati area business community, are just a few of the traits that define the full-time MBA program, which owns a 98% job placement rate for its graduates. But what's it like to be a student in the full-time MBA cohort? My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. On this episode of Bearcats Mean Business, I'm joined by Vidita Kanniks, a student in Lindner's full-time MBA program, to find out the answer to that question and much more. Hi Vidita. Thanks for stopping by the Lindner Podcast Studio.
Vidita Kanniks: (00:44)
Hi Grant, thanks so much for having me today.
Grant Freking: (00:46)
Of course, you're in the last few months of your MBA program at this point. How does it feel?
Vidita Kanniks: (00:51)
It's honestly like the last few weeks at this point and it's, it's exciting to know that the end is just around the corner, right?
Grant Freking: (00:58)
. So how did, walk me through how you decided to take a year off from work to join just any MBA cohort program, not necessarily Lindner at this point.
Vidita Kanniks: (01:07)
Well, the MBA was an interesting and almost like a spontaneous decision. I was wrapping up an internship last summer in social media and marketing in like the nonprofit world. 'cause I have a music background. And I had started kind of branching out into the arts administration world as a result of that. And some of the contacts I made through this internship, some of the experiences I had, made me just kind of hungry to learn more and also challenge myself to sort of embrace bigger career prospects. So, you know, my entire life I had only known the arts world and I felt like I was in sort of an echo chamber for a long time. And it didn't make sense for me, I guess, to do another undergraduate degree. But it also felt like a master's in an entire single subject, like marketing, was a huge and kind of scary commitment. So I landed on the idea of the MBA because it's so holistic and it gives you a glimpse out of working at a high level into all of the areas of managing a business, starting a business, leadership, and also a really great network. I think it's just a fantastic degree and UC was already home for me, so it was a really obvious choice to consider.
Grant Freking: (02:36)
Sure. Aside from location.
Vidita Kanniks: (02:39)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (02:40)
And with what you just explained in mind, how did you land on Lindner's full-time MBA program as opposed to like the working professional.
Vidita Kanniks: (02:45)
for sure. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (02:46)
Program or even online?
Vidita Kanniks: (02:49)
Well, for me specifically, I don't have a business background and that's actually one of the things that I appreciated about this program is that there was quite a lot of diversity in the backgrounds of the folks coming into this program. And I think the full-time cohort specifically represents that really well. The people who are kind of taking the time to really just focus on academia. Some of them had business backgrounds, but we had a pretty wide range. I mean, there was a previous anthropology major, computer science, I think there was even like somebody who had studied nutrition science. We had a med student. And so there was so much, sort of like diversity of thought and experience. Whereas, you know, I think a part-time program also being largely online, may not have been as rich in terms of getting to connect with all of the different experiences that people bring. You know, considering that I was very new to this world, I wanted to get the most comprehensive experience possible. And I think learning from your peers was actually like one of the key components of what I've gained from the program. So I haven't really looked back. I also have a couple friends who graduated from the full-time cohort and they recommended that sort of collaborative aspect of it really strongly. So, yeah, it was definitely a, a differentiator, you could say .
Grant Freking: (04:27)
Sure. And each subset of the MBA program at Lindner is kind of designed to meet people where they're at, right.
Vidita Kanniks: (04:33)
Yes.
Grant Freking: (04:33)
And this was the full-time, met you with what your needs and wants were at the time.
Vidita Kanniks: (04:37)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (04:37)
So let's give listeners a bit of a peek behind the curtain inside the full-time MBA program. What were your thoughts on the program structure and it and its courses?
Vidita Kanniks: (04:46)
So the structure is pretty intense because it is full time. I think a lot of it, even if it's not like the physical hours you're spending in a classroom is expected that you are putting into studying or, reading or even just, you know, teamwork with your peers. The entire sort of system is in half-semesters. So although you can graduate in two to three semesters, depending on your background, it still feels like time is stretched out because of how much material they've packed. It's like, almost like there's two terms of content in one semester.
Grant Freking: (05:25)
I see.
Vidita Kanniks: (05:26)
So it was nice to have each other, you know, pulling each other along.
Grant Freking: (05:30)
Yeah.
Vidita Kanniks: (05:30)
Because of, you know, this rollercoaster kind of a course setup, I think most of us were maxed at like between 18 to 20 credit hours per semester, and a lot of different disciplines that we're exposed to all at once.
Vidita Kanniks: (05:44)
Right. So in one semester we might have an econ class and a marketing class and a finance class, and, gosh, I don't know, organizational leadership. And then in addition to that, whatever electives you might be taking, and then each of those, you know, requires sort of code switching because they're all vastly different in terms of the material. So,
Grant Freking: (06:07)
Absolutely.
Vidita Kanniks: (06:07)
Yeah, it was, it was intense, but it was also a lot of fun to kind of just be thrown into the deep end after what felt like this sort of lull , you know, after the pandemic. I think it's a lot of people, I don't, I can't speak for everybody, but I definitely fell into like a bit of a status quo. So this definitely came in and exercised parts of my brain that I hadn't used in a long time.
Grant Freking: (06:32)
Yeah, and I'm sure helped you build comraderie with what you just talked about with maybe a sense of belonging as well as.
Vidita Kanniks: (06:38)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (06:38)
I don't wanna say a shared sense of suffering because that's not the point of the program, but a shared sense of like, you know, positive struggle almost with like.
Vidita Kanniks: (06:46)
Totally. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (06:46)
The coursework and, you know, everyone's going through similar things. You can bounce ideas off of each other, I'm sure.
Vidita Kanniks: (06:51)
Yeah. And I think having the time to just be able to focus on this. I mean, there were a few people who were still working part-time. I was still able to, you know, commit to a few part-time hours a week for my social media marketing gig. But, for the most part, I think everybody was just really locked in school as their main focus. And, like you said, that that comraderie aspect was nice because we could just all get together to study or, sort of just support each other through the bigger assignments and preparation for exams and things like that.
Grant Freking: (07:25)
Yeah. That's nice to hear.
Vidita Kanniks: (07:26)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (07:26)
What can you share about the case study and capstone projects that you've worked on with the MBA cohort?
Vidita Kanniks: (07:33)
Well, in terms of case studies, I think, you know, I came into business school honestly having no idea what to expect. And, how case study-driven a lot of the curriculum is was very cool for me. That's an aspect to this world that I wasn't aware of. But I think it is kind of cool to think about in really any aspect of the world. , you know, looking at trying to relate this to the music world. I wonder if, you know, doing case studies on like the way people interact with music and that kind of stuff would be a very cool medium to explore any kind of academic content, but especially here, I think it was a really nice way to tie these different areas of business together because no one case is really about just one thing, right?
Grant Freking: (08:24)
Right, one subset of business study. Right?
Vidita Kanniks: (08:25)
It's impossible. I mean, all of these things are interconnected and the business world is gigantic and overwhelming, but I think taking these bite-sized sort of glimpses into one company or one area, or one individual's experience, really turned it into like a real-world application. So I really liked that that was one of the main points of study across classes. And, you know, we even saw like some of the Fortune 500 companies here in Cincinnati represented. Procter and Gamble came up a lot. I think in our IT class we did a marketing case study.
Grant Freking: (09:07)
Oh.
Vidita Kanniks: (09:07)
And I clearly remember a, a comment by one of our students being like, at first I was wondering why we're doing a marketing case study in an IT class. But, you know, the subject material ended up being about the use of social media and digital advertising, which is, you know, inherently an IT concept .
Vidita Kanniks: (09:27)
So,
Grant Freking: (09:27)
mm-Hmm.
Vidita Kanniks: (09:27)
You know, like, yeah, all of these things are connected and that is something that was really refreshing to walk away with. And in terms of the capstone, I think, you know, it was a core component of the program that, I'm actually not sure how the non full-time students handle that, because if we weren't full-time, I'm not sure how we would've been able to do it. Right? There was a lot of in-person interaction. We were, assigned into groups and were led by a faculty advisor and also made connections with mentors, alumni.
Grant Freking: (10:01)
Sure.
Vidita Kanniks: (10:01)
And we worked with real companies here in Cincinnati. And, we were challenged the way that any professional consultants would be. I think it was really valuable to be put in that real world environment, to be asked these again, real world questions and also to have the opportunity to get feedback from them. Because a lot of times I think with faculty, you know, that perspective is very much like, oh, we wanna help you learn. But then.
Grant Freking: (10:34)
mm-Hmm.
Vidita Kanniks: (10:34)
At least in my experience working with a real company, it was like there's a sense of urgency that they have in terms of solving an actual problem. And so their feedback was very frank and very much informed by what the world looks like right now.
Grant Freking: (10:51)
Yeah.
Vidita Kanniks: (10:51)
Whether it's, you know, what does AI look like in terms of jobs or, the future of our industry and, and stuff like that. So, cool experience all around and, definitely something I'll take with me into future job interviews because it's, yeah. Like it was like the culmination of sort of everything that we learned.
Grant Freking: (11:12)
Yeah. Something you can look back on as a story you tell a potential future employer of like how you overcame the obstacle, the question that seemingly asked in most job interviews. Right. What about the, you mentioned the holistic and sort of wide ranging education of the MBA. Did you feel that that prepared by hitting you had you learned many different components of the business, right? Not just focusing on marketing and or accounting or whatever.
Vidita Kanniks: (11:33)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (11:33)
Did you feel like that assisted you in those capstone and case study projects when you were put on the spot that you had a broad range of things to touch on rather than a specific subset? Not that there's either one, you know, some the specific subset may be good for someone else, but in your position in that moment of time, it seems like the former may have been better.
Vidita Kanniks: (11:52)
Yeah, I mean, I think for our specific, and I mean we've all signed NDAs, so I won't get into the details, right.
Grant Freking: (11:59)
Yeah. I knew, I figured as much
Vidita Kanniks: (12:01)
, but, I would definitely say that like, you know, a combination of the real world experience that we brought into the MBA paired with the knowledge and perspective that we had gained from study, kind of helped to inform the recommendations we made to our company. And that's why I think it's also so important that we come in with at least some experience in the real world. And I think that's something that our program director was really thinking about when admitting students, because there needs to be a level of critical thinking that challenges one another because, you know, if you don't have experience to bring in, then there's really nothing that you can compare what you're learning to, I guess.
Grant Freking: (12:50)
Yeah.
Vidita Kanniks: (12:50)
So yeah, I think that was also really valuable because, I was not only able to take away from like these plausible case scenarios, but also, having my peers weigh in on, you know, well, I had an experience like this with my previous employer and they used so and so and so, and that might work well here. And then using that, to kind of present maybe to a mentor or advisor to be like, what do you think of this? So it was really a whole wealth of ideas that played into how we went about, you know, solving problems. So.
Grant Freking: (13:28)
You touched on the connection to Fortune 500 companies that the program provided to you. How has the program connected you to Cincinnati area businesses and the community at large?
Vidita Kanniks: (13:39)
I think, you know, with how huge a footprint UC has and a pretty strong legacy, it's really natural to interact with these companies. So many huge firms right here in our backyard. It's almost impossible to like not notice or interact with them.
Grant Freking: (13:57)
Mm-Hmm.
Vidita Kanniks: (13:58)
even passively, because every day there's some kind of job fair or pop-up, or opportunity to, connect with, you know, either a recruiter or you know, alumni. I think, you know, UC does a nice job of fostering the alumni network. So I know that there have been so many days just sitting around here, I would see like some event happening downstairs or somebody setting up a booth, some company looking to recruit for summer internships or, you know, whatever it might be. And that's all in addition to the gigantic job fairs that we host here annually.
Grant Freking: (14:36)
Right, right.
Vidita Kanniks: (14:37)
And then in addition to that, we're all connected with individual career advisors, which I think is also a valuable component of the program. I know a lot of people really enjoyed working with Weston, who was our MBA career coach. And yeah, it was like mandatory to check in and stuff like that, , but I don't think anybody felt like it was a chore. Right? It was something that we all felt like was an asset to, you know, what we were learning and being able to network and, tailor a resume or really craft your responses to interview questions and things like that are equally, I think, important to, you know, what you get out of a program in addition to the scholarship that you're getting from it. So personally I think that, I mean, that was one of the main things that drew me to the program. 'cause I was, like I said, interested in expanding the scope of my career prospects and I'm really pleased with what I've walked away with. I mean, I think I had maybe three people on my LinkedIn when I started, and I've been able to grow that and meet a lot of interesting people. And I feel comfortable, you know, reaching out and be like, Hey, you went to UC. I went to UC. Do you wanna have a coffee? I mean
Grant Freking: (15:57)
People are typically receptive to that sort thing.
Vidita Kanniks: (15:58)
Yeah, exactly. And I, and I think that this, program especially has kind of leveraged the ability to just kind of bump into somebody's emails, and, you know, be able to bond over some mutual experience through UC. So.
Grant Freking: (16:15)
Yeah, it's nice to hear about the mutual kinship. I know just being around the cohort for a couple of times, notably like some photoshoot arrangements, but it seemed like there was some, some good relationships already being fostered at the beginning.
Vidita Kanniks: (16:28)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (16:28)
Of the cohort. So that's nice to hear. Along with your fellow MBA program ambassadors, of which I believe there were three.
Vidita Kanniks: (16:34)
mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (16:34)
including yourself, you organized, a field trip of sorts to Proctor and Gamble. What was the intent of that visit and what were your takeaways?
Vidita Kanniks: (16:42)
Yeah, so I mean, as I mentioned, Proctor and Gamble is a company that we're all aware of passively because, you know, whether you realize it or not, we have all used their products. They're all household names. And then, you know, in a more active sense, Procter and Gamble has probably come up in every one of our core classes, whether it's examining, you know, their like gross revenue for the quarter or like, looking at their digital marketing moves to expand their scope or whatever it might be. It's a hot topic. And I mean, they're gigantic. They're an international presence here in Cincinnati. And I actually had a little bit of a personal connection with them because many years ago before I even went to music school, I was able to connect with P&G through like a high school level internship.
Vidita Kanniks: (17:48)
And I had a really cool experience there. And, I mean I know that like a lot of people here are likely interested in exploring a career with them just 'cause there are so many different types of opportunities you can have. So we thought, you know, instead of bringing in a guest speaker here, which is something that we get to experience all the time, why not go and have like a hands-on experience? It's like a 10-minute drive away . And there are again, like I said, a ton of awesome alumni who are very helpful, resourceful. So we connected with one of our professors here who is a previous P&G'er. She was really happy to kind of like set this up for us. She connected us to Alex Perez, who's also a UC MBA graduate. And he kind of got the ball rolling for us and they were super generous with their time and their energy.
Vidita Kanniks: (18:47)
We had, a tour of the headquarters, which I think was really exciting for everybody to just actually, like I said, get that hands-on experience. They have a really cool, sort of like a museum in there that kind of tracks the history of all their products and all of their campaigns. And to just witness the kind of global impact they've had, I think was really inspiring for a lot of folks. So I hope that might become like an annual thing, if not at P&G, maybe somewhere else in Cincinnati. But I do, feel like it was a really nice way to kind of wrap up the semester, it was toward the end of our spring semester that we went.
Grant Freking: (19:27)
Right. And another way to get some learning and some some practical experience outside of the classroom, too. Now the full-time, MBA cohort also features a study abroad experience. Tell me about your team's trip to Chile.
Vidita Kanniks: (19:41)
So I actually, and it was super unfortunate, I ended up not being able to go, but I can definitely speak for my peers on the fact that it was like, just really, really cool. I think Chile is a place that a lot of people might not necessarily visit, first of all in a lifetime.
Grant Freking: (19:58)
Mm-Hmm.
Vidita Kanniks: (19:58)
So I think the fact that this program offered that, too, opportunity in such a curated way, was, you know, a once in a lifetime thing. I know a lot of the students, benefited from the sort of networking opportunity there. Being able to make connections with international students and mentors. I believe the content, was actually like surrounding, you know, dealing with crisis management, or just general management across cultures. So I think any kind of cross-cultural experience is always eye-opening. Those experiences will be like, kind of burned into your brain forever.
Vidita Kanniks: (20:50)
And it was also a bonding experience for the group as far as I know. I mean, I had like FOMO, ,
Grant Freking: (20:59)
Of course, yeah.
Vidita Kanniks: (20:59)
seeing everybody having fun.
Grant Freking: (21:01)
Yeah, that's the worst.
Vidita Kanniks: (21:01)
They were like kayaking and going to these vineyards. It looked really, really cool. And, I think, yeah, it was definitely like an unforgettable sort of a way to, really bring the program members together.
Grant Freking: (21:52)
Cool. So in sum, how do you feel the program has helped you level up in your career?
Vidita Kanniks: (21:58)
I definitely, feel like the networking aspect was huge. I feel like I can again, like reach out to so many people now who are happy to offer their wisdom, their advice, the people they know, the context they know. And so that was a huge level-up because networking, you know, is the name of the game. In addition to that, I think just being able to acquire the business perspective on the world, I think has forever changed the way that I look at pretty much everything , all of my interactions with, you know, the things that I consume. I feel like I have this like, zoomed outlook on it, which I don't know, it's like, it's like, you know, they say once you see something, you can't unsee it. That's how I feel.
Grant Freking: (22:50)
Absolutely.
Vidita Kanniks: (22:50)
Having gone to business school,
Grant Freking: (22:51)
Right? Yeah, I mean.
Vidita Kanniks: (22:52)
Because this, yeah, this entire world runs on like, you know, these relationships between entities and their stakeholders. So , I think that perspective is something I'll take with me forever, not only in my work, but also just in my personal life and how I interact with people. I think it's made me sensitive, empathetic, and I hope that it has shaped me into being a better listener and a better leader, which is something that I hope to take into whatever position that I might explore in the future, whether that's management in the arts or elsewhere. So, yeah, so much growth looking back in a very short time.
Grant Freking: (23:32)
Well, my thanks to Vidita Kanniks for stopping by Lindner's podcast studio today. For more information on Lindner's MBA programs, visit business.uc.edu/mba. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business, so we can continue to bring you enjoyable content. Bearcats Mean business is also available on Amazon Music, YouTube, and Audible. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Rising second-year marketing and business analytics student Audrey Allen joins Bearcats Mean Business to discuss her co-op with Lindner’s undergraduate advising office, her path to Lindner and adjusting to college life before offering dos and don’ts about the college application process and relaying cherished memories from her first year at Lindner/UC.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. On this episode, I'm joined by Audrey Allen, a rising second-year student majoring in marketing and business analytics, who is spending the summer as a co-op in Lindner's undergraduate advising office. Hi Audrey. Thanks for being here.
Audrey Allen: (00:25)
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Grant Freking: (00:27)
Of course. So let's jump right into what I'm sure is a hot topic among students: acquiring a co-op. How did you land your current position and what are your duties?
Audrey Allen: (00:35)
I landed my position as an undergraduate advising kind of assistant, co-op for the front desk because I've always been interested in helping out prospective students and working with Lindner students who are coming in just to spread the word about how much stuff you can get done in Lindner and do, like study abroad to even co-ops and those kind of things. Definitely just wanted to let them know what they're coming for and advocate for Lindner. So I got it because I went to a career fair and I saw Brittany there, who is one of the undergraduate academic advisors.
Grant Freking: (01:09)
Mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (01:10)
Who I'm familiar with. So we kind of chatted and she gave a little overview what I'll be doing and yeah, so which the duties are gonna be leading the Bearcat Bound orientation that all the incoming business freshmen will do. And so they, we do a fun activity and kind of show 'em what Lindner's gonna be like and how to be a Lindner business student. And then I just help out with any front desk needs, any of the advisors, any tasks to do. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (01:41)
Cool. So what sort of prompted you to want this particular co-op besides like obviously filling, you know, wanting to do an actual co-op, that it seems like you have a sort of a natural inclination to kind of help people and maybe it stems back to like you did something similar like in this position like a year or so ago when you were an incoming freshman.
Audrey Allen: (01:59)
Yeah, definitely. I just like to give back. I love community service I love working with students and I just like to hear from other people. Just naturally just like to talk to people and just see what their interests are and what can align with them. But definitely I knew about a lot about Lindner, in high school, a lot of older people I knew went to University of Cincinnati, so I'd ask them oh, how's that going? And my older brother went here. So it definitely just something that's been around like, oh yeah, UC, and then just diving into all the things that they have offered.
Grant Freking: (02:34)
Awesome. So what have you kind of, what have you learned so far on your co-op, particularly the Bearcats Bound orientation where I'm sure it involves a lot of preparation and has a little bit of a regimen to it in terms of presenting the material to some eager students and probably some even more eager parents.
Audrey Allen: (02:51)
Yeah, absolutely. So the parents are in different section during mine, so it's just the students.
Grant Freking: (02:55)
Oh, okay.
Audrey Allen: (02:57)
But with the presentation aspect, there's so much that goes behind the scenes with the advising and everything that goes on there. All the preparation that they do for these incoming students definitely was surprising to me because when I was coming in, I just kind of filled the task, showed up, did what they had me do and then leave. But there's so much behind the scenes of them coordinating who's gonna do what, all this like behind the scenes work, I was like, wow, there's so much going on that I had no idea.
Grant Freking: (03:23)
Right.
Audrey Allen: (03:23)
But definitely just learning all the systems. Even now I'm learning about new things that there wasn't even offered that I didn't know about. Like for one, for suits I learned that there's like a Bearcat Buddies program where you can like rent out a suit or like clothes and stuff like that, which I had no idea about.
Grant Freking: (03:40)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Audrey Allen: (03:41)
so that was something I just keep learning about other programs that Lindner has to offer.
Grant Freking: (03:45)
Awesome. So we've talked a little bit about your, how you help educate prospective students. And it wasn't too long ago, as I mentioned that you were in their shoes. What do you remember about the experience of applying to college and going through that decision making process and why did you end up selecting Lindner and UC?
Audrey Allen: (04:00)
Yeah, absolutely. So my high school's not that far away from here. It's like 30 minutes. And so a lot of people I knew go to UC, so it kind of wasn't even on my radar. I was like, oh, everyone goes there. I'm not gonna, I mean, I'm not gonna see people I know from high school every day and it's just gonna be like high school again. I wanna get out of the way, don't go to UC or whatever. But then I applied to it just like, oh, I mean, I might as well, I mean see if I can get in or whatever. And I saw like I got in and I was reading more about it and then they would send me like newsletters and those kind of things. I was like, oh wow. Like it's actually like pretty cool look at all the programs. The study abroad really caught my eye 'cause I'm a big fan of doing all those faculty ones. I'm looking at them right now. I'm going to India in the fall.
Grant Freking: (04:45)
Congratulations.
Audrey Allen: (04:47)
Thank you. And so definitely just learning more about it that I had no idea. I mean, I knew of UC and because all, like the previous people I knew went to UC, but I just never really thought of it as mine. Like my school, I would go to college. But definitely it stood out to me in their business program since I was going in marketing. Marketing is like their number one major here.
Grant Freking: (05:10)
It is.
Audrey Allen: (05:10)
And I knew that their co-op program caught my eye. I was like, wait, I didn't even know that. Like that's a thing. And everything like that just kind of built up. I was like, okay, I'll go.
Grant Freking: (05:19)
Yeah. Well I'm number one, glad you ended up here too. No. 2, I'm glad our marketing materials are like holding some weight with our target audience too.
Audrey Allen: (05:28)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (05:29)
Talk a little bit more about the co-op and sort of why that that stuck out to you and maybe the opportunities it can present to students.
Audrey Allen: (05:38)
Yeah, so I mean I was always interested in internships in high school. I did one or two, but they were all like, you know, like the summer, like high school ones, they weren't like a super much.
Grant Freking: (05:46)
Mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (05:47)
like time consuming. And so definitely just thinking about like, oh I can work like an actual company in my first or like my years without even getting a degree yet. Just working and experiencing those things and just seeing what other people are being able to do. Like all the P&G and internships that turn into a full-time and all those really cool things. I was like, well that's interesting. But definitely the one I wanted for this one, the advising co-op, it's just nice it was from UC. I was just applying to ones that were all around like, oh, like this one had one. And then I saw that UC had their own co-ops, which works out perfectly.
Audrey Allen: (06:22)
It's like, oh, like this is where, I know everything about it and I feel confident, especially after my first year. I feel like I can't work in a field. I don't know what, I've just taken my intro classes. I don't know what I'm gonna do. And so definitely hearing from like UC and how many, like they still have like so many co-ops available that they offer in the fall and the spring and it just worked out since I was nearby. I can just drive over, commute and then work here. So definitely those kind of things. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (06:50)
Awesome. Let's talk a little bit about that first year now. Prospective students who might be listening will be interested to know the adjustment from high school to college, which is significant. What was it like for you and how did you develop a routine as a new college student?
Audrey Allen: (07:03)
So definitely in high school I didn't have much homework. I had a lot of like study hall periods. So definitely kind of barely had any homework senior year. So I was kind of out of a groove of just like not doing that much work. So definitely coming out of high school I was like, okay, I gotta lock down, I gotta gotta make sure I get all my assignments turned in on time and get a good GPA and everything. So I'm a very like organizational person. I have to make a to-do list, I have to cross things off. It makes me feel accomplished. So getting a planner and just Sunday just writing down every single thing I would have do that week and then like allocate a day to do it. But like keep my loads like pretty light so I can still go to clubs and everything like that definitely helped like saying like what I need to get done and doing it. Yeah
Grant Freking: (07:52)
Sure. So talk about maybe breaking the stigma of sort of any intimidation.
Audrey Allen: (07:57)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (07:57)
you felt towards asking questions.
Audrey Allen: (07:59)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (07:59)
To perceived authority figures, whether it's your advisors, career coaches, faculty. Talk about your process for for breaking through that.
Audrey Allen: (08:08)
Yeah, absolutely. I never really talked to my advisor in high school. I mean I really had no need to go to her.
Grant Freking: (08:13)
Sure.
Audrey Allen: (08:13)
And so definitely it was just I could do it on my own. Like I was like, I got it. Like that's fine. But then I came into the processes where I would just be like, oh what do, how do I get around this? And it's like, who do I talk to? And then reaching out, it's kind of scary 'cause it's like are they gonna judge me? 'cause I didn't know how to answer that question.
Grant Freking: (08:30)
That's exactly what they're here for is to help you.
Audrey Allen: (08:32)
Yeah. And so then just talking to 'em, especially now in my co-op, working with them like every single day, they really, really care about students and they want you to succeed. So there's really no fear reaching out, especially my career coach too. Just like how do I do a job? Like you're already working at a job , you're probably gonna think like, oh just do it the way I did it.
Grant Freking: (08:52)
Mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (08:53)
But definitely hearing about the career career coaches and the academic advisors and everyone who's here to support you, like you're not alone at all. And then your other like peers that you're with going through the same process. So connecting with other students and being like, oh like how did you get around this? And those kind of things. Along with the PACE leaders, since they're there your first like learning community.
Grant Freking: (09:14)
Right.
Audrey Allen: (09:14)
They offer so much information that you might be intimidated to ask like an advisor or someone like that. So they would definitely give you the support like, oh go out and do this and they'll give you all that information. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (09:27)
Yeah. You mentioned PACE Leader and I was gonna leave that towards the end, but we can bring it up now since you did. You're gonna be PACE leader in the fall. Tell me about again that process.
Audrey Allen: (09:35)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (09:35)
And I guess you've almost sort of stated your inspiration.
Audrey Allen: (09:38)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (09:38)
But I guess expand a little bit why that that meant something that was important to you enough to apply and dedicate your own time beyond your studies and and your other things you have going on to embark on.
Audrey Allen: (09:49)
Yeah, so my PACE leader this past year has been incredible. She offers a ton of advice to us and it's just something like, wow, you can really look up to her. And all the ones seemed so incredible and everyone really enjoyed talking to them. And especially with like Lindner Ambassadors program where we work with prospective Lindner students coming in. Just that whole aspect of giving back to students what I had given, or gotten from my PACE leader. So just all that information, it's like I want to help someone else. I want them to feel comfortable coming up to me and asking a question that I also went through. And I wanna give 'em all that advice to get out there, go to clubs and those kind of things that I know I was definitely scared about and kind of meek about just, oh, I'm just a freshman showing up at this big campus. Well what am I gonna do? Definitely navigating all the resources and just even with classwork, just staying on top of it and don't let it fall behind. And I just wanted to give that little, little tidbits back from what I got.
Grant Freking: (10:54)
Right. Yeah. I think students who are going to any college and, but I know from my personal experience here at Lindner will be sort of stunned by how welcoming everyone's going be. Whether it's your fellow classmates, the upperclassmen, just or older students in general, you know, the staff here. Just kind of, and it's hard, it's easier said than done. Easy for me and you to say Right. . But the kind of breakthrough, the initial barrier of like just asking for help and you're like, wow, look at all these resources sort of available.
Audrey Allen: (11:18)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (11:18)
And you touched on advice. What advice do you have for those perspective students? Maybe some do's and don'ts about anything from the application process to, you mentioned getting involved, kind of whatever comes to mind about the college experience.
Audrey Allen: (11:32)
Yeah, absolutely. So definitely get involved but also manage your academics.
Grant Freking: (11:36)
Mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (11:36)
Your GPA is a big thing, but it's okay if it's like you can always bring it back up. But definitely academics. There's so much you're learning in these classes that you're paying so much you're paying money for. So go to them, really learn, ask the professors, get close with the professors. There's a few like for marketing, Ric Sweeney, I know I've had him and amazing professor. Definitely interesting to hear from. So just learning about go to class , don't, don't skip, show up and do your work and participate. Definitely you'll get a lot back. But also just club wise, there's a few clubs I went to that I was just like, oh, I'll just go just to see if I like it and end up loving it and staying there for the whole year. So definitely yeah, just go to clubs, get involved, and just have fun but be safe with it. But yeah.
Grant Freking: (12:30)
Follow your interests And then, and eventually I think some students end up maybe do signing up for too much. Right.
Audrey Allen: (12:35)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (12:35)
But that's a kind of a natural process of kind of becoming an adult and becoming a more, seasoned college student is figuring out your priorities. Right.
Audrey Allen: (12:42)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (12:42)
So I'm sure something you're learning as you kind of maybe graduate into more important roles and sort of figure out exactly what you want.
Audrey Allen: (12:48)
Exactly.
Grant Freking: (12:48)
So what are some of the like the lasting memories you take away from your first year experience? 'cause it can be a little bit of a regimented thing, but there's also a lot of freedom I know built into what you can take and what you can do inside and outside the classroom.
Audrey Allen: (13:00)
Yeah, absolutely. So outside the classroom football games and basketball games.
Grant Freking: (13:03)
Mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (13:03)
I mean they're always so fun. The environment is always so lively depending on if we're winning or losing.
Audrey Allen: (13:08)
But either way it's definitely just fun to go and be a part and see that the school spirit that they have and the dance team and all the bands and all that stuff. Very fun outside of the classroom activity to get involved in. But inside all the projects that you get to do first year were really impacting, and something I really like to talk about. So for my project strategy where we had to do a SWOT analysis.
Grant Freking: (13:32)
Yeah.
Audrey Allen: (13:32)
I got to work with the Cincinnati Reds.
Grant Freking: (13:34)
Oh.
Audrey Allen: (13:34)
Which was super fun to work with. So two people from their management team worked with us and we got a tour of the stadium and all like the fancy booths I would never be in.
Grant Freking: (13:45)
Right. Right.
Audrey Allen: (13:45)
All these like elite like, oh here's this room that's for our exclusive club members, , it was fun to be there and just work with them. So definitely those kind of projects where you get to work with an actual company your first semester is definitely something really interesting that I'll always be talking about.
Grant Freking: (14:02)
Sure. And another part of those SWOT projects that you talk about is.
Audrey Allen: (14:04)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (14:05)
You're forced a little bit to collaborate with other students. Right. So it's, you know, forces you into a little, a little bit of forced teamwork, but I think you kind of developed processes into like how a team works and a little bit of how like you put together maybe a business plan and sort of organize your thoughts there. Is that something you experienced?
Audrey Allen: (14:20)
Yeah, absolutely. And just kind of seeing the different personality types people have, like from like all the cultures that you can interact with too, like the people from different backgrounds. It's so cool. 'cause I'm just stuck in like my, my own like little world, but then seeing that there's so much more that people have come from or what they're doing. So just like that whole collaborative environment which also continues a transition into like a workplace environment. So just knowing how to work with people. It's one of the activities we do for our Bearcat Bound orientation. Just working in a group.
Grant Freking: (14:51)
Right.
Audrey Allen: (14:51)
It's very important. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (14:53)
So let's, before we wrap up, let's touch on those orientations again. What are some of like the common questions that are maybe posed to you or posed to the advisors that in, in the sessions you're sitting in from students and parents about Lindner or UC, what are some of like the common things you hear that are brought up? I think our listeners would be interested to hear that.
Audrey Allen: (15:07)
Yeah. So now since the universal co-op is now in place.
Grant Freking: (15:11)
mm-Hmm.
Audrey Allen: (15:11)
Where you have to complete two full-time or four part-time or however you wanna mix and match it. A lot of students are scared about co-ops and if they're gonna get one, I reassure 'em that you have four plus years to get a co-op and people really care about you to go and like help you the career coaches and you'll have a whole class on career advice and strategies. So definitely a question is about co-ops, how to land 'em, when can I get them? And so it's definitely, you have to do the work, you have to reach out, you have to put in effort to apply and everything. I think I applied to like 30 .
Grant Freking: (15:46)
Yeah. And you gotta learn to deal with rejection.
Audrey Allen: (15:48)
Yes. That's a big thing. How to work an interview. So that's one of the big things. A lot of 'em are about like class sizes too, like how many people are in a class size, which is really important when you want that small-knit community. But for the intro classes, since they're so big, and there's so many people taking them, you have your LC that's in those classes too, so it makes it feel like a little bit smaller since you already know some people in it.
Grant Freking: (16:12)
Right. You get the mix of small and large sort of feeling right there.
Audrey Allen: (16:14)
Yeah, absolutely. So I said there's gonna be some small classes, there's gonna be some big classes, but as you work up in the ranks, there'll be like 20 person classes.
Grant Freking: (16:22)
Right. Well, That's all the time we have for today on this episode. My thanks to Audrey Allen for coming by Lindner's podcast studio today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and review Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify so we can continue to bring you enjoyable content. Bearcats Mean business is also available on Amazon Music, YouTube, and Audible. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Gregg Fusaro, partner, CIG Communities, will be honored with the Distinguished Service Award at the UC Real Estate Center’s Annual Dinner on June 12.
In this episode, Fusaro reflects on his unorthodox entry into the real estate field (he had previously worked in chemistry), his longtime involvement with the Real Estate Center, his passion for mentorship, his nonprofit work with The Carnegie/Suits That Rock, and more.
Marianne Lewis: (00:00)
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Marianne Lewis, Dean and Professor of Management at Lindner. On today's episode, I'm pleased to speak with Gregg Fusaro, partner of CIG communities. Gregg has enjoyed a distinguished career in real estate development. He spearheaded mixed-use developments in Ohio, Kentucky, and Florida, among many other achievements, including his work with the UC Real Estate Center and non-profits in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. He's a member of the Real Estate Center's Board of Executive Advisors in Real Estate and the Real Estate Executive Advisory Council. And in recognition of Gregg's professional achievements and charitable contributions, we're thrilled that he will be honored with the Distinguished Service Award at the Real Estate Center's Annual Dinner on June 12th at Cincinnati Music Hall. Congratulations and welcome, Gregg.
Gregg Fusaro: (01:03)
Thank you very much, Dean. I'm thrilled, obviously, and very honored to be receiving this award and excited as can be just to have a little chat this morning.
Marianne Lewis: (01:14)
Well, excellent. We're honored to have you. Gregg, you interest me on so many levels and in particular, one, your introduction to the real estate industry because it's a curious one. You have degrees in pre-med and chemistry, and you actually worked as a chemist before getting into real estate. Tell us a little about your journey.
Gregg Fusaro: (01:33)
I did actually work in chemistry. So my initial thoughts were that I was gonna go to med school at some point. So I did my undergraduate work at Northwestern with a chemistry degree, actually applied to the med school here at UC, was accepted and then decided not to go. it was a weird thing I had. I don't have a really great memory, so I have to read stuff many times to remember it. And as I thought through that and the amount of information it was gonna come at me in med school, I just figured I wouldn't have any other life except that. And so I didn't do it. Unfortunately, that was all I was qualified to do. . So a friend of mine who actually worked in the med school, in the, pharmacology department hired me as a research assistant.
Gregg Fusaro: (02:28)
We were on a grant from what was then the Merrill Drug Company out in Reading, Ohio. And I worked there for five years, and eventually left there and went with a consulting firm that did environmental analysis. During that time, I met a real estate broker here in town, and I ended up buying a 13-unit apartment building in Walnut Hills. And was having lunch with him one day. And I was telling him I was thinking about leaving the company I was with, and I was gonna go into instrument sales. 'cause we had some very sophisticated instrumentation that we were kind of leading edge with. And he said, well, you know, you like real estate, you want to be in sales. Why don't you interview with a company I just joined, Coldwell Banker. And I said, what bank is that?
Gregg Fusaro: (03:24)
He said, it's not a bank. It's a real estate brokerage company, and they do commercial real estate. And I'm like, I don't know, though. I don't know anything about that. And he said, well, just go talk to 'em. So I did. I met with them, the guy who had just opened the office here six months prior. This was Coldwell Banker Commercial.
Marianne Lewis: (03:46)
Mm-Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (03:46)
In 1981. Went down and interviewed a couple of times and really liked the idea, but didn't like the idea of going from having a salary to basically no income. And I ended up going to my dad and saying, Hey, what should I do? And he said, well, just look at it this way. Can you go back to what you were doing if it doesn't work? And I said, yeah, for sure. He said, then why not do it? So that was how I got into it and I was really excited to get rid of the lab coat and get into my suit , and start on that career. And it was great, 'cause at that time, CB was the only brokerage firm in town that really had a training program. And it was a great program. And, you know, I was a mentee, basically a runner for an experienced salesperson. And we enjoyed great success there and just had a blast.
Marianne Lewis: (04:43)
Oh, that's a wonderful story. And I mean, I always use the word, one of my favorite words is serendipity. Kind of planned luck being in the right place at the right time with your eyes wide open.
Gregg Fusaro: (04:51)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (04:51)
And good mentors.
Gregg Fusaro: (04:52)
Yeah, exactly.
Marianne Lewis: (04:54)
To help encourage and guide.
Gregg Fusaro: (04:54)
Exactly.
Marianne Lewis: (04:55)
Oh, I think that's great. And since then, you've developed properties across three states, if I remember. That must be what, Ohio, Kentucky, and Florida.
Gregg Fusaro: (05:04)
Right, right.
Marianne Lewis: (05:04)
All three?
Gregg Fusaro: (05:06)
Yep.
Marianne Lewis: (05:06)
I'm curious what principles guide you in developing such projects?
Gregg Fusaro: (05:11)
Yeah, that, that's a great question. One of the things, well, I went from CB — I was there for 12 years — and ended up joining a small development company, here in town that eventually merged with Miller Valentine outta Dayton. I spent 13 years there on the development side of the business. And we did a lot of low income housing tax credit developments. And that was really an effort to provide just more affordability in, you know, rental properties. And, you know, we did about 6,000 units during that period of time, both in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and the Carolinas. And, you know, that was a program that was, you know, geared specifically for a certain type of housing. In my time that, my partner David and his parents had been together at CIG Communities, we've really focused on trying to do, just great iconic types of developments in A-plus locations.
Gregg Fusaro: (06:17)
Our philosophy's always been that if you build in great locations, the real estate will never be bad. And obviously, you know, I learned that a long time ago. Location was the key and we've tried to adhere to that. And we've tried to look at, you know, great locations and expanding marketplaces so that we could weather the storm, when inevitably they would come. And, you know, we're kind of in a little one of those right now, but the projects and the developments we've done, I think will weather those storms very nicely because of their locations.
Marianne Lewis: (06:52)
Mm-Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (06:52)
And because of the type of product that we choose to build.
Marianne Lewis: (06:56)
And they truly do make a tremendous value to the communities that they're in.
Gregg Fusaro: (07:00)
Well, thank you.
Marianne Lewis: (07:00)
That seems to be such a.
Gregg Fusaro: (07:02)
I never get tired of showing our properties. 'cause we just take a lot of pride in what we do and hopefully all of our stakeholders, our residents, our investors, feel the same way.
Marianne Lewis: (07:13)
Oh, I think it shows every time. So, thank you. You know, and I'm grateful as I know our faculty, our students for your dedication to Lindner's Real Estate Center. But this isn't your alma mater. You went to Northwestern if memory serves. So what's your why for investing your time and resources with the Real Estate Center and with UC?
Gregg Fusaro: (07:34)
Well, I think it's just part of a, you know, commitment to give back, even though, you know, my, university time was at Northwestern in Chicago. I came back to Cincinnati, born and raised here in Cincinnati. And, you know, my dad went to the UC, got a degree in chemical engineering here, was interrupted by the war for a little bit, but finished his degree here. And I grew up watching the Bearcats and Oscar Robertson and, you know, all the great teams at that period of time. So, you know, I've always been, you know, associated with the university. And I really started to get more involved when Norm Miller was, you know, had kind of really started the real estate center and started developing that program. And I've been involved ever since. I love the students. You know, I guess one of the things that has always been, not a regret, but I wished I would have gotten, more involved with people in the industry that could have helped me earlier on. I think I would've done better or done more. And I don't regret it, but I've got an opportunity here to interact with students and, and to really, hopefully in some way, shape or form, you know, help them on their journey.
Marianne Lewis: (08:54)
Oh, and you absolutely are. So, I'm so grateful. You've also been a longtime member of the Real Estate Center's Advisory Council, doing things like helping plan events such as their monthly roundtables. I'm curious why that interests you?
Gregg Fusaro: (09:11)
Well, as I said, I got involved with that when, when Norm was here at the center and have just, you know, always been involved in that group. And we've had a lot of fun, organizing the roundtables, trying to understand what topics would be.
Marianne Lewis: (09:28)
Mm-Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (09:28)
applicable and what, you know, what people would really enjoy hearing and get something out of. And you know, it's been, it's just been really fun, doing the round tables. Doing the annual dinner has been just really fun for all of us, I think. And, I've been doing it for a long time, and, excuse me, we've seen all kinds of things happen. We've gone through, you know, a couple of significant recessions. We've had dinners where we did roast, we had dinners where we did outside speakers. In 2010 when we were at the height of the recession, somebody in the, on the board said, why don't we have a comedian? And so
Marianne Lewis: (10:11)
Oh, that's great.
Gregg Fusaro: (10:12)
One year we did have a comedian. It probably didn't go as well as we had hoped, but he was funny . And so, I mean, it's just been, you know, a great experience to be with different people and to host those different programs.
Marianne Lewis: (10:30)
It always impresses and in some ways still continues to surprise me when I get to, join one of the real estate events because it's such a tight-knit community. And I mean, people are competing, but also cooperating. I mean, it's hard to even get an event started because the social hour goes so long.
Gregg Fusaro: (10:49)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (10:49)
I mean, you can just feel the energy in the room, and I love that.
Gregg Fusaro: (10:52)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (10:52)
It's really remarkable.
Gregg Fusaro: (10:53)
Yep.
Marianne Lewis: (10:53)
What sets the annual dinner apart in your mind, and what does it mean to receive the Distinguished Service award?
Gregg Fusaro: (11:00)
Well, I'm totally honored to be receiving this award. You know, it's been, it's been a lot of fun and, you know, I really enjoy being able to participate and contribute to the program. As I said, the students are really, I think, the most important thing. And obviously we recognize them at the dinner, which I think is really cool. And the center's done a great job of engaging students and growing the student population because of the programs that we have and the trips that we take and the roundtables. And again, what's been great for me is the mentoring part of it. You know, I've done some teaching in the past for the apartment association and being able to not teach, but at least advise, students and watch them grow, has been great. And, I've been a mentor, for a few years. And, we actually hired one of my mentees a couple of years ago.
Marianne Lewis: (12:07)
Well, that speaks volumes.
Gregg Fusaro: (12:08)
He's done great. And most recently I've been mentor for Gracie, who's I think gonna get a student award this year.
Marianne Lewis: (12:18)
Excellent.
Gregg Fusaro: (12:18)
And it's been great. She and I met for lunch and she was pretty freaked out 'cause she didn't have a job.
Marianne Lewis: (12:32)
Oh.
Gregg Fusaro: (12:32)
She was graduating in two months. And so it was, it was a great, interesting conversation. She's sailing high right now and it's great. She's got a job. She's totally excited. But it was, it was really great for me to be able to just say, Hey, look, it's okay.
Marianne Lewis: (12:49)
Mm-Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (12:49)
You know, you're gonna be fine. You're a good student. You want to do well, you want to succeed, don't worry about it. It's okay. You'll find your place and you know, it'll work. And it has. But, you know, being able to share, you know, some of my experiences and hopefully encourage and, you know, kind of maybe push a little with some of the students, it's just been great. Very rewarding for me.
Marianne Lewis: (13:17)
I'm a little biased, but boy do I love our students. They make me proud every day. They're gritty and hungry.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:22)
Yep.
Marianne Lewis: (13:22)
And I love the applied thanks to the co-op, but I also know that it, sometimes it takes the right person at the right place to give that push. Right? To hold a high bar.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:31)
Sure.
Marianne Lewis: (13:31)
Because they will always do better.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:32)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (13:32)
With a higher bar.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:33)
Yeah, no question.
Marianne Lewis: (13:34)
And with some connections.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:35)
Right.
Marianne Lewis: (13:35)
So I deeply appreciate what you do from a mentoring standpoint. I hear rumors that you're also a musician. Can you tell us a little bit about your zest for music and how it coalesces with your passion for nonprofit work and suits that rock, which by the way, I went to this year.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:52)
Ah.
Marianne Lewis: (13:52)
Loved it.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:53)
Great.
Marianne Lewis: (13:53)
It was so much fun.
Gregg Fusaro: (13:54)
Great. Well, a musician is kind of stretching it 'cause I'm a drummer, so I really, I don't read music and I'm not kind of certainly in the league with a lot of my associates. But, I really do enjoy music, have since, you know, elementary school. And, until about six years ago, I had a band, played, you know, classic rock and roll for about 17 years. So that was a blast. And actually the guy that played bass in our band, started this Suits That Rock concept, went to the Carnegie and said, Hey, you know, I've got this idea. The Carnegie is basically a nonprofit that, in addition to theater productions, they provide after school and in-school arts and music training for Cincinnati Public, Newport Public and Covington Public.
Marianne Lewis: (14:51)
Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (14:51)
It's basically the only training that they get, in the arts and music. And so he had this idea of, Hey, let's do this benefit concert every year to raise money for the Carnegie. It started out the first year, basically our band and about six other musicians. And now we're in, I think our 15th year. We are now over a million dollars.
Marianne Lewis: (15:19)
That's fantastic.
Gregg Fusaro: (15:19)
We raised almost $200,000 last year. and that money goes directly to the students, that the Carnegie, you know, uses to provide that music and arts education. So, it's been great for us. It's a lot of work. But it pays off because we know these kids are getting, you know, exposure to the arts that they otherwise wouldn't get. So it's a labor of love, but it's a great, great thing and we really enjoy doing it.
Marianne Lewis: (15:49)
Oh, and another great example of giving to our community and in myriad different ways. Gregg, before we, I say goodbye, any advice you'd give to a rising professional?
Gregg Fusaro: (16:02)
Oh, that's a good one. Sure. I would say, first of all, don't be afraid to reach out to anyone, at any time. It doesn't matter who you are. If you reach out to somebody who's in the business and who understands that part of their responsibility, I think, is to be able to help, you know, younger people in their business or another business, to help them understand how to better succeed. I didn't really get a lot of that, you know, when I was in high school and college, and maybe that was my own fault. Maybe I was too busy just being in a fraternity. I don't know, . But, I think that's just critically important.
Marianne Lewis: (16:46)
Mm-Hmm.
Gregg Fusaro: (16:46)
And so, you know, I would say just go out there and suck, you know, be a sponge and don't be afraid to go to people and say, Hey, look, can you tell me about this? Can you help me with this? 'cause you'll be amazed at how much you'll get out of it.
Marianne Lewis: (17:02)
Absolutely. And people say yes.
Gregg Fusaro: (17:04)
Right, they do.
Marianne Lewis: (17:05)
And lean into it.
Gregg Fusaro: (17:05)
They absolutely will.
Marianne Lewis: (17:06)
To help the next generation. So thank you. My thanks to Gregg Fusaro for joining me today. You can join Gregg and our wonderful real estate community at the Center's Annual Dinner, June 12th at Cincinnati Music Hall. See this episode's description for a registration link, or visit business.uc.edu. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review so we can continue to bring you enjoyable content on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Audible. Thank you for tuning in.And go Bearcats.
Lindner’s instructional design team of Becky Williamson (director of learning and instructional design at Lindner), Kelly McCullough (senior instructional designer) and Vicki Buckley (instructional design) begin by reciting how they describe their line of work to acquaintances and strangers alike.
The trio then dives into how instructional design positively impacts the student experience and experiential education at Lindner, dispel online course myths, recite examples of creative teaching they’ve witnessed at Lindner, and more!
Becky Williamson: (00:00)
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Becky Williamson, director of Learning and Instructional Design at Lindner. Today's episode is an instructional design takeover. I'm joined by my two colleagues on Lindner's Learning and Instructional Design team, senior instructional designer Kelly McCullough and instructional designer Vicki Buckley. We're here to talk about how instructional design impacts the student experience, experiential education at Lindner and more. Welcome, Kelly and Vicki, thank you for joining me.
Kelly McCullough: (00:30)
Yeah.
Vicki Buckley: (00:31)
It's good to be here.
Becky Williamson: (00:33)
Awesome. So let's get started. Not a lot of people know what instructional design is or what instructional designers do. I've had people assume that I've said industrial design or interior design, and they ask me about that stuff and I know nothing about either one of those. So I'm wondering how do you describe our work to someone you've just met at a cocktail party or a neighborhood cookout or at the grocery store?
Vicki Buckley: (00:57)
Yeah. So I typically say I'm the person behind the scenes, helping our faculty build their courses. Think about how they teach and really bring like best practices in learning science to the classroom.
Kelly McCullough: (01:12)
Yeah. And, depends on the audience, but if I wanna keep it light and quick, I usually just say I help teachers teach.
Becky Williamson: (01:21)
Mm-Hmm.
Kelly McCullough: (01:21)
Or I teach the teachers how to teach, which can get a little meta and confusing if you think about it too much. But overall I like to talk about how, I organize and present information and help people to do that to maximize their learning.
Vicki Buckley: (01:38)
Ooh, I love that.
Becky Williamson: (01:39)
Yeah, I like, too.
Becky Williamson: (01:40)
And I get a lot of responses from people who are like, oh, I didn't know that that was a thing that you could do.
Kelly McCullough: (01:45)
Right?
Becky Williamson: (01:45)
Or, oh, I'm so happy that there are people helping instructors think about that.
Vicki Buckley: (01:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So thinking about what is important in instructional design, how can good instructional design impact the student experience and student engagement in class? What do we think about that?
Kelly McCullough: (01:59)
I think the bottom line is that good instructional design increases positive student learning outcomes.
Vicki Buckley: (02:06)
Mm-Hmm.
Kelly McCullough: (02:06)
If you have good design. And the other side of that is good teaching, good delivery, students learn better.
Becky Williamson: (02:15)
Yeah. And are more engaged and more wanting to come to class. There's been lots of research on coming to class is a main predictor of success in class. And if your students are engaged and feel like your content is relevant and presented in a way that is meaningful to them, and I think instructional design can help with that. And I think that's gonna help your student retention and help their learning as well.
Vicki Buckley: (02:34)
Mm-Hmm. And I think that's even more prevalent after the pandemic, right? Yeah. Like we've seen some dips in, in student attendance in class.
Becky Williamson: (02:41)
Mm-Hmm.
Kelly McCullough: (02:41)
So anything that we can do to support students actually coming and being excited to be there, I think is great.
Becky Williamson: (02:47)
Right. And seeing how what they're learning impacts their day-to-day life.
Vicki Buckley: (02:50)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (02:50)
Making those connections for them.
Kelly McCullough: (02:52)
So in addition to face-to-face teaching, we also work a lot with faculty developing courses for Lindner's online programs. What can students expect out of those courses and what are some of the myths about studying online that you'd like to dispel?
Becky Williamson: (03:07)
That's a great question.
Vicki Buckley: (03:08)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (03:08)
I think one thing is people think about online learning and they think about, I am a student here with my computer and it's just me and my computer. And our faculty are so involved in courses and spend time interacting with students. You will get to know your faculty member even if they are online and you're not having face-to-face meetings with them. I think you see their personality come through in their videos. You see their personality come through in the announcements that they send. Our faculty have online office hours where you can come ask them questions. I think it's that kind of personalized as much as can be in an online experience that maybe is not what people are thinking about.
Vicki Buckley: (03:44)
Yeah. I think we work really hard to get away from the transactional nature that some online courses can be. we are not MOOCs: massive open online courses. There's a lot of interaction and engagement that happens. And I think that's part of like our special Lindner brand. I also sometimes hear that online courses take less time than, face-to-face. And that is absolutely not true.
Becky Williamson: (04:08)
Right.
Vicki Buckley: (04:08)
We just had a conversation yesterday about how we want our faculty and our students to kind of see online and face-to-face as like the same course. They're not, they're different for sure, but
Becky Williamson: (04:22)
They have the same learning objectives.
Vicki Buckley: (04:23)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (04:23)
It's the same faculty teaching in both and to try to think about them in the same way.
Vicki Buckley: (04:27)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (04:27)
And online course isn't easier.
Vicki Buckley: (04:29)
Yep.
Becky Williamson: (04:29)
It's not quicker.
Vicki Buckley: (04:30)
Right.
Becky Williamson: (04:30)
It's the same course just delivered in a different format.
Vicki Buckley: (04:34)
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Becky Williamson: (04:36)
Longtime listeners of the podcast know that UC is known for co-ops and that Lindner is focused both on experiential education and bringing cutting-edge research into the classroom. How does instructional design support Lindner's goals in these areas?
Kelly McCullough: (04:49)
Okay. So, I'm going to defer to Vicki on this.
Vicki Buckley: (04:52)
Sure.
Kelly McCullough: (04:52)
Because I just wanna shout out to her for all the research she has done on experiential education.
Becky Williamson: (04:57)
Yes.
Vicki Buckley: (04:57)
Thanks.
Kelly McCullough: (04:57)
in the business school environment. And she's currently serving on a working group that's looking into this issue for Lindner.
Vicki Buckley: (05:05)
Thanks Kelly. And it's been really fun to see that the things we are doing align with what's happening around the U.S. and a little bit globally as well in experiential education. We are bringing in simulations, role plays, like negotiations, a bunch of like one-off activities, but anything where students can connect what's happening in the classroom, to the outside world, you know, like step outside Lindner's campus. So we're, we're doing a ton of stuff here. We, I think have a really nice vantage point where we see what other instructors are doing. And then can also share that with our own groups. So, we, each one of us specializes with different departments. So I can talk to Kelly, see what's going on in accounting, and then share that with my faculty and information systems. We love to share resources on what's new and happening outside. And then we kind of get to cheer faculty on. I think one of my favorite things is when, a faculty member is trying something new and then we get to hear about it, help them reflect on it, and then maybe retool or shift something for the next semester.
Becky Williamson: (06:14)
I think the other, I think that's great. And I think the other thing I would add there is that we have lots of instructors who come from industry.
Vicki Buckley: (06:21)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (06:21)
And have experience to bring into the classroom and are talking about how they've seen this happen in the classroom or in the real world. The real world.
Vicki Buckley: (06:28)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (06:28)
But then also have connections in industry too.
Vicki Buckley: (06:31)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (06:31)
And so they're able to bring in guest speakers from the Bengals or guest speakers from P&G or, you know, to really bring that experience into a classroom too. And you don't necessarily get that at a place that's not in the middle of an urban city.
Vicki Buckley: (06:45)
Yeah. And like the company partnerships.
Becky Williamson: (06:47)
Mm-Hmm.
Vicki Buckley: (06:47)
For a lot of our first year experience and, mid to late experience courses too. You know, you're working with actual companies and making recommendations and observations that impact their business and that's so unique and really neat.
Becky Williamson: (07:02)
Yeah. I heard yesterday, from a faculty member who had a student hired from the company that they were doing their simulation for in like a capstone type of class.
Vicki Buckley: (07:10)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (07:10)
Where they had done a group project for a specific company and that company was so impressed that they hired the student for like a summer job or something.
Kelly McCullough: (07:18)
Nice.
Becky Williamson: (07:18)
Yeah. It's really cool. I think the opportunities that are there.
Vicki Buckley: (07:21)
Mm-Hmm. For sure.
Kelly McCullough: (07:22)
So, what do y'all think is important for people considering coming to Lindner to know about our work?
Becky Williamson: (07:30)
I think that we're here.
Kelly McCullough: (07:31)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (07:31)
And that Vicki said that we work with different departments, but we also work a lot with each other. So, we are sharing ideas amongst faculty and we are sharing ideas about best practices in education and higher education. I think it's important for people to know that those kinds of resources exist.
Vicki Buckley: (07:48)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (07:48)
And that faculty here have that support.
Vicki Buckley: (07:52)
Yeah. And I would also echo our network extends outside of Lindner too.
Vicki Buckley: (07:58)
So there are instructional designers all over campus.
Becky Williamson: (08:01)
Yes.
Vicki Buckley: (08:01)
And you know, think about CCM or nursing, they do things a little bit differently. So we're constantly learning from our colleagues and connected to them. And if, you know, a faculty member has a great idea and we don't know how to pull it off, like we have people that we can go to to also help.
Becky Williamson: (08:17)
And even more broadly than that, Kelly's going to a nationwide teaching and learning conference in a few weeks. So we are extended more broadly even than just UC.
Vicki Buckley: (08:25)
Yeah.
Kelly McCullough: (08:26)
Yeah. I'm going to the teaching professor conference in New Orleans, and I've heard good things about it from other people who have gone to, this particular conference, and I'm excited.
Vicki Buckley: (08:36)
Yeah. So Lindner faculty are a talented and very committed bunch, as we all know. what are some of the really neat things that we've seen our faculty do in classes that students won't necessarily see elsewhere?
Becky Williamson: (08:49)
I have been thinking a lot about this question because it is hard to pick just one.
Vicki Buckley: (08:52)
mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (08:52)
So I'll give a recent example. Craig Froehle, who teaches in OBAIS, had his students do an egg drop challenge.
Vicki Buckley: (09:00)
Oh yeah.
Kelly McCullough: (09:01)
So do you remember this? Yes. We, we went to watch it. Yeah. So the egg drop challenge where you have to drop a raw egg from in case viewer, listeners don't know, drop a raw egg from a height and you try to build, some kind of container around the egg so that it won't break when you drop it.
Vicki Buckley: (09:16)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (09:16)
So he, in his class was a grad class and he broke the students into groups and half of the groups had to develop their own kind of engineering, their own structure for the egg. And half the groups used ChatGPT to develop a structure protective padding for the egg.
Becky Williamson: (09:32)
And the caveat there was you had to do exactly what ChatGPT told you to do.
Vicki Buckley: (09:35)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (09:35)
So if it went crazy and hallucinated something you had to do that, your group had to do that. And then they, they did it here in the atrium at Lindner. So they started on the second floor and he had coned off a big area on the floor. So like, don't step here. It was plastic everywhere in case the eggs really shattered and they dropped them all. And then whoever made it through the first round went up to the, you know, moved from the second floor up to the third floor. And I don't think anybody made it quite up to the fourth floor, but I thought it was a really fun challenge and a way to show that sometimes human, I think a human engineered team won. Although I should have checked with Craig before we did this , but it's a nice way to see, you know, what are the benefits of both? And if you were doing the research on your own and coming up with instructions because everybody's egg crate looked different.
Vicki Buckley: (10:19)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (10:19)
Right? And then if you are trusting AI to come up with these instructions for you, is that actually your best bet? And are you getting what you need from that? So I thought that was really fun. Yeah.
Vicki Buckley: (10:29)
That's awesome.
Kelly McCullough: (10:30)
Yeah. And I think incorporating AI into our teaching and learning is something that's a really big deal. And we have several communities of practice this summer who are exploring that particular subject. What I really appreciate is the fact that, as Vicki was saying, they really managed to bring in a sense of the real world through active learning, through using real data from real companies and semester-long projects and doing role plays where students are troubleshooting authentic business problems. So I really appreciate that. And I also think our faculty are great at the element of human connection.
Vicki Buckley: (11:11)
Yeah.
Kelly McCullough: (11:11)
Following up with students reaching out to them. Forming genuine relationships, and that happens online and face-to-face. So that's what I really appreciate.
Vicki Buckley: (11:18)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (11:20)
We've each been at a number of different colleges and universities in a variety of capacities. What's something special at Lindner that keeps you energized here?
Vicki Buckley: (11:29)
I love that we want and desire to be the first college to pilot something. I don't think Lindner has ever seen an opportunity and said, no, we'll just sit back and wait. And I think that gives us such, that gives me energy and I think it gives the college energy because we try things, we implement new things, we collaborate with colleagues to make things work and test and, you know, retool. So I, I love that. I think that gives us a lot of wiggle room too, because we can play, you know, we can try new things in the classroom and see what works for students and what students respond to. Because Lindner isn't afraid to take that first step.
Kelly McCullough: (12:10)
To bring up something we were already talking about today in our summer book club reading, we've been reading a lot about pedagogy, which we do every summer, and we really investigate some of the theory behind what informs our field. So there's this longstanding tension in higher ed between, on one hand job training, versus on the other hand, this sort of lofty ivory tower sense of like critical reflection and critical thinking. I really love how Lindner brings together both values in that sense of business problem solvers. That we have a valuing of critical thinking within some very practical specific job training. So I think it combines both of those things to produce business problem solvers with ethics.
Vicki Buckley: (13:01)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (13:01)
Yeah, absolutely. I like that. I would say for me, the thing that is special at Lindner is the people.
Vicki Buckley: (13:05)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (13:05)
So one of you had already mentioned how instructors care, I think Kelly it was you.
Kelly McCullough: (13:10)
Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (13:10)
Your instructors will build relationships with you and they care about you. And I would extend that to all of Lindner. I think everybody here is very energized about what they're doing and making the student experience the best that it can be. And I know we certainly are in our role.
Vicki Buckley: (13:25)
Yeah. Yeah. I think I view my, our role as supporting students through faculty, but absolutely we're here to, you know, enhance the student experience.
Becky Williamson: (13:33)
Yeah. So, one thing I'm interested in is your own personal journeys to becoming instructional designers. Tell us how you got here.
Vicki Buckley: (13:42)
It's been a bit of a wavy journey for me. I've kind of done a little bit of everything. So I started in student affairs, so I have a master's in a student affairs administration from Ball State University. And thought I would just work with the student experience the whole way through. So I was a hall director for many, many years. I worked in academic advising here in Lindner and then, transitioned to career services and then decided, I have experience working with courses. I like the backend components, but don't necessarily need to be in front in a classroom all the time. So decided to make a shift here. I do still teach, I have one foot in the classroom. I'm an adjunct instructor over in CECH, teaching future teachers instructional design principles. and that's just enough for me to feel like, I'm dipping my toes in and staying relevant, but doing the work that I love primarily, which is ID.
Kelly McCullough: (14:38)
Yeah. So I'm similar to Vicki in that I've had a wavy career, but still always in higher ed. I got a PhD in English literature and became an English professor at a small liberal arts college down in Tennessee for several years. And then moved up to Ohio and was teaching at Wright State University. And, I had a dean who said, Hey, instructional design classes are a great form of professional development if you wanna improve your teaching skills. So I started taking classes and I loved them. I loved them so much that I kept taking classes. Ended up with another master's degree and then I made the jump into instructional design full-time.
Becky Williamson: (15:23)
Nice. I think it's funny 'cause all of us have kind of weighty journeys. Like none of us started out with this in mind and I didn't either. I started out, working on a PhD in archeology at the University of Washington in Seattle and taught a bunch of intro archeology classes, which is awesome. But I had really struggled with how do I, I had 150 students in the winter in Seattle and how do I bring archeology to them 'cause I can't take them to the field. And then I had an opportunity there to work as a graduate student instructional consultant with other graduate students, and working on their teaching. And that's kind of what got me into instructional design. And then I took some classes at UDub and then got a master's from Harvard and then started working in instructional design at Boston University and was there for a few years and then made the jump here.
Becky Williamson: (16:07)
So it's fun 'cause it's all, and I also still teach.
Vicki Buckley: (16:10)
Mm-Hmm.
Becky Williamson: (16:10)
Kelly, you teach as well.
Kelly McCullough: (16:12)
Mm-Hmm. Yeah.
Becky Williamson: (16:13)
So we're all still current teachers, which I think informs a lot of our work as well and gives us some credibility with instructors here at Lindner too. I can talk a lot about what I do in my class. I have invited folks to my class to come see how I teach, I show people my Canvas. I mean, I think it adds a little bit to what we do here.
Vicki Buckley: (16:31)
Absolutely.
Becky Williamson: (16:31)
To be involved. Well, that's it for us. I wanna thank both Kelly McCullough and Vicki Buckley for joining me to talk about how instructional design supports student success at Lindner. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review so we can continue to bring our listeners enjoyable content on Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Audible.
On the next episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner dean Marianne Lewis chats with Gregg Fusaro, a longtime champion of the UC Real Estate Center, who is being honored at the center's Annual Dinner on June 12th. Thanks for tuning in. Go Bearcats.
Does research affect everyday college students? What about the average consumer? Two Lindner faculty members answer both questions on this episode of Bearcats Mean Business.
Suzanne Masterson, PhD, senior associate dean of faculty, research and Lindner culture, and professor of management, and Craig Froehle, PhD, professor of operations, business analytics and information systems detail how research at Lindner affects the lives of business professionals and consumers, as well as how students can learn from and work alongside leading researchers.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking and I work for Lindner's Marketing and Communications team. On today's episode, we will explore how Lindner's engaged experts solve everyday business problems. And I'm joined by a pair of accomplished Lindner faculty members who will explain how research and Lindner affects the lives of business professionals and consumers, as well as how students can learn from, and work alongside, leading researchers. Dr. Suzanne Masterson is the Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Research and Lindner culture, and is also a professor of management. Dr. Craig Froehle is a professor of operations, business analytics, and information systems. Welcome, Suzanne and Craig.
Suzanne Masterson: (00:45)
Thanks, Grant. It's great to be here.
Craig Froehle: (00:46)
Yep. Thanks very much.
Grant Freking: (00:47)
Thanks again for being here, Suzanne. Our audience includes prospective students and their parents or guardians who may not fully grasp why our research is valuable not only to the students taught by Lindner faculty, but also to everyday consumers. Can you shed some light on this?
Suzanne Masterson: (01:01)
Sure. For our students, research is valuable because it's the source of the foundational knowledge they'll take with them into the workplace. The University of Cincinnati is known as the birthplace of cooperative education, which means that our students learn that foundational content in our classrooms, and then they go out and practice it in real world situations. So the research that's conducted across our disciplines from accounting and econ to finance, marketing, operations and information systems, provides a deep understanding of businesses, people, and policies, and they can then go and take that and apply it at work, helping our students to be more successful. For example, I teach organizational behavior and my students leave my class knowing the science underlying employee motivation, hopefully helping them to both self-motivate once they're in the workplace, but as well to manage others beyond our students. The research conducted by our faculty helps have better outcomes for many, such as our consumers, healthcare patients, and entrepreneurs. For example, some of our marketing professors study elements of shopping experiences including queuing, crowding, music. We've got a person who studies earworms, signage, and all of those factors contribute to consumer behavior and the satisfaction that people have with shopping experiences.
Grant Freking: (02:17)
Excellent. Never fail to underestimate how far the tentacles of business learning can extend. Right?
Suzanne Masterson: (02:22)
Exactly.
Grant Freking: (02:22)
Craig, why is it important to both your career and your relationship with your students that you are an active researcher?
Craig Froehle: (02:29)
That's a really good question. So as a research faculty member, I have two primary functions, right? Dissemination and discovery. That first one dissemination is, is largely the teaching I do. It could be speaking to consulting with companies also, or working within our community, or sharing in an academic or professional conference or heck participating in a podcast, right?
Grant Freking: (02:51)
Mm-Hmm.
Craig Froehle: (02:51)
That second part, discovery, is really important because it helps ensure that what we're disseminating, what we teach, you know, our students and other organizations is really the best information we have, the most relevant and the most rigorously developed that we can provide them. While some faculty here are at Lindner are primarily engaged in dissemination and teaching what we're really fortunate to have a huge variety of talented faculty who are deeply committed to and really skilled in carrying out the research and discovery too.
Grant Freking: (03:23)
Awesome. Thanks, Suzanne. How can, and how do current Lindner students get involved in the college's vast research ecosystem?
Suzanne Masterson: (03:31)
Well, for many of our undergraduate students, a first opportunity to get involved in research is by taking the marketing research course, which covers a lot of the how-tos of marketing research and can be a gateway to other research opportunities.
Grant Freking: (03:42)
I see.
Suzanne Masterson: (03:43)
Students also interested in research can look for opportunities to get involved with some of our centers and institutes. A big one for our undergraduates is the Kautz-Uible Economics Institute, which uses a lot of their undergraduate students in their research. Some of our capstone courses and different disciplines also offer an opportunity to get involved in field projects, which often involve research. Some of those are in entrepreneurship or in business analytics. And then there's a summer undergraduate research program at the university level in which undergraduate students can get paired with faculty or with doctoral students, to work on ongoing research projects. But the best advice I would give to any student who wants to get involved in research is to reach out, talk to their faculty members, explore what kinds of research they're working on and ask to get involved.
Grant Freking: (04:33)
Yep. Always reach out for help or if you're interested, of course. Let's personalize this a little bit. Craig, I'd like to touch on, , your personal research interests. Where do those lie and can you walk listeners through your research process, please?
Craig Froehle: (04:44)
Sure, sure. My field is operations management, so my research primarily looks at understanding how work gets done. I focus on service businesses and specifically healthcare organizations like hospitals and clinics. So I'm often studying the barriers to delivering safe, consistent, and timely care to patients and how to remove those barriers. Sometimes that means I'm looking at how best to use different resources within a hospital. Other times I might be studying how physicians and nurses do the work they do. Part of my research also examines the role and impact of fairness and ethics in business decision making.
Grant Freking: (05:23)
Okay. These are all great examples of your research helping solve business problems in everyday life. Do you have any other examples that you didn't list there?
Craig Froehle: (05:31)
Sure. I'll give you a couple of specific examples real quick. One of the first problems I ever studied in a hospital setting was with Cincinnati Children's Hospital. patients and their families there were facing some potentially long waits for their X-rays and scans to be read by radiologists. So I worked with some physicians there to develop a new method for automatically prioritizing waiting patients so that those with the most urgent need to know their results were served first. Right. So kind of a queuing problem.
Grant Freking: (06:03)
Okay.
Craig Froehle: (06:03)
That project produced a lot of benefits for patients as well as the hospital. It resulted in the U.S. Patent and ended up being commercialized and put into practice in quite a few hospitals across North America. So the second example is, is quite a bit more recent. A Lindner doctoral student and I developed a model that helps emergency departments deal with overcrowding and staff shortages. It's based on the idea of capacity flexibility. So for example, you know, you walk into some restaurants and you might see that the tables there can seat four patrons, but they can be separated into two, two person tables.
Grant Freking: (06:39)
Okay.
Craig Froehle: (06:39)
Right. So, that's that concept of flex of capacity flexibility. So we figured out a way to use that concept in an emergency department so that they can serve more patients with less waiting, all without really having to spend any more on medical staff. And that's being implemented right now at UC's new emergency department.
Grant Freking: (06:57)
I'm sure the stakeholders over there are very thrilled with your research and success. Suzanne, where do your research interests lie and how would you describe your research process?
Suzanne Masterson: (07:06)
Sure. My broad research discipline is organizational behavior or all of the things that occur with people in organizations, and I'm particularly interested in workplace relationships and fairness perceptions. So I research questions such as when do employees feel fairly treated at work? Why might managers choose to engage in behaviors that will be considered unfair? How do people act differently in organizations depending on whether they feel fairly or unfairly treated? And what is the impact on the relationships between supervisors and employees? Some of my more recent research has considered worse workspace issues such as working in a private office cubicle or open space, and how that might affect workplace relationships and employee performance. When developing research questions, I often think about what I've experienced or what I've heard from other people, and then dig into past research to figure out what has already been studied and what remains to be examined. I study these questions using a lot of different methods, but most often through surveys and personal interviews.
Grant Freking: (08:04)
Okay, leaving no stone unturned, I see. And how does your research help solve business problems in everyday life?
Suzanne Masterson: (08:10)
Well, one of my favorite research projects was my dissertation. I proposed that the more fairly an organization treated its employees, the more fairly the employees would treat their customers, ultimately resulting in better outcomes for the organization, what I call the trickle down model of fairness. My study supported this trickle down effect suggesting that organizations perform better when they treat their employees more fairly. And fairness really doesn't cost organizations a lot of money. People feel fairly treated when HR policies are consistent, accurate, and representative, when employees feel like they're treated with dignity and respect.
Grant Freking: (08:44)
Of course.
Suzanne Masterson: (08:44)
And when information is communicated openly and honestly, so not things that cost a lot of money. So my research shows that benefits that managers and organizations can reap just by behaving fairly, and this creates better workplaces for everyone across different studies, my colleagues and I have demonstrated the positive effects of fairness on performance, creativity, satisfaction, commitment, and positive workplace relationships. And so given how much time we all spend working, I'm glad that my research findings identify ways to help make that time spent at work more satisfying and beneficial for everyone.
Grant Freking: (09:17)
Thank ou for sharing and workplace is an evolving topic to this day, as we all know.
Suzanne Masterson: (09:21)
Absolutely.
Grant Freking: (09:21)
Cool. Craig, what would your advice be to current high school students thinking about engaging in research while they're studying in college?
Craig Froehle: (09:30)
That's a really good question. I think just generally, as Suzanne hinted at, be proactive, right? If you're really interested in a specific research topic, first talk with your high school counselor or a teacher that you have who may be involved in that space, they may know about some resources that you can tap into or class options you can take that will help you prepare to do research on that topic once you get to college. When you're looking at colleges, right, you're gonna want to look for universities or colleges who have an active research faculty member or a department or a curriculum that is going to allow you to get access to some research opportunities, right? And once you get to college, right, if you know of a topic or area you're passionate about, or you find a class that really tickles your interests, don't wait for those opportunities to come to you. Go make them happen, right? Reach out, initiate conversations with your professors, even in your freshman year. You can also certainly talk to your college advisor about it, too, once you're assigned one. Basically, in short, don't be afraid to try and make things happen, right? A casual conversation is one of the ways that great research careers can start.
Grant Freking: (10:40)
That's right. And I can think I can safely speak for all faculty that you guys are here to help students, right. It's part of the job. You all wouldn't be involved in teaching higher education in the business field if you didn't like your interactions with students. Correct?
Craig Froehle: (10:51)
Absolutely.
Suzanne Masterson: (10:51)
Exactly.
Craig Froehle: (10:51)
Absolutely.
Grant Freking: (10:51)
Right. Suzanne, before we go, can you let our listeners know about some of our faculty's recent research discoveries and maybe some of their media appearances?
Suzanne Masterson: (10:59)
Sure. We have really interesting and impactful research happening across all of our disciplines. So let me give you just a brief taste of the variety of topics investigated by our faculty.
Grant Freking: (11:08)
Great.
Suzanne Masterson: (11:08)
Accounting Professor Linna Shi's research stream focuses on interlocked firms. And what we mean by that is organizations that share members of their board of directors or audit committees and how that affects financial reporting and information transfer. Economics Professor David Brasington studies housing prices, especially as related to fire and police services, school districts and parks and recreation. Something that a lot of people
Grant Freking: (11:33)
Relevant subject, yeah.
Suzanne Masterson: (11:34)
Can relate to. Finance Professor Mehmet Sağlam specializes in understanding high frequency trading and the role of speed in financial markets, and he's really made some impact on understanding how your distance from New York or Chicago really makes a difference in the speed of those traits and those micro differences that can make a big difference. Information Systems Professor Sherae Daniel focuses on virtual project teams, especially in open source software communities, something that's quite relevant as our world has changed to a more virtual place.
Grant Freking: (12:06)
Of course.
Suzanne Masterson: (12:07)
Management Professor Laurens Steed has a research stream that's focused on perfectionism in the workplace, and it's been featured in a recent Harvard Business Review article. And finally, marketing professor Josh Clarkson studies consumer expectations and self-control. And he's been featured in a number of media outlets recently commenting on trends such as the Stanley tumbler craze, which has gotten a lot of attention.
Grant Freking: (12:29)
Yes, Josh has been quite popular lately, and listeners can find out more about our faculty and research on the faculty and research section of business.uc.edu. So thank you, Suzanne, for that nice overview. And thank you to Suzanne and Craig for joining me today. Be sure to catch future episodes of Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music. Thanks for listening. Go Bearcats.
Nosagie Sherman, a fourth-year triple major studying accounting, information systems and international business, and Lauren Thomas, an associate director of student advising, discuss how students can benefit academically and professionally from Lindner’s advising resources.
Nosagie explains how Lindner’s advising team him navigate three majors and study abroad in the United Arab Emirates, and offers his advice for current and prospective Lindner students. Lauren shares her approach to building relationships with students and recalls her meetings with Nosagie over the years.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking Manager of College Communications and Marketing with Lindner's marketing and communications team. Today's topic, how Lindner's advising ecosystem elevates students in their academic and professional journeys. And I'm joined by two guests to help me explore this subject. Nosagie Sherman is a fourth-year triple major studying accounting, information systems and international business. And Lauren Thomas is an associate director of student advising at Lindner. Welcome, Nosagie and Lauren.
Lauren Thomas: (00:33)
Thank you.
Nosagie Sherman: (00:34)
Hi. I'm happy to be here.
Lauren Thomas: (00:35)
Same.
Grant Freking: (00:36)
Thanks for being here. Nosagie, by the time this episode airs, you'll be just a few weeks away from graduating from Lindner and UC. How does it make you feel? Are you excited, nervous? How does it make you feel?
Nosagie Sherman: (00:46)
A little bit of both. It's crazy to think that I'm here graduating right now because it feels like yesterday I was a freshman here during COVID and I was at Stratford dorm, so it's really amazing.
Grant Freking: (00:58)
Awesome, awesome. And Lauren, as Nosagie's advisor, how do you help prepare him for a big moment like graduation? The culmination of four years of hard work, especially Nosagie's end, but yours too.
Lauren Thomas: (01:09)
Yeah, I mean, graduation is something that's always the end goal for advisors as well as students. And so we start thinking about that from kind of our very first meeting. And so, especially with Nosagie we had, he is a very ambitious student and has so much potential. So, he had a lot of goals that he wanted to, to complete and I was happy to help him do that. So, it's really about like getting organized. He had a lot of things he wanted to accomplish with the three majors, and I was at first like, are you crazy? . But he handled it with grace and, and it was really kind of great to watch. And so it's really just making sure that we're organized. He's making sure that we're getting all of the kind of milestones that he wanted in and.
Grant Freking: (01:55)
Right.
Lauren Thomas: (01:55)
Wanted to make sure that we fit that in within his timeframe. And so it's just about getting organized and planning smartly.
Grant Freking: (02:01)
Of course. Now Nosagie, how has Lauren and the, I guess, the rest of the advising team at Lindner impacted your academic journey and sort of, you know, you have great, these great ambitious goals, which is great. How did you kind of get sort of set on that journey by them?
Nosagie Sherman: (02:14)
I would definitely say that they've done like an amazing job of helping me get to my academic goals. I know for sure, like, especially with studying abroad, I would not have been able to do it without them. Ms. Lauren, Ms. Armstrong and all the rest of the people in the office were amazing. I know for sure, like when I did a semester studying abroad in the UAE, I know one of the big issues I had when I came back was my, transcript. I think it took, I think it was like four or five months. It actually, it was more than that. It was about six months afterwards is when I finally got my transcript back.
Grant Freking: (02:49)
Okay.
Nosagie Sherman: (02:49)
Just working through me with that. Just even actually the process of even getting the scholarship and getting all like the awards and whatnot that came with it. And even helping with recommendations. Helping me figure out like when I'm going to like, you know, when I can graduate, what classes I need to take, they've been nothing less, but amazing.
Grant Freking: (03:11)
Now let's rewind back to like the start of your freshman year. How did you decide, did you decide right away that you wanted to do three majors? Was it two, was it one? How did you get to three?
Nosagie Sherman: (03:18)
So I, when I first came to UC, I was undecided.
Grant Freking: (03:21)
Okay.
Nosagie Sherman: (03:21)
I do remember that. And I think after my second semester I declared accounting and information systems. I liked both of the classes I was taking for those, so I was just decided that would, that that sounds like fun. I'll do that. And I think I didn't declare international business until I think my third, was it my second, my second year. So yeah, it was my second year. I declared that. So it was a process. Initially, I think when I first came to UC, I wasn't really sure, but I wanted to do international business and economics if I remember correctly. But, I still wasn't sure. I had a lot of time, so I just kinda waited just to see what I liked and just went with that.
Grant Freking: (04:06)
Sure. Lauren, Nosagie already has two majors. He walks into your office, says he wants a third. What's your initial reaction and then how do you go about using your own institutional knowledge as well as Lindner's resources to help him reach that goal?
Lauren Thomas: (04:17)
Yeah, it's one of those that's like, oh, okay, . Let's see what we can do. I'm always game for what students wanna do and it's, you know, I try and do it in the best of my abilities to make sure that we're doing it within their timeframe. And so it's mostly just like highlighting options, showing different pathways to do it, but really kind of letting him take the lead on how much he wants to take on each semester, what would he would need to do in order to make something happen. But I knew from the get-go I'm like, oh, he can do whatever he wants to do .
Grant Freking: (04:49)
Sure. Yeah. Lauren, how do you go about building a relationship with a student that in a perfect world will last for four years like the one you have with Nosagie?
Lauren Thomas: (04:55)
Yeah. Honestly, meeting and connecting with students is my favorite part of my job. Just kind of figuring out what they want out of being here. I loved my college experience and there's just so much potential for students to grow and take advantage of things. So it's really exciting to be a part of that journey for them. So mostly I think how I build that connection is just figuring out what the student needs from me. And so I definitely think with business students, some are very straight to the point. I wanna be told what to do, win-win. And, others are like, let me hear all the options. Let's talk it out. Or I wanna really discuss, you know, study abroad and multiple things and all my goals and I'm happy to do and be whichever one they want me to be. And so I think building a relationship, it comes pretty naturally and it's just kind of listening to see what that person needs from me.
Grant Freking: (05:48)
Let's take a quick segway real quick. And Lauren, tell us about how like the drop-in hours work for current students and then maybe prospective students who have already maybe committed to Lindner, how the drop-in hours system works and how you guys see students.
Lauren Thomas: (06:00)
Yeah, so every Lindner College of Business student is assigned an academic advisor. And so you would basically set up an appointment with them through my Bearcat network at any time that they have availability that meets with your schedule. It can be virtual or in person. We're really adaptable that way. We do do drop-in hours, which is where there's no appointment needed. You can just come in and ask a quick question. We typically only do those at the beginning of the semesters, just to kind of help with schedule fixes or I need to switch a class really fast. But for the most part, we have availability all the time every semester Monday through Friday, including summers. So whenever a student needs us, we're around.
Grant Freking: (06:42)
Awesome. That's really great to hear. You guys do a great job. Nosagie, do you remember the first time you met Lauren? Like, walk me through your thought process as a first-year student and what you were trying to accomplish. What's going through your mind when you meet a stranger for the first time that's supposed to help shepherd you through your academic journey?
Nosagie Sherman: (06:58)
Yeah, I will say that like the first time we met was over Zoom.
Lauren Thomas: (07:01)
Mm-Hmm, .
Nosagie Sherman: (07:02)
So that was actually like, I don't remember it being like super like eventful, but I think it was because it was during COVID and during that time, but I do remember the second time we met, and I remember this because I was in your class and I think I had like four missing quiz assignments, .
Lauren Thomas: (07:19)
Nosagie Sherman: (07:20)
And I had to like, and I was embarrassed. I remember I had to ask about that. And I also do remember, I think the first time we actually met in person was me asking for that third major. And I remember that conversation, but like, she was super supportive throughout the whole entire time. Both when I messed up and, you know, when I was asking for stuff. 'cause I know when I usually come in, it's usually for something out. Like I usually, I schedule meetings for nearly everything. . So it's you, you never really know. But yeah, like, I do remember like, just fully, she was just fully supportive, , during like every single time I scheduled a meeting. But yeah.
Lauren Thomas: (08:01)
Well, thanks.
Grant Freking: (08:02)
That's great to hear though.
Lauren Thomas: (08:03)
Can I jump in? 'cause I remember Our first meeting. 'cause it was during it was over Zoom. That's correct. And I remember being a little taken aback because you were so personable and especially, via Zoom. It was like, COVID is such a weird time, but you were like, can you just tell me a little bit about yourself? And I was like, nobody's asked me that today. .
Lauren Thomas: (08:23)
So it was just really nice just to, yes, talk about academics and kind of goals and stuff and goal setting, but you were just like wanting to know about me, about what Lindner would be like, about classes. You were just like, genuinely a curious person. And I was like, oh, this is, he's different. This is gonna, he is gonna do some stuff. It was great. .
Grant Freking: (08:43)
And you were right. That's a good segway into how you talk with students like Nosagie, fourth-year students, and also students who were in his shoes four years ago. How do those type of conversations go between first-year students and fourth-year students? Obviously like there's a difference in the academic journey and the distance traveled, but how, how does that play out in your meetings with students?
Lauren Thomas: (09:01)
Yeah, those are very different conversations. I think, especially for first-year students, it's a lot. It's a big change going from high school to college and I think it's definitely can be a scary time. But, the biggest, I feel like conversation pieces that I'm having is giving, showing them the options. Like it's a ton of opportunity that they can take advantage of. And it's up to them. So it's a lot about starting to make decisions for the first time. They're not being told what to do. And that is not what they're used to. So it's what, what should I take? And I'm kind of like, what do you wanna take ? You know, it's really kind of turning it around on them so they can take some ownership and that can be very, it feels very shaky I think for the first time.
Lauren Thomas: (09:43)
So it's just getting them comfortable for that. Third and fourth-year students have a much clearer idea of what they wanna do and the timeline they wanna do it in. So it's much more of helping them problem solve and navigate different limitations or boundaries and figuring out how we can get them through that so that they can reach that ultimate goal.
Grant Freking: (10:01)
Sure. And with the benefit of hindsight, it must be cool for you to see their journey as they grow from, you know, not knowing exactly what they want to, to almost wanting them to, it must be gratifying for you to sort of see them through that, that journey of like maybe being a little unsure what they want early on to being a little bit more self-assured at the end.
Lauren Thomas: (10:19)
Oh yeah. The growth that we see is unreal. I mean, listening to Nosagie earlier, just saying like, I messed up a couple times and then by the end it's just like, it doesn't matter. Like they are so confident in their own abilities. It's just really great to watch.
Grant Freking: (10:35)
Awesome. Nosagie, what would be your recommendation to current and or future Lindner students about, one, taking advantage of whatever Lindner has to offer, and also with the advising ecosystem available to them.
Nosagie Sherman: (10:47)
I see. I think my biggest like advice to, current and like prospective Lindner students would definitely be to take risks. College is a time to take risks, to explore, to kind of see what you want to do, see what you don't want to do. We have plenty of resources here at Lindner that allow, like, you know, allow us to be able to take these risks. And I say take full advantage of it. If I had one. If there's one thing I wish I would've done better here at Lindner is take advantage of the resources we have available. 'cause we have plenty of resources. We have a lot of people here who their entire job is to help students and help prepare students for both life after college, life in college, just helping them in any way they can. So I would say just fully taking advantage of that.
Lauren Thomas: (11:34)
Here. Here. Great one.
Grant Freking: (11:36)
Seconded. Yeah. Shout out to the staff. Nosagie, let's look to the future real quick. Tell us about your, if you have any post-graduation plans, hopes and dreams. And what's the future hold for you I guess beyond April.
Nosagie Sherman: (11:46)
I see. Beyond April, my most immediate plans would most definitely be graduate school. I'm looking to go straight into graduate school.
Nosagie Sherman: (11:54)
Except for going into employment. And I think past that, I would definitely like to work like internationally, possibly in international development. So just looking towards stuff like that. I think throughout like my time traveling, I just really enjoy doing it all. I love to just continue doing that and just kind of following my passion.
Grant Freking: (12:13)
Lauren, let's close up shop with one last plug for your office and all the things that you guys do to help better students.
Lauren Thomas: (12:21)
Yeah. Your academic advisor really is here to kind of help you navigate college policies, and help you figure out the goals that you wanna reach. And so, anytime that you are either confused or unsure or even just kind of wanna get like a grapple on things of what's, what's to come or what's next, definitely schedule an appointment with your advisor. It's, again, our favorite part of the job is meeting with students and helping them figure out what the next step looks like. And so, we're always happy to do that.
Grant Freking: (12:52)
Well, thanks to Nosagie and Lauren for joining me today. Be sure to catch future episodes of Bearcats Mean business on Spotify, YouTube and Amazon Music. Until next time.
Join Jane Sojka, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Marketing, and Phoebe Pappas, BBA ’24, president of Lindner Women in Business, as Lindner celebrates Women’s History Month.
Hear more about the initiatives, courses, programs, events and student groups that help to elevate the overall Lindner experience for future women business leaders.
Haley Fite: (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Haley Fite, digital content specialist with Lindner's Marketing and Communications Team. And here with me today I am joined by Dr. Jane Sojka, distinguished teaching professor of marketing, and Phoebe Pappas, president of Lindner Women in Business, a student organization dedicated to empowering emerging business leaders by providing allies, perspective and resources. Welcome Jane and Phoebe.
Jane Sojka: (00:33)
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Phoebe Pappas: (00:35)
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Haley Fite: (00:37)
Yeah. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves, Jane.
Jane Sojka: (00:41)
Sure. So my name is Jane Sojka and my elevator pitch is, that's like soy milk only Sojka. And it makes it easy for everyone to remember. I'm a marketing professor here at UC. I founded the sales center and we are proud to be named a top sales center for the country. Currently serving as a faculty fellow at the Warren Bennis Leadership Institute. And my pride and joy is I teach Women in Sales.
Phoebe Pappas: (01:08)
Yes. My name is Phoebe Pappas. I'm a fourth year marketing and professional sales student here at UC. I'll be graduating in the spring. I'm super excited about it. My involvement includes Lindner Women in Business primarily. Last year I served as the chief marketing officer, and this year I'm the president, which is such an honor and it's so wonderful to be a part of that organization.
Haley Fite: (01:29)
Fantastic. It's wonderful to hear about the both of you. Jane and Phoebe actually join us today as we honor Women's History Month, the annual celebration of women's contributions to society and our collective history that occurs every March. When the both of you think of contributions of women, specifically in the broad field of business, what comes to mind for each of you?
Jane Sojka: (01:51)
Boy, that's a really good question. And you know, it's numbers. It's numbers. When I started out, before both of you were born, I was the only woman in a Fortune 500 company. So I was the only woman at the table. Now, oh my goodness. I mean, we have a woman on Wall Street finally heading up a bank. I counted up in my entire academic career, that's an undergraduate, MBA PhD, I had five women professors.
Phoebe Pappas: (02:19)
Wow.
Jane Sojka: (02:19)
And I know that's, it takes your breath away, doesn't it?
Phoebe Pappas: (02:24)
Yeah. Seriously.
Jane Sojka: (02:24)
That's not been your experience. And that makes me so happy. When I came to UC, I was the second woman in the department.
Phoebe Pappas: (02:31)
Wow.
Jane Sojka: (02:31)
It was one woman, all men. Now we are 50%, we might even be 60% women.
Phoebe Pappas: (02:38)
Wow.
Jane Sojka: (02:38)
And as we all know, we have a woman dean.
Phoebe Pappas: (02:42)
Exactly.
Jane Sojka: (02:42)
So I think the numbers tell the story.
Phoebe Pappas: (02:45)
Totally. On the same kind of train. I think just luckily for me, I know so many powerful, passionate, creative women in my personal life and professional life, whether it's through LWiB or my friends and family. And I like find it hard to think of one single contribution or one single significant moment, that really stands out for me. I just think I've been lucky to see so many successful women embody so many incredible capabilities and so many incredible qualities. So you have, you know, the introverts, but they're really good at the meticulous kind of organizational stuff. But then you have the extroverts that are good at talking and communicating and leading. So for me, there's not really like a single contribution that I can think of. And I think that that is an awesome thing. 'cause it's kind of like a what woman, what what can't they do type of deal, so.
Haley Fite: (03:34)
I love that answer. I think that's a fantastic mindset to approach business and the study of business here at Lindner. Speaking of which, I gave our listeners a brief description, Phoebe, but can you tell us more about Lindner Women in Business and what the organization does?
Phoebe Pappas: (03:51)
For sure. So you nailed that kind of textbook definition, helping prepare and empower female leaders, which is definitely what we do. LWiB is, for the sake of this podcast, instead of saying Lindner Women in Business, I'm gonna say LWiB. It's many things to me. But yeah, in general, an organization dedicated to empowering, uplifting, kind of the next generation of female business leaders. And this is done in a variety of ways. We have professional meetings once a month. We have speakers come in from the Cincinnati area, from a variety of industries, companies, levels, whether it's small business or you know, Fortune 500. And they teach us and they workshop with us about different, either problems that, you know, they might have faced being a woman in the workforce, whether it's imposter syndrome or just kind of balancing those gender roles. And then also resume workshops or how to ace an interview type of deal.
Phoebe Pappas: (04:44)
So those are the more professional centered. And then the other time of month that we meet is kind of a designated social where we kind of learn how about ourselves, learn about each other. And it really cultivates those safe relationships that when we go into these networking situations, we go in these business situations, you can be like, oh, there's an LWiB girl. I had a really good meaningful conversation with her that one time at that one social. So I think having the social and having the professional meetings really give us that great balance and great relationships within LWiB.
Haley Fite: (05:16)
Fantastic. Now on your journey from a member to now president, what has the personal impact of LWiB been on you and your professional trajectory?
Phoebe Pappas: (05:25)
Totally. And I love that question because when I joined as a freshman, I expected to be kind of in the background of things. I'd go to a couple meetings and do what was expected of me. And I'm so honest about that. I talked to the members our first meeting and I was like, the first Delwood meeting that I showed up to, actually, I didn't read, the details. And I show up in overalls and sneakers with a Diet Coke in hand . And I'm like, what are all these cute, like professionally dressed women going to, it was an LWiB meeting and I turned around and I joined online and I was like, mortified. I was like, I cannot go back there. So to hear that story and then now be the president is just such a great, you know, duality of things. And I think what initially got me involved was I was really inspired by the other members and I knew I wanted to do more. I just didn't know how. So getting that chief marketing officer role, that was crazy to me. I was like, me, like, why, why would they choose me? And I totally transformed and rebranded the marketing and that eventually led me to the confidence to, you know, restructure the entire organization and lead 250 women. So it was a fun journey, but very unconventional, I would say.
Haley Fite: (06:42)
That's amazing to see your personal journey and transformation into leadership. Now you mentioned several of the things Lindner Women in Business do sort of on a monthly basis, but one of your signature events is Empowerment Day.
Phoebe Pappas: (06:56)
Yes.
Haley Fite: (06:56)
That occurs every March. And although we are recording this ahead of this year's event, which is March 2nd, is that correct?
Phoebe Pappas: (07:03)
Yes.
Haley Fite: (07:03)
What is this day all about and how does it benefit students?
Phoebe Pappas: (07:08)
Totally. So Empowerment Day is amazing. It's the first Saturday of March and it's in March in lieu of, you know, Women's History Month. So that is always super great way to kind of kick off honoring and empowering other women. As textbook definition wise, it's a leadership conference. Anyone's invited, it's open obviously to all the members, but also faculty, family members, high schoolers. So there's a huge community coming in and we do what we do at LWiB meetings, but for the entire day. And it is absolutely incredible. It starts off networking. Then we have a keynote speaker, which everyone hears from. And then there's three sessions throughout the day that consists of three breakouts. And those breakouts are something as specific as women in accounting or something as broad as you know, how to brand yourself. So, this just builds a lot of excitement and confidence among our members.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:02)
And it just continuously inspires me every single year. So many of the ladies on my executive team actually were inspired to apply for exec because they went to Empowerment Day. They're like, how do, how do I get more involved in this? This is awesome. And so it just really, it builds so much momentum for the organization as well. So that's been one of my things as president this year is making every day feel like empowerment day. But obviously this event is just hands down one of those tentpole moments that we love in our organization and I'm super excited for.
Haley Fite: (08:36)
Yeah, I love that. I was lucky enough to attend Empowerment Day last year.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:40)
Awesome.
Haley Fite: (08:40)
And what struck me was really the high school students who are able to attend.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:44)
Yeah.
Haley Fite: (08:44)
And seeing them really begin on this journey.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:47)
Mm-Hmm.
Haley Fite: (08:47)
Towards, you know, the leaders you see them becoming some day.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:50)
Totally.
Haley Fite: (08:50)
And so that really resonated with me as being impactful.
Phoebe Pappas: (08:53)
Yeah.
Haley Fite: (08:53)
Speaking of transformative journeys, Jane, you teach Women in Sales now, this is a course you originated in, in my dealings with students, I have found that this course is wildly popular. When I ask them one of their most transformative experiences, so many will say Women in Sales. So can you tell us more about this course and what gives it such a universal draw? Because it's not just female students who are drawn to this course. It's everyone.
Jane Sojka: (09:22)
Well, thank you for asking. I'm as excited about this course as my students are. I love to teach it. What it came out of was really kind of frustration. I was teaching intro to marketing and I would tell my women, but my background is sales. And I would tell my students, well, why women's students? Why don't you take a sales course? No, no, no. And then even the women who were in the course who were so good, I'd say, well, why don't you consider a sales career? Sales is very lucrative. Well, I don't have enough. So I couldn't get them to consider sales as a career option. Meanwhile, recruiters, 'cause I was in charge of the sales center, wanted a diverse workforce and they wanted women. So I went to P&G. I was fortunate to get a higher education innovation grant to start the course.
Jane Sojka: (10:10)
And we called it Women in Sales. And at the time, all I knew was that women sold differently than men. I, you know, I knew it. I could see it in class. So what started out as a one-time course, I thought I'd teach it one time. 25 students, 25 women, two men. I love my men, love my men.
Haley Fite: (10:28)
Mm-Hmm.
Jane Sojka: (10:28)
I now teach 240 students, mostly women, every semester. I've had over 1,400 women and men go through the course. And I think what makes it so popular is what I learned was in order to be successful in sales and I would maintain in life, and now we're carrying it over to leadership. I teach women how to get over their fear of failure. Because you know what? If you're in sales and if you're in life, you are gonna be told no. So we better teach you how to get over it. Resilience, which is the ability to bounce back quickly after failure. So if you do fail, not a problem. You go right on. And the confidence to ask for what you want, it's not gonna drop in your lap. You have to ask for it. What's the worst that can happen? They say, no, what's gonna happen? Nothing. You move on. Yes. You got it. So I think it builds life skills. And Phoebe's the perfect example.
Phoebe Pappas: (11:24)
I loved that course. I think just hands down, and I'm sure you hear this all the time, it's like the most engaging and useful class that I've taken in college. I just, and it was really fun that so many people all across UC were taking it. So there was, in my class specifically, I mean, there was a film major, there was a psych major, there was a health sciences major. And it's really cool to have that variety of skill level and variety of insight coming into this course. It makes really great conversations. And I'd say my favorite part was definitely like the resilience papers. 'cause it really, I'd sit and think like, where did I go wrong and how can I do better next time? And that just sparked a memory I totally forgot about this . So I love that.
Haley Fite: (12:05)
Fantastic. Yeah, I think seeing these quote unquote business skills as life skills is something that Lindner does wonderfully and instills in its students.
Phoebe Pappas: (12:15)
Mm-Hmm.
Haley Fite: (12:15)
That really prepares them for whatever direction they take their career in.
Jane Sojka: (12:20)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Haley Fite: (12:21)
And so, Jane, you, in addition to this Women in Sales course originating the sales center, you are also find time to be a faculty fellow with the Warren Bennis Leadership Institute and lead several other initiatives focused on instilling leadership in students, including the Inspire, Equip Connect group for UC's women athletes, another organization that I've heard nothing but rave reviews about. So how have you seen these types of initiatives as you've introduced them through your time at Lindner and UC? How have you seen these programs transform students and prepare them for their future careers in this professional world that may not be as receptive to them, especially for women?
Jane Sojka: (13:01)
Yeah, I mean, that, that's a really good question. IEC was an outgrowth of Women in Sales. And I had a student athlete and she was in SAC, which is a leadership organization in athletics. And she said, you know, I've got a lot of colleagues or a lot of teammates who don't have time in their schedule, or they can't fit in Women in Sales or the class books up, they can't get in, but they need these skills. Can we develop something to teach them the skills? And so she and I spent a summer developing Inspire, Equip and Connect. And what it basically is, is the sales course minus the sales piece. It's the women's empowerment piece.
Phoebe Pappas: (13:43)
Wow.
Jane Sojka: (13:43)
So we've been delivering it to student athletes, women, for about four years now. And what I have found, and I've got the data, I just haven't had time to, to analyze it yet, these women who were amazingly confident on the field, on the court, I can't think of any scary things scarier than having the game on the line.
Jane Sojka: (14:04)
And I'm at the free throw line. I would melt, I would absolutely melt. They're, they're confident there.
Phoebe Pappas: (14:08)
Mm-Hmm.
Jane Sojka: (14:08)
I would get them into a business situation or a class situation or a sales situation where they need to speak up and the confidence wasn't there. So what we did was take the women's empowerment piece, teach them that, and especially we, Phoebe, Phoebe would be able to tell you this, how do you build confidence? You practice.
Phoebe Pappas: (14:27)
Yeah.
Jane Sojka: (14:27)
Well, that's something they know inside and out.
Phoebe Pappas: (14:30)
Mm-Hmm.
Jane Sojka: (14:30)
So within IEC, we give them safe opportunities to practice. And it's a really quick learn. It's a really quick study because they know how to be confident in their sport. Well, same process, different venue. We build their confidence outside and they are amazingly strong and powerful women.
Phoebe Pappas: (14:53)
I love that. I haven't heard about that. That's awesome.
Jane Sojka: (14:56)
Well, it's, we're gonna expand it to other groups.
Phoebe Pappas: (14:58)
Yeah, that's great.
Jane Sojka: (14:58)
Phoebe, so we could have a section, we could have a little group for
Phoebe Pappas: (15:03)
Yeah. Little collaboration there.
Jane Sojka: (15:04)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Mm-Hmm.
Haley Fite: (15:05)
Now you both have such unique perspectives, Phoebe, as a student leader and a student, and a budding professional. And Jane as a faculty member and educator, how have you seen these confidence-building techniques? How have you seen them play out in your career or in others' careers, especially seeing students.
Jane Sojka: (15:29)
Oh, that's a good question. I tell you what, one of my favorite quotations is you teach that what you need to learn. I teach this not because I was an expert in it. I needed to learn it. There is no one who was afraid of everything than me. And, but I always, I would never make my students do something that I wouldn't do. And so, for example, we had a family tragedy, it fell on my shoulders to negotiate with a Fortune 500 company. And, you know, I was scared to death, you know, I was scared to death. And then I thought, wait a minute, I'm teaching this stuff. I used everything I learned in terms of confidence, in terms of body language, in terms of communication. Uh, my sister and her children will never have to worry about money, but I had to practice what I preach. And that's really, it's fun for me. So a good teacher will always say, oh, I learned more from my students than they learned from me. I, I would say that's true in this case.
Phoebe Pappas: (16:32)
I love that. I think it's completely transformed my experience and my trajectory. I definitely, I would, I came to college like not really knowing what my path was gonna be and if I was gonna be involved, if I was gonna switch my major. and I think it took the Women in Sales class and it took LWiB to really like, make that path for me and, steer me in the right direction in a way. Because I would've never had like the confidence or the skills to write an email correctly or, you know, brand myself correctly or, or have the confidence and be unapologetically confident. And I think that is kind of the biggest thing that I've learned and, you know, helped my leadership team and executive team, comprehend as well and apply to their lives. And I just think it's such an incredible thing to learn and I think everyone should learn it. And so I love it.
Jane Sojka: (17:25)
Absolutely. And building on that, I'm gonna put a plug in for my men too, even though it's women's history. Like I, we love men. Okay. We love men. And what I'm finding is that in many cases, well, number one, they're our strongest allies after they come outta the class.
Phoebe Pappas: (17:38)
Mm-Hmm.
Jane Sojka: (17:38)
And I always have a couple of men, you know, taking every class. They, they are our strongest allies. And quite honestly, they need the same skill set too.
Phoebe Pappas: (17:47)
Totally.
Jane Sojka: (17:47)
I'm sure. I'm not sure they admit it as freely as the women admit it.
Phoebe Pappas: (17:51)
Yeah.
Jane Sojka: (17:51)
But they need it and they're delightful.
Haley Fite: (17:55)
Yes. High tides raise all ships . And we love to see that throughout this conversation, we've sort of hinted around that these attributes, the Women in Sales class, which is one of few in the nation that are offered and LWiB as well. These are such unique attributes to Lindner. Totally. So when it comes to empowering future women business leaders, what sets Lindner apart? What are we doing differently that really prepares these women to be this next generation of fantastic business leaders that not only achieve success in their careers, but turn around and lift others up?
Jane Sojka: (18:33)
Well, I'm gonna jump right in.
Phoebe Pappas: (18:35)
Go for it.
Jane Sojka: (18:36)
Her name is Dean Marianne Lewis.
Phoebe Pappas: (18:38)
Yes.
Jane Sojka: (18:38)
Okay. And to your point, we are the only school in the country that teaches a Women in Sales class.
Phoebe Pappas: (18:46)
Wow.
Jane Sojka: (18:46)
Which is really, there's no reason. I mean, I can tell you why the reason is, but there's really no reason it could be replicated. We're the only school that had the courage to do that. And Dean Lewis was the associate dean when I came with her to her with the idea and thinking, are we allowed to do this? Yeah. We're allowed to do this and men are welcome, of course.
Phoebe Pappas: (19:05)
Yeah.
Jane Sojka: (19:05)
And she has been supportive. She's supportive of all the things going on, numerous women's initiatives. We just started a women in finance club. We have a women in entrepreneurship club. There's a class on the economics of women that, that goes into what happens when a woman drops out of the workforce to have children or when she gets divorced, what are, what's the economic impact of that? And I think, that makes us special and unique for women.
Phoebe Pappas: (19:36)
Totally. Yeah. I love, on the fourth floor you see the hall of Deans and then you see Dean Lewis. And it's, it's such an empowering feeling to, and you know, you see a line of men and then at the very end, currently we have a woman. I think that's awesome. I think my answer is pretty cliche. You see Lindner answer, but I truly think the push for co-ops and the push for, actual professional experience creates such a diverse skillset among our students. And a diverse, you know, mindset. When I come together with my LWiB girls or my friends, the how advanced sometimes we talk about like our professions is amazing to think like, oh, we were 19 when we did that and we were 21 when we did that. And we were working alongside like amazing professionals. And I love that. You know, it can be at a startup, it can be out of P&G, it can be, as specific or as broad as you want it to be.
Phoebe Pappas: (20:33)
And when I just see my LWiB girls come together, anyone come together, I just think we have such unique experiences that is what sets us apart. And I love the new initiative. I think like now it's required to have a co-op. I don't know how I found the motivation to apply for one, but, one day I did, and I got one, it took 75 applications later and I got two interviews out of those 75 applications and I got one internship. And once you score that first one, I mean, you're totally set. But yeah, I'd say the co-ops and the internships set us apart.
Haley Fite: (21:07)
I love to hear plug for co-op because
Phoebe Pappas: (21:09)
Totally.
Haley Fite: (21:09)
that is something
Haley Fite: (21:10)
Yeah.
Haley Fite: (21:10)
That is so unique to us. Once again, not only Lindner, but the University of Cincinnati and now we are revolutionizing the way we do things at Lindner.
Phoebe Pappas: (21:18)
Yeah.
Haley Fite: (21:18)
With our universal co-op program and how you mention that, I'm continuously impressed when I speak with students at how advanced and professional they are at such young ages.
Phoebe Pappas: (21:28)
Mm-Hmm.
Haley Fite: (21:28)
These co-op programs are truly transformative for our women in business and our men in business.
Phoebe Pappas: (21:34)
Yeah.
Haley Fite: (21:34)
Everyone benefits from for sure these experiences.
Phoebe Pappas: (21:37)
Yeah. Absolutely.
Haley Fite: (21:39)
Well, thank you Phoebe and Jane for joining me today. It has been a pleasure to speak with the both of you. For our listeners, be sure to catch future episodes of Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music. And join us next time to hear from a Lindner student and their academic advisor about how taking full advantage of Lindner's robust advising ecosystem can elevate your experience and propel your academic and career goals.
Phil D. Collins.
UC Board of Trustees Chair and Lindner alumnus Phil D. Collins stops by to offer personal and career advice for students, and to emphasize the power of engaging with Lindner and UC.
Collins, the founder and CEO of private equity investment firm Orchard Holdings Group, also details his time working for Carl H. Lindner and his family’s deep UC roots.
Marianne Lewis: (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Marianne Lewis, Dean and Professor of Management at the Lindner College of Business, and today I'm joined by a very special guest, UC Board of Trustees Chair and Lindner alumnus, Phil D. Collins. Welcome, Phil.
Phil D. Colins: (00:25)
Thanks for having me, Marianne. It's great to be with you here today.
Marianne Lewis: (00:28)
Phil, you have deep UC roots. I'd love you to share a little bit more about your personal background.
Phil D. Colins: (00:34)
Sure. I think I was destined to become a Bearcat. I was born and raised here in Cincinnati. My grandfather and grandmother were both affiliated with UC. My dad was recruited out of high school by the legendary coach, Sid Gillman, to be a quarterback at UC, which is another long story. My mom and only sister attended UC. I met my wife in high school and we attended UC together. And my dad made it really simple for me. He said he would pay for anywhere I wanted to go to college, as long as it was UC. And so that made it pretty easy to decide to come here.
Marianne Lewis: (01:08)
Okay, Phil, that's remarkable and not something we see in a typical bio. Thank you for sharing that. You know, I think one of the other pieces of your story that always gets to me and I think is worth talking a bit more about is that you have a really unique past in that you worked with Carl H. Lindner, both as a student and as an early career professional. Tell us a bit more about that experience and what it meant for your career.
Phil D. Colins: (01:32)
I did. It was an amazing experience. Carl had a program where he would hire students from UC to come work in his office on nights and weekends. And he generally worked around the clock and needed somebody to be available in the off-hours when the office was otherwise closed. And so I would go down there at five o'clock after school, and stay basically until he went to bed, and work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the weekends. And it was remarkable how much of that time he was active in working and all of his inbound and outbound calls from leaders of business and finance, to community leaders to U.S. presidents, all came through the phone on my desk during those hours. And so it, it happened to be during the period where he was at his most active and prolific, during the Drexel, Milken, Predators' Ball days.
Phil D. Colins: (02:23)
And when he acquired Taft Broadcasting and moved Chiquita Brands and Penn Central both to Cincinnati, and all of the characters you can imagine from that era would come through our office. Often, you know, I would actually go pick them up at the airport and bring them to the office. And, it was just an unbelievable experience that, as a kid from Cincinnati who didn't know anything about anything, really opened my eyes to a whole world that I didn't know existed. And I have a life's worth of incredible stories from that time. My favorite is a prank that I orchestrated him playing on Donald Trump, and I'll save that whole story for another day, but it's it's quite entertaining.
Marianne Lewis: (03:02)
Oh, please don't save it too long.
Phil D. Colins: (03:03)
And one of many.
Marianne Lewis: (03:05)
Okay. Before you talk about your professional career, I guess, one thing I'm curious if you don't mind, I mean, one of the, I think great beauties of this gorgeous building that we get to live and work in every day, is the quotes from Carl, from Mr. Lindner, around on so many of our walls. And I wondered if there was something that he would say that is burned in your brain, because I love seeing those lines.
Phil D. Colins: (03:32)
Yeah, well, the funny thing for me about those quotes is that, as you may know, he had a stack of cards that he had printed up that had many of those quotes on it. And one of my jobs was to be the collator of those cards. And so, I spent many an hour, nights and weekends, collating those cards. And you know, one of the things that was, I think generally one of the top cards was, his expression only in America, gee, am I lucky. And he definitely believed that. And I think it's one of the reasons that he gave back so much. And, but he had a bunch of great sayings. People work with me, not for me.
Marianne Lewis: (04:15)
Mm-Hmm.
Phil D. Colins: (04:15)
I see them all around the building.
Marianne Lewis: (04:17)
And both of those are on walls that I can, the gee I'm lucky, I can picture downstairs and I love that.
Phil D. Colins: (04:23)
It always brings back great memories for me when I see 'em on the walls around here.
Marianne Lewis: (04:26)
Me too. How about professionally? How did that experience lead into your professional career?
Phil D. Colins: (04:33)
You know, I mean, it opened my eyes to a whole world that I didn't know existed. And, you know, he was very active at that time in, you know, with the evolution and emergence of the leveraged finance markets. And what became, we didn't know what to call it at the time, but what became the private equity industry. And I think that, you know, that really got me exposed to that whole world in a way that I would've never had an opportunity to before. And that evolved, you know, my during school job evolved into, I added after I graduated a daytime financial analyst job to my night and weekend working-for-Carl job. So, at that point, like him, I was working 24 hours a day, but, also got some great exposure and learning from that experience.
Marianne Lewis: (05:24)
That's remarkable. And, and you're right, so much was changing in that pivotal time in our economy and in our world. From where you sit now, Phil, both through your career, but also as chair of the Board of Trustees, I'd be interested in hearing what makes Lindner special to you.
Phil D. Colins: (05:40)
I don't think it's an overstatement to say that my experience here dramatically changed the trajectory of my life, which is the reason I feel so passionately about this place and feel compelled to give back. The experiences I had here, you know, as a student leader, the opportunities that were opened up for me here, really set me on the path of the rest of my career. And I'm just eternally grateful for that, for those opportunities and the impact that this place has had on me.
Marianne Lewis: (06:07)
You've seen probably more and more of other schools just in your role even as a parent, as well as on the Board of Trustees. Do you think there are things that make us distinctive?
Phil D. Colins: (06:18)
Yeah, I mean, I think, one of the great things about a large university in a kind of vibrant urban setting is the ability to interact with the community and business leaders and it just presents, I think, incredible opportunities. A large university provides the opportunity to have a number of things to get involved in on campus, leadership opportunities of all kinds. And that engagement in a large campus community, I think gives you this incredible experience that serves you well throughout your life. And then ultimately, the co-op experience, you know, I think it's unbelievably valuable. It wasn't just invented here. We do it better than anybody else, and I think we'll continue to innovate to keep experiential learning at the core of what UC stands for. And, getting out in the world and getting real experience really helps you figure out where your passion is, and what you're gonna love to do. And, and that's really important. You can't figure that out in the classroom. And it turns out that that's actually the most important thing. And I think it's a unique opportunity that we have here, both because of how important co-operative education is here, but also being in this, kind of vibrant, business community.
Marianne Lewis: (07:34)
Phil, I love those insights in terms of our distinctions, and I think it's so helpful for prospective students and their parents to understand. I'm also curious about your advice for current students, those really living the Lindner experience, the UC way now. What would you tell them?
Phil D. Colins: (07:50)
Yeah. My experience is, the most valuable thing you can do as a student is get involved in some way, whatever way, with no disrespect to the great learning and scholarship that happens here. It's the richness of, you know, being an engaged student that will linger with you in your life, and both the learning experiences and the people that you get from that stay with you. My experience in student government and ultimately my time as student body president was, you know, probably one of the most formative experiences of my life in terms of developing life and professional skills. And it wasn't just a great experience. It opened a bunch of doors for me. And to this day, my best friends are people with whom I had that shared experience. And those are really great and unique, bonds that you value in your life.
Phil D. Colins: (08:39)
And it's amazing to me how much responsibility you can get and how much impact you can have by just taking a little bit of initiative to get involved. I wandered into the student government one day early in my freshman year and, you know, asked about opportunities to get involved. And, you know, the rest, as they say is history. And, I think it's just so vital to getting the most out of the experience here. And, again, it's one of those ways in which having a large community can really give you unique opportunities.
Marianne Lewis: (09:16)
You know, Phil, you make me proud, but also want to push further on the innovations that we're doing at Lindner to weave together the curricular, the co-curricular and the professional, right? What's happening in the classroom, what's happening in our student organizations, student government, and what's happening on co-op. And you've said so much, I think, of value that I hope our students and prospective students are listening to on both the professional side and the co-curricular. Can you share a little bit more about how you made the most of your classes, our faculty?
Phil D. Colins: (09:47)
Yeah. So I'm a big believer that, you know, life unfolds through following your curiosity and you have the opportunity to do that in the academic environment. And, so for me, there was kind of a unique combination of my work experience and my academic experience in that, you know, I worked in this environment where at the time, Carl Lindner was very active in the evolution and invention of the leveraged finance markets and what became the private equity industry at the time. It was, you know, the corporate raider moment. And so I did my senior thesis on, it was called Sharp Repellants in the Market for Corporate Control, about, you know, some of the things that were evolving on the technology of repelling hostile takeovers.
Phil D. Colins: (10:39)
And one of the things I discovered during that process was an behavioral economist named Michael Jensen, who did a lot of seminal work around that, the market for corporate control. And that work evolved into work around this evolving thing that we didn't know what to call it at the time, but ultimately became the private equity market. And I was very intrigued by his work. He was at the University of Rochester at the time, but happened to move to Harvard. And that was part of the impetus for me deciding that, I thought I'd try to go to Harvard, because not only did they not require the GMAT at the time, which I didn't have time to take and probably wasn't smart enough to get into Harvard if I took the GMAT. But also, you know, he had gone there and it gave me an opportunity to actually meet with and study under him. And that was a phenomenal experience that ultimately led to my decision to try to go into the private equity industry. And so, you know, it was, I think the combination of that experience, work experience that I had during school, tying to, you know, kind of pursuing the curiosity on the academic side that ultimately kind of shaped the path of where I went in my career.
Marianne Lewis: (11:49)
Yeah, and really making those pieces fit together so purposefully. Well, and I say purposefully, but I often, when we're talking to students, I think it can look like it was all planned. I know it's not all planned.
Phil D. Colins: (11:59)
Yeah.
Marianne Lewis: (11:59)
Lots of right, bobbing and weaving throughout your career to get to where you are.
Phil D. Colins: (12:05)
Absolutely. And that's, you know, I have so many stories about how things just evolved in a very serendipitous way. One of the things I tell young people that think they've got it all figured out about how their life is gonna unfold is, you know, just, you know, follow your curiosity. Follow your passions and, you know, serendipity will kind of take care of the rest and things will unfold in a mysterious and unexpected way. And if you over-program it and try to over-plan it, actually you maybe miss some of the best opportunities that really create the kind of energy that you need to, you know, to generate sustained success. And that's why I think, you know, pursuing your curiosity and passion is so important.
Marianne Lewis: (12:52)
I just have to say Phil, serendipity is one of my favorite words.
Phil D. Colins: (12:54)
Me too.
Marianne Lewis: (12:55)
I define it as planned luck, but I think your examples are exactly what I always think of.
Phil D. Colins: (12:59)
Yeah. Well, it goes back to one of Carl's other great quotes, which is the harder I work, the luckier I get, which I also see posted around the building here. And that has definitely been my life experience.
Marianne Lewis: (13:12)
Shifting slightly. I'd love to talk about alumni because your engagement, I mean, you certainly made the most of your time here on campus and it continued even when you were on the West Coast, you stayed involved. Share a little bit more about what you think is the power of engaging as an alumni.
Phil D. Colins: (13:30)
Yeah. I stayed engaged to the extent I could when I was out on the West Coast. But for me, when we made my wife and I and our family made the decision to move back here, you know, one of the kind of unexpected gifts that that presented for me was the opportunity to really get engaged. And you know, for me, I owe so much to this place. It's an opportunity for me to give back. I feel a close connection and owe a lot of gratitude. And it's just been incredibly rewarding for me to see the growth and development of this institution since I was a student here. And the opportunities it creates for students, the role and impact that this institution has in our community. It's just so far ahead of where it was when I was a student.
Phil D. Colins: (14:15)
And, as a result, it just creates these incredible opportunities for students. And I kind of look forward to seeing what this generation of students can accomplish. You may have seen a Stanford professor who did this predictive index for producing unicorn startups puts UC at the top and number one of universities for the potential to create unicorn startups. And, I think they're ahead of the curve on figuring out what others will learn about this place. And so, and then the final thing is I just, I care about this community, the Cincinnati community, and I think having a thriving, world-class, research university is essential to creating a vibrant and thriving community. And, UC's elevation has been, and I think will continue to be, a critical part of the elevation of this community. And it's been, you know, fun and rewarding for me to be able to play a tiny role in helping to advance that.
Marianne Lewis: (15:15)
Well, you certainly are. We're very grateful to you, Phil. Before we wrap up, I'd love to give you the opportunity to help us learn more. Is there, parting thoughts from you?
Phil D. Colins: (15:25)
Well, we covered a lot of ground there, Marianne, you're a great podcaster already.
Marianne Lewis: (15:31)
<laughs>.
Phil D. Colins: (15:31)
I guess, you know, my parting thoughts would just be, you know, take initiative to get involved, follow your curiosity, pursue your passion, and serendipity, both of our favorite word, will take care of the rest.
Marianne Lewis: (15:44)
Oh, absolutely. My heartfelt thanks to Phil for stopping by today and for all you do for this university, continuing to raise the bar and help us thrive. And a friendly reminder to all, you can listen to Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, YouTube or Amazon Music. And if you can spare a few minutes, please subscribe, rate and review us on those platforms so we continue to improve and innovate. Be safe, be well, go Bearcats.
What is co-op, and how can I get one? What makes co-op at Lindner unique? How can a student expand their network without co-op or job experience?
Lindner Career Services Assistant Director Bella Gullia answers these questions and more, offering support and guidance to current and prospective Lindner students.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, a new podcast from the University of Cincinnati's, Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and marketing Lindner, speaking to you from the second floor of Lindner Hall. Today I am joined by Bella Gullia, an assistant director in Lindner's Career Services office, to demystify co-op at Lindner. Thanks for joining me, Bella.
Bella Gullia: (00:22)
Hi Grant. Thanks for having me.
Grant Freking: (00:24)
Alright, let's start simple. What is co-op and what makes co-op at Lindner a unique experience for our students?
Bella Gullia: (00:30)
Yes. So co-op stands for cooperative, and in the Lindner College of Business we have a lot of flexible ways a student can obtain a cooperative experience. Ultimately it needs to be a paid professional opportunity that is related to a student's business degree here in Lindner.
Grant Freking: (00:49)
There's also been some changes to the way we do co-op at Lindner, some exciting new developments. Tell us more about universal co-op and what, uh, our first-year students are are partaking in this year.
Bella Gullia: (00:58)
Yes. So as we have been looking to expand and grow as a college and also a university, we've recognized the need for a co-op requirement for our students here in Lindner. And the nice thing about adopting this is that it's already very much in the culture here at Lindner for students to be going on co-op.
Grant Freking: (01:21)
Sure is.
Bella Gullia: (01:21)
So, over the next few years we've already started and we will be continuing to roll out this requirement. Our Honors students have a three co-op requirement in order to graduate that started last year.
Grant Freking: (01:34)
Yep.
Bella Gullia: (01:34)
And then next year, fall of 2024, we will have a co-op universal requirement for all traditional first-year students to do two experiences, two co-ops before they graduate. In the in-between, this year, we have rolled out a program called the co-op Trailblazer Scholars Program, where we had over 200 students apply to be part of this program. They opted in to say, yes, we want to commit and do two co-ops before we graduate college. And so we've been meeting with this program, these students, in individual meetings as well as specialized events and sessions very tailored to towards them to help them find success in obtaining co-ops quicker, that are quality experiences for them to, to get in order to graduate.
Grant Freking: (02:22)
Sure. And what was the sense you've gotten, what is the sense you've gotten from students as to why they opted in? Like as you mentioned, it's a voluntary opt-in. What are some of the reasons you've heard from some of our first-year Trailblazer Scholars about why they decided to take up this requirement?
Bella Gullia: (02:37)
Yeah. Well a lot of them when we ask, you know, why did you come to UC, why Lindner? A lot of them was they were already saying, you know, I really wanna be part of a co-op program. And so as we've been rolling out this opt-in program for students, we've noticed, you know, they wanna make that commitment 'cause they know it's part of the brand of UC to, to go on co-op to have that professional experience. And so they are committing, they're really excited and interested from the jump to say, yes, I want that to be part of my degree requirement. And again, it's very much in the like culture of our college to do this. And so the fact that they are going a step further and committing that they want it to be part of their academic requirements, I think speaks to that culture. But also their excitement and interest in really diving into it.
Grant Freking: (03:24)
Sure. It's like almost like a recommitment of like why they decided to come to Lindner in the first place, 'cause they probably wanted to co-op at some point, but now this is kind of offering them an early pathway kind of, sort of.
Bella Gullia: (03:33)
Exactly. And some of the specialized events we've been doing with them has been, you know, helping them expand their network sooner, make more relationships with employers and alumni earlier on than if they would've waited to sophomore or junior year to start exploring an internship opportunity, which could be looked at as a little different.
Grant Freking: (03:53)
Sure. Let's shift a little bit to your office and Lindner Career Services. Uh, explain to our listeners how Lindner Career Services works for students, but also works for our employer partners.
Bella Gullia: (04:04)
Yes. So something really unique about Lindner Career Services at the University of Cincinnati, we are the only career center across the whole university that is dedicated in-house to, in our case the college of business, which is really special because through that we're able to take a major-specific approach. So,
Grant Freking: (04:23)
Right.
Bella Gullia: (04:23)
across our office, we have a career coach dedicated to every single major in the Lindner College of Business. This is really special because students are able to make specific and tailored relationships with our office and with their career coach in ways in which that we're then able to see like, okay, here are your interests, here are your skill sets, you're just getting started. Here are some really great opportunities that would be great for you specifically. Or, oh, you've had a few co-ops already. Here are some other great opportunities that is kind of like the next level up. And we have that relationship with these students because of this model.
Grant Freking: (05:01)
That personalized approach has to mean everything to the student too, especially once you get them past the, maybe that first introductory meeting where maybe they're a little anxious or nervous to talk to a stranger working in a career services office. But once you get past that first meeting, I imagine that they kind of open up and they tell you a little bit more about their interest and then you can use your experience and point them in the right direction.
Bella Gullia: (05:20)
Yeah, it's really special and it's, I think the thing I love most about what I do is that I get to build relationships with these students and see them from, you know, first year not really sure what I wanna do all the way through graduation of like, wow, I've, I've pieced everything together of who I am and what I'm interested in. And I've gotten to kind of walk alongside that.
Grant Freking: (05:41)
Bella, how does Lindner Career Services support students who are actually enrolled in the universal co-op program, the Trailblazer Scholars?
Bella Gullia: (05:47)
Yes. So as I mentioned, we meet with students one-on-one, we call them individual coaching appointments. We also, through our office teach a class called Career Success Strategies. It's a first-year class. All of our trailblazers are enrolled in it. And in that setting we're going over a lot of big picture pieces to finding a co-op, creating your resume, interviewing, networking, navigating a career fair. So they're getting that broadly in the classroom, but then also more detailed, more specific.
Grant Freking: (06:19)
Sure.
Bella Gullia: (06:19)
in our coaching appointments. And then in addition to all of that, we are having specialized events for the trailblazers. So we had two in the fall, our initial meeting where all of the trailblazers got to meet one another. They got to meet our team, Career Services, and we went over kind of, you know, what does it look like to be a trailblazer? What will this experience look like for you this year? What are your commitments? We also had an alumni panel, which was great for the students to, again, expand their network, meet alumni, understand what you can do with various degrees because it's not always a linear path. Right. And then this spring we'll be having a few other specialized events, with the big end-of-year culmination being, a large like networking, kind of speed dating type event, where hopefully again, students are expanding their network meeting employers, making those professional connections that will then lead to co-ops.
Grant Freking: (07:13)
So it sounds like a combination of giving them the big picture, showing them the career outcomes, but also the personalized sort of step-by-step approach that what your office can provide to them.
Bella Gullia: (07:22)
Yeah, and it's, it's nice too, because our office not only is working with students, but we also work directly with employers. And so sometimes, you know, we'll have an employer come to us because we have this very specific model, Hey, I need a finance student for this type of position. Do you know anyone? And because of these relationships that we have with our students, we're able to make those direct connections, which is really special.
Grant Freking: (07:45)
Students go see your career counselors in Lindner Career Services.
Bella Gullia: (07:48)
Yeah. Come see us.
Grant Freking: (07:49)
So what are some common and maybe some unorthodox ways for students to gain co-op experiences, whether they're first-year students, which is a little bit tougher, admittedly for them.
Bella Gullia: (07:56)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (07:56)
But in their second, third years especially.
Bella Gullia: (08:00)
Yeah. Some common opportunities or ways in which co-op can look like. Of course we have the summer experience between the academic years. I think that's a very, very common way.
Grant Freking: (08:11)
A popular one, yeah.
Bella Gullia: (08:11)
For students to do a co-op. It really should be 10 to 15 weeks. Anything less than 10 weeks, you won't really gain a lot of skills.
Grant Freking: (08:21)
Mm-Hmm.
Bella Gullia: (08:21)
or experiences that you can speak to later on. So that would be a common way. We also, again, we offer very flexible options for students. So we see a lot of students who will co-op in the fall or in the spring and offset their classes. Maybe they might take them over the summer so they can do a full-time, spring co-op. So those are the common ways in which we're seeing students get experiences. We also as, especially as we're rolling out this universal co-op requirement, we're going to have an option for students to do something called an experiential exploration project.
Bella Gullia: (08:56)
So that should still be something that is robust in terms of timeline. It shouldn't be like a one to two week project. We're looking at, you know, 10 weeks, at least the length of a semester, project that is hyper-specific to either the area that they're interested in working one day, their major area of study or something that a professor maybe that they're working closely with, has deemed an important, you know, research project in their field. So those, again, very flexible, can look many different ways, but that would be an uncommon way in which we would approve a student of a co-op experience.
Grant Freking: (09:34)
Sure, and your office is making sure that as best as you possibly can through your connections and also working with other entities within Lindner and the university, that there is many co-op opportunities available for students because we're bringing more and more, uh, students into co-op. Correct?
Bella Gullia: (09:48)
Yeah. And that's exciting. A very exciting time for us too. We're starting to expand our employer reach, not just regionally, but nationally. Our team is very committed to finding more and more quality opportunities for our students. And our employer relations team is actually going on a trip to Texas this year, where they'll be meeting with some, some major companies, which is really exciting.
Grant Freking: (10:10)
Always expanding those networks. And speaking of networks, when a student comes and meets with you and, and is maybe a little confused or is feeling anxious and asks, how do I expand my professional network?
Bella Gullia: (10:20)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (10:20)
Without any co-op or job experience, how do you respond to that?
Bella Gullia: (10:24)
Yes. I think the first thing when it comes to like quote unquote networking, we need to roll it back. It's, it's just making a friend, making a new relationship at the end of the day. And, I tell this to all of my students, people want to help people. We just have to tell them how, and especially people wanna help college students. So when you think about building your network or building relationships, working with your career coach, going to different events like the career fair, tabling events where employers are here in the building in our atrium, tabling, this happens almost weekly. Going to info sessions, really being engaged in attending those things. Talking with the employer one-on-one afterwards, asking the career coach for a personal introduction and then saying, you know, this is what I'm studying, these are what my interests are, what advice do you have for me? Or even get more specific than that, and you know, do you have any opportunities to shadow you or is there anyone else in the company that you would recommend connecting me to or that I should reach out to to learn about their experience at this, at this organization? People I think get in, we get in our own heads of networking and what it can look like and
Grant Freking: (11:37)
A hundred percent, yeah.
Bella Gullia: (11:38)
Ultimately it is just making, making friendships and, and yeah. Really just being interested and interesting in what you're talking about.
Grant Freking: (11:47)
Right. And then it's just, it's like anything else. And like it's the smallest detail or gesture that can lead to something else and you just, you can't visualize that until you actually go and do it and try and meet that new person or meet that new company, et cetera.
Bella Gullia: (11:59)
Yeah. And one thing I would say, younger students, 'cause it can be challenging to find a co-op as a first year.
Grant Freking: (12:05)
For sure.
Bella Gullia: (12:06)
We should think big picture and long term here. So if there is an employer or an alumni or even here in the building, like a professor that you really admire, you're interested in, you want to work with or you wanna work for that organization, start planting those seeds now. Make connections. Introduce yourself, because when it does come time for you to apply or they're now accepting you at junior year, they'll remember you. And that's gonna be, you're gonna be way more likely to get the opportunity quicker or at least get in the process quicker if they know you. So it's okay if we're not landing something immediately. If you're planting those seeds, that is part of this experience.
Grant Freking: (12:45)
Right, it's about building your whole portfolio, so to speak.
Bella Gullia: (12:48)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (12:48)
Let's end on this one, Bella. So students co-op to help them determine a career field. But co-ops are also useful in another way. They help students find out what they don't want to do.
Bella Gullia: (12:57)
Mm-Hmm.
Grant Freking: (12:57)
with their professional lives.
Bella Gullia: (12:58)
Mm-Hmm. Yes, a hundred percent. And there's so much value in learning what you don't wanna do. First of all, it will save you a lot of time in the long run, but also even while you're finding out maybe what you don't wanna do, you're still building a lot of professional skills, you're building a lot of experiences that inevitably will be transferable to wherever you go next. And you're gonna be able to speak to that. I think employers are just as interested in hearing what you've learned, even if it's not what you wanna do and how you wanna pivot into a new area. Then if you said, oh, I had a perfect experience. I learned everything and I did everything that I wanted to do, and it confirmed what, what I wanted, that's also valuable. But I think there is some magic in being able to speak to what you, what you don't wanna do, 'cause you've, you've figured that out. That's that's huge. Yeah.
Grant Freking: (13:46)
And it's, and it's a, it could be just a slice of an industry where you figure out, well I don't really like this particular part of the industry.
Bella Gullia: (13:51)
Oh yeah.
Grant Freking: (13:52)
Or the area of business that I wanna be in, but it's maybe another sector and I can maybe use take another class or try and pursue another co-op that sort of explores that area as well.
Bella Gullia: (14:01)
Yeah. And I mean the world is constantly expanding and growing, which means job opportunities are expanding and growing. So sometimes there is a situation where you find a sliver that you do really like and that company is looking to innovate and expand in that area. And you could be that person that they bring on to do that. And you know, maybe you didn't like all the other pieces, but that small sliver is what lands you a really cool opportunity down the line.
Grant Freking: (14:28)
Absolutely. Well, my thanks to Bella for stopping by to help demystify co-op at Lindner. If you're looking for more information on co-op, visit business.uc.edu. A friendly reminder, you can listen to Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, YouTube, or Amazon Music. If you can spare a few minutes, please subscribe, rate and review us. On the next episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner Dean Marianne Lewis will sit down with Phil D. Collins, chairman of the University of Cincinnati's Board of Trustees and a Lindner graduate. Go Bearcats.
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Melissa Baer, Lindner's director of undergraduate enrollment, and Riley Higgins, a second-year Lindner Business Honors student majoring in marketing and international business, break down the admissions and applications process for prospective students and their parents or guardians.
Melissa taps into her institutional knowledge of Lindner and UC to educate listneners, while Riley touches on her recent past to relay her experience of applying to college, what to look for in a college/university, and why Lindner's experiential learning focus resonated with her as a high school student.
Grant Freking: (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Bearcats Mean Business, a new podcast from the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner. Today's topic, admissions and applying to Lindner and UC. We're here to address the worries, concerns, and questions that prospective students and their parents or guardians, may have about the college admissions process. Luckily for our listeners, our two guests are eminently qualified to address these topics. One of my guests is Melissa Baer, Lindner's director of undergraduate enrollment. Melissa has 20 years of experience working in college admissions at both public and private universities, and is nearing her 10-year anniversary working at the University of Cincinnati. Welcome, Melissa.
Melissa Baer: (00:44)
Thanks, Grant. I'm excited to be here today.
Grant Freking: (00:46)
We are also joined by Riley Higgins, a second-year Lindner Business Honors student majoring in marketing and international business. Riley is a Cincinnati native, a PACE leader and a Lindner Ambassador who also participates in Lindner women in Business, UC, Pickleball Club, and iCATS. Welcome Riley.
Riley Higgins: (01:02)
Thanks for having me, Grant.
Grant Freking: (01:04)
Melissa, we will begin with you. Can you explain to our listeners the purpose and mission of your job and how you help prospective students navigate the application process?
Melissa Baer: (01:13)
Sure. When, when talking to families and students about admissions and the work that we do, I always like to start with the title of admissions counselor. I think one of the big misunderstandings from families is that my role, my team, our job, is akin to sales. It's not, it's very much more akin to counseling, supporting students, answering questions, helping students and families find the right fit for their student. Um, and fit is a very, very personal thing to each and every student and each and every family. Um, one of the ways that we try to express that authenticity in the Lindner College of Business is by associating our prospective students with our current students. And that means that we're providing those authentic experiences. Yes, I receive a paycheck from the Lindner College of Business. Riley, for example, does not. So when she talks to students and families, we really expect that it is that authentic exchange and students and parents can find those opportunities to engage and find fit. And that's really important to me and my team and the work that we do.
Grant Freking: (02:18)
What's sort of the immediate feedback you get from prospective students and their parents when that exchange with a current student happens?
Melissa Baer: (02:25)
Uh, it's a lot of enthusiasm. , first of all, our students are amazing. I hope that everyone learns that today about Riley and I think she's a perfect picture of a Lindner student. Um, so when parents and students talk to us after the fact, they are in awe of our students and in awe of that, the idea that that is who their student can become, right? So this idea of, okay, in in two years my student's going to have had a cooperative education experience. They're going to have gotten involved in all of these campus activities. There may be going to be a student who's standing up here giving this presentation in a couple of years. I will say that some families will say, whoa, whoa, whoa. My student is, um, not that. And we go, not yet. Right? It is okay to not be that yet.
Melissa Baer: (03:14)
One of the things that we have tried to do in recent years is to really actively bring younger, currently students into our activities. It's very overwhelming to see a fifth-year student who's had four co-op rotations.
Grant Freking: (03:26)
Sure.
Melissa Baer: (03:26)
Already has their full-time job placement, has graduate classes under their belt. That's very intense for students and families. But when they see a first or a second year student who is finding their way through that process, they can start to connect to them a little bit more. So I think it's really some parents and students automatically see themselves in that scenario. Um, and some of them need the support of No, no, no, you're gonna grow into that. That's just an explanation of the opportunities that you have here.
Grant Freking: (03:57)
Perfect. Riley, what made you want to serve as that, I guess, mentor for prospective students and, you know, prospective students who you've never met before?
Riley Higgins: (04:05)
Yeah. When I first came to campus, I was here for a science-related competition in high school. So I didn't even come near the College of Business. In fact, at the time I don't think our new building had been built yet.
Grant Freking: (04:16)
Hmm.
Riley Higgins: (04:16)
Um, so when I did come back actually interested in business, I went to a college closeup presentation and I had the experience of two fifth-year students who were presenting to me about their experiences and their co-ops and their study abroad, which to me, who loves learning Spanish and has a minor in Spanish, I was like, this is exactly what I wanna do. So I was one of the people in Melissa's case who, um, saw myself in their shoes eventually giving the presentation back. And just from, honestly, semester one being on campus, it's just, you wanna look back at the students who I was with in high school and bring them up and show them everything that Lindner has to offer. So, um, that's how I became involved in Lindner Ambassadors and, um, where I get to present back to students and their parents and families, show them around Lindner, tell them about my experience. And the best part is that the faculty who like help establish Lindner Ambassadors have given us no, like, Hey, don't say that, hey, don't censor that. They just, you know, give us free rein to share our experiences and share, um, everything that we've been able to accomplish in just a year and a half here.
Grant Freking: (05:23)
It's good that they encourage you to be real about the process because I think parents and and prospective students, they can probably see through that, that inauthentic way of presenting Lindner or any other college that may may be doing some sort of similar, similar thing to college close-up.
Riley Higgins: (05:35)
It's pretty immediate. Yeah. I mean, just from the other college tours that had gone on in high school versus the one I got when I specifically came to Lindner, I just immediately recognized the authenticity and passion that the students had.
Grant Freking: (05:47)
Building off that rally, you're only a few years removed from applying to Lindner and UC as well as other universities, I'm sure. What do you remember about applying to college and what was your experience applying to Lindner and UC?
Riley Higgins: (05:58)
Yeah, I definitely remember it like it was yesterday because that is a stressful process that I hope I don't have to go through again if I, you know, choose to go to graduate school. But I was a bit of a unique case. I had looked at all of my options and I was between studying journalism or maybe medical field, maybe business. I wasn't sure, um, you know, what the right path was for me. And uc was actually the only in-state school I applied to.
Grant Freking: (06:23)
Okay.
Riley Higgins: (06:23)
Which is rare for students in Cincinnati in this area. We typically apply to several in-state schools. Um, but when I had seen what the Lindner program had to offer, I knew that if I was going to stay in state, it was UC all the way. Um, just all the things that they had to offer were undeniably where I wanted to be.
Riley Higgins: (06:44)
So I had also applied to a few, like out-of-state college colleges, you know, my reach schools, all these things. Um, and I actually didn't end up even hearing back from those schools 'cause their, you know, application process is where you'd hear back in April. But I had heard back in January and February from UC and I committed like that week that I had heard back. 'cause I knew this is where I wanted to be, but I just remember being really confused 'cause there's so many options on the table and, you know, you have to write all these essays and you have to figure out why exactly you wanna apply to this college. So for UC's application process, um, specifically, I remember that there was like one essay that was really straightforward. It was, why do you want to study business at UC? And I was like, oh, this is perfect. I can tell you exactly why I wanna do that. So I just really made sure to think about why UC could provide me with the opportunities I needed to get what I wanted out of a college experience.
Grant Freking: (07:40)
Right. And Melissa, an essay question like that is, is broad intentionally correct? It's to, uh, pinpoint, uh, the personal experience of the applicant?
Melissa Baer: (07:50)
Right. So we're a little unique here at uc as a direct-admit institution, which when students are looking at colleges and universities, they'll see a difference between schools that are saying, do you want to enroll at the University of Cincinnati in general, or do you wanna enroll specifically in the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati? So that major-specific question is really trying to target, um, what a student's experiences and backgrounds have been in regards to their academic interests and really allow them to have a space. It's a 250-word personal statement. It's not intense. Um, but it really is an opportunity for students to share their background and their interests.
Grant Freking: (08:26)
And it also forces them to be concise, right? With a, with a perhaps a longer, you know, word count. There's a bit of a propensity perhaps for rambling or, or lack of focus, but you really get to know, and also it helps you churn through the thousands of applications, right?
Melissa Baer: (08:41)
Yeah, so we have both the common app essay, which is 600 words, which is the same essay that you would send to any common app school you would apply to. So in that essay, uh, you don't get to talk about UC in particular, and if you do talk about UC, um, they're gonna send that sentence about UC to all of the other schools that you apply to.
Grant Freking: (08:58)
Sure.
Melissa Baer: (08:58)
So that personal statement requires that tight timeline, but an opportunity also for a student to elaborate what they know about themselves and the university, um, in that place. That personal statement just comes to us at UC and does allow us to dive a little bit deeper into the application, who the student is and what they're looking for.
Grant Freking: (09:19)
Melissa, let's stay on the topic of prospective students. When you have a chance to talk with potential future students at Lindner as well as their parents or guardians, what are common questions that you hear from them?
Melissa Baer: (09:30)
The common questions really depend on two things. The first is where the student is in their search process and where we are in the application timeline. So if we sort of start at the beginning with the hope that we have a high school junior in the spring of their junior year that's coming to visit us, that student is hopefully talking about how do I become the most competitive candidate? What classes am I taking? A little plug here, we are always going to say that a student should remain on a calculus trajectory, uh, and happy to share more about that. Uh, but students are asking about those pieces of the equation earlier in their process. But as they move through, it starts to become things like, when will I find out about my decision? When will I find out about my financial aid? Um, how do I get a more personalized visit? What opportunities are there for scholarships? So it really is this kind of ebb and flow of the process. We are just a few days away from our 2024 decision release date. Um, so those decisions will be releasing on January 22nd for students to find out whether or not they have been admitted to the university. Um, and that really opens up the what next set of questions for prospective students. So we're excited to go through that transition here in the next couple of days.
Grant Freking: (10:45)
It's exciting, exciting time and a busy time, for you, Melissa. Riley, during your application process, and you touched on this a little bit already, but let's expand upon it. What were the attributes that you were looking for in a future college or university or a business school?
Riley Higgins: (10:57)
Yeah, definitely. I was looking for a place first and foremost that I could call home. I knew that I wanted to be comfortable, but also wanted to have a place that would challenge me to grow. And that was what I found here at Lindner. I just like observed the community when I was here just naturally on a building tour. And it was where the ambassadors who were taking us on the building tour are talking to the faculty in the hallway and people are saying, Hey. And I just realized that the culture here, the community was really strong. And it's something that we actually highlight in our college close-up presentations with the ambassadors is one of our points of distinction is the community that we have. So it really stood out to me. Um, and that's something that I was looking for. And then I also wanted a smaller college campus, you know, experience with Lindner, um, in the College of Business, but on the big university of the University of Cincinnati. So there's so many resources available because we're on such a big campus. Um, in my, in my opinion, it's a big campus, but clearly there's, there's much bigger. Um, but it's, it's, you know, it's navigable and there's things here that I'm able to keep myself entertained. Um, and I also get to come to the same building for my classes and really like hammer down and, um, get my work done.
Grant Freking: (12:16)
Sure. And during these, these visits, we, we hammer home our, our, our mission and our values to students. What were some of those things maybe specifically related to experiential learning and co-op, things like that, that sort of stuck out to you and, and resonated with you, uh, during the application process and maybe helped drive you towards a decision?
Riley Higgins: (12:33)
Yeah, it's, it's something so unique is the experiential learning outlook on education. Um, coming from high school when you're pretty much just reading textbooks and getting PowerPoints, uh, you really have to have a, a frame shift in your mindset of what it means to learn and what that looks like for a business student. And experiential learning goes so well with our curriculum because it's in our classrooms. And then after our classroom educational period, we go to our clubs where we're doing consulting work and we're doing, we're implementing the things that we're learning almost immediately. And so you're not only growing in the classroom, but in your extracurricular work with, um, clubs that you're a part of, and then you get to go to this co-op experience. Um, which for me was after my second semester. So it was the summer after my first year of college, I got to work for a bank doing marketing strategy, which is exactly what I wanted to get experience in.
Riley Higgins: (13:27)
And we always call it test driving your major, right. And . Yeah. So, and it's the perfect way to summarize exactly what you're doing. It's not locking you down into a full-time position where there's a little bit more responsibility and expectation, but, um, you're with a company who often is local and helping you figure out what you wanna do with your career. What you don't like is just as important as what you do like. So that was really attractive to me as far as figuring out, you know, the value of my education when I graduate in four years. I wanna be able to say that it was worth every penny. Um, so I wanted to really figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Grant Freking: (14:05)
No pressure, right?
Riley Higgins: (14:06)
No pressure, but a good support system will make it happen.
Grant Freking: (14:10)
Right? And it's stories like this, Melissa, to help, you know, this is not what we're, you know, you're, you're not a salesperson as you said earlier, but Riley's an exemplar of what we can hold up and say, like, this is what's possible. Right? But you can also go at your own pace. And I think that's important to convey to parents and students who are likely and probably more than likely overwhelmed at the process. As, you know, they're, they're trying to usher in a 17, 18-year-old young adult into a brand new world,
Melissa Baer: (14:36)
Right. So, Riley's an example of a student who like has her foot on the gas pedal and she's like, ready to go and she's goal-driven, and she's like, I'm gonna milk this for everything that I can. Right? That's not every single student that comes into the College of Business.
Grant Freking: (14:49)
Of course.
Melissa Baer: (14:50)
And that's, that's perfectly fine. So I think it's important always from our lens to support stories like Riley's by saying it's the faculty and staff. It's your academic advisor, it's your career advisor. Um, it's the requirements of the college that are going to support a student who's less likely to put their foot on the gas pedal and finding out what's next. So there are those little points in the process, just like, um, in high school or just like in a degree pathway in college where it's sort of like, okay, it's time, little birdie.
Melissa Baer: (15:20)
It's time to go find a co-op and we're gonna support you in doing that, and it's gonna feel uncomfortable. And that's okay, right? This is another opportunity in life for students to have those, uh, I don't wanna say failures, but there is a sense of an opportunity to fail with a safety net, right? Going out to the career fair, um, in the fall of your, your freshman year and realizing that nobody wants to hire you because you're basically still a high school student, right? But you still get that opportunity under your belt of handing out your resume and shaking people's hands. Um, and for some students that comes easy. I'm guessing for Riley it did. Um, and for some students it's really, really painful, but it's a part of that learning process. And that is a-okay.
Riley Higgins: (16:01)
I'll tell you. I mean, it is, you, you really hit the ground running. I will say Lindner's First-Year Experience is top tier because of that, they take you, you know, and you might feel like uncomfortable your first couple of days, but this, the community that surrounds you, the resources that are available to you, you're able to achieve so much more within one month of being here than you ever thought possible. So I mentor 11 first-year students as a PACE leader. And so I got to see it this year now on the other side of, you know, dragging them through their first couple of weeks and being like, okay, time to, you know, learn how to do an interview. welcome to college, essentially. And just seeing their growth throughout the first semester and then seeing them now going into their second semester, they're almost a different person. They have grown so much. And I think that's an amazing thing to be able to accomplish in one semester.
Grant Freking: (16:51)
Right. And I've sat in on a lot of the, those sessions that, that you, you have led and they've been led by company representatives who sit on those FYE sessions even coming in and, you know, three or four months down the road. The growth, the less anxiousness, less nervousness. I mean, of course everyone's still nervous. I get up nervous talking in front of people still.
Riley Higgins: (17:09)
100%.
Grant Freking: (17:10)
But it's, it's the comfort level, not only with their classmates in collaboration, but also the subject matter that once they've acquitted themselves, they're like, oh, this isn't too daunting. I can go ahead and do this among my, my path to being, as we say, a business problem solver, right?
Riley Higgins: (17:22)
Yeah.
Grant Freking: (17:22)
Melissa, let's walk listeners through a typical admission cycle for a prospective student. You just mentioned that you are hitting one of your benchmark dates in your office. From the time a student receives marketing collateral to the time they apply. What's that sort of timeframe look like?
Melissa Baer: (17:37)
Yeah, and I, I wanna address this first by saying one of the things that we're seeing from students is a concern about, um, sharing their information or opting into marketing campaigns.
Grant Freking: (17:47)
Hmm.
Melissa Baer: (17:47)
And I absolutely understand that. I know what all four of my email inboxes look like. You know, I have one that was like supposed to be for coupons and stuff and one that was personal. And then I have my work and then I have another one that I started for, for funsies. Um, but I encourage students to embrace that opportunity, start an email address that's just for your college search process. Maybe share access with that to your parents. Um, because sharing your information means we can talk to you about who we are. We can tell you what the opportunities are to, to get to know us. Um, we're seeing a rise in students entering our funnel at the time of application, which means we've had no contact with them, um, until they apply.
Melissa Baer: (18:28)
And I think students who choose that route are, um, less informed when they come to us. So, so really the hope, and to answer your question, is a student could start getting marketing collateral from us in the spring of their junior year of high school. Really kind of that introduction to who we are, um, and what their timeline and process could look like. That's ideal. That is also the point in which most high school students are going to be pursuing resume workshops, essay workshops, getting to know their common application and really building out their application materials so that when the common app does open on August 1st of a student's senior year of high school, right? Generally right before you start your senior year, you're ready to apply. But that means to be the most competitive candidate that you can, you need a shortlist. I've seen that shortlist run anywhere from one school to 20 schools. Neither of those ends are the right answer. Um, but really making sure that students have the information and knowledge to have a list that works well for them so that they can apply before the deadlines of their respective schools. Which for Lindner and the University of Cincinnati is December 1 of your senior year.
Grant Freking: (19:40)
The important, that's an important date for all of us to remember.
Melissa Baer: (19:42)
Very important.
Grant Freking: (19:43)
Riley based on your experiences with what Melissa just talked about, what are some recommendations you would offer a prospective student in navigating the college application process?
Riley Higgins: (19:51)
Yeah, I actually, um, over the holidays was just talking with my cousins about this, 'cause they're juniors in high school. They're going through the process of trying to figure out, first of all what they wanna do and second of all, where they wanna do it. Um, so I was just telling them to find a place that will encourage them to grow and a place that caress about them and can give them the resources that they need to achieve their goals. Um, 'cause I think at the bottom line, that's what's most important. Um, I know when I was looking at colleges, I was thinking about things like, do I like the campus? You know, do I like the dorms? Do I like the food? You know, some of the details when you're comparing, it's just like apples to apples. . I'm like, you know, campuses will all have food and campuses will all have dorms for you to live in and something like that.
Riley Higgins: (20:37)
But, um, I just, you know, you have to look at the resources and the quality of students that were coming out of that college and, um, for what you're specifically trying to study. If you're not sure if you wanna go into business or something else, then you know, find a college that's gonna be able to support you no matter what you choose, and be a place where you can grow, um, and feel comfortable doing that. So that's the biggest advice that I can give is when you're searching for colleges, try not to get lost in the glitz and glamour of everything and instead like really look at the details of what you're getting out of the education that you're buying, um, . So keep, you know, it is important to look at that as well as the financial aspect of, um, what makes most sense in four years time when you go to get a career, do you wanna look back and say, that was totally worth it? Um, that's also really important.
Grant Freking: (21:26)
Right. Hopeful. I'm sure our listeners will find that extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing that. Melissa. Let's tie a bow on this episode with dispelling some of the biggest myths around the college admissions process and then a handful of must-know dates for applicants that relate to Lindner and UC.
Melissa Baer: (21:39)
Yeah, let's start with, with some myths. I will hang my hat on three myths that I think really, um, confuse parents and students about this process. The first one is that admissions is exceptionally, overly competitive. And, um, my student will never get in. Your student, whomever they are, will have plenty of options for higher education, um, and plenty of options to, to move towards their goals. I'll use Lindner as an example. We admit about 72% of our incoming first year students directly to their major, but we enroll almost another, um, equal amount of students in their second year as transition students. So they come to the University of Cincinnati, either not having been admitted directly to business or having started someplace else. Um, they just really kind of have to stay on their path here and take their math classes and then they can come on over to the College of Business.
Melissa Baer: (22:35)
It's really about us and other institutions wanting to be sure that your students are gonna be successful. The second myth that I think is incredibly important for everyone to understand is the price versus cost myth. Um, the sticker price on higher education is very high and it can be daunting for a lot of families, especially first-generation families. I strongly encourage students not to discount an institution on price right out the gate. Um, I was a first-gen college student with what's a zero EFC student, so I came from a low socioeconomic background. Um, my most reasonable institution was a private institution that actually had the highest sticker price of any of the institutions that I applied to. This is not to say that we're negotiating price or like this is a car, a car lot. It's really that the way institutions use their financial aid dollars, either merit-based scholarships or need-based scholarships, is very different. And you kind of have to put your name in the hat and all these different institutions to know what you're going to get. And then the third one isn't really so much a myth that I'll say it's just a mixture of making sure that students are exploring the differences between public and private institutions. There are merits to both sides of the equation. There are a lot of differences and similarities, but I think that it's important for students and families not to write one or the other off in the very beginning of their process.
Grant Freking: (23:53)
Melissa, let's also give our listeners a handful of dates that they should be aware of if they're, if a, they're a student applying for college or if they're a parent, perhaps listening that wants to have their student apply for college.
Melissa Baer: (24:04)
Yeah. The most critical dates in this process are going to be the August 1st of your senior year. The common application opens for the University of Cincinnati and the Lindner College of Business. December 1st is the early action deadline, so greatest consideration for scholarships and admission. Um, late January is our first decision release date, so January 22nd this year. Mid-February, usually around Valentine's Day, we'll release merit-based scholarships. Um, and then May 1st is what's called the national candidate's reply date. It is generally late April to early May when you have to confirm your decision or commit to a college or university.
Grant Freking: (24:41)
Students and parents, be sure to mark down those important dates. My thanks to Melissa and Riley for joining me today. A friendly reminder that Bearcats Mean Business is available on Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube. On the next episode of Bearcats Mean Business, I'll be speaking to a member of Lindner Career Services to demystify co-op at Lindner. Go Bearcats.
On the first episode of Bearcats Mean Business, Lindner dean Marianne Lewis, PhD, details Lindner’s distinctive attributes: Among the topics discussed:
- The uniqueness of co-op at Lindner + why it serves as a career launchpad
- Our mission of empowering business problem solving
- Why students from a range of backgrounds and stages in their lives turn to Lindner
Grant Freking: (00:01)
Welcome to the first episode of Bearcats Mean Business, a new podcast from the University of Cincinnati's, Carl H. Lindner College of Business. In the episodes to come, you will hear from Lindner students, faculty, staff, alumni, supporters, and more about a range of topics, including but not limited to, co-op, advice for prospective students and their parents, impactful faculty research and what a typical day looks like for a Lindner student. We want you to have an intimate understanding of the many exciting pathways that are possible at Lindner. My name is Grant Freking, Manager of College Communications and Marketing at Lindner, and I'm delighted to be your host. My first guest was a no-brainer. Now in her fifth academic year as Lindner's dean, it's Marianne Lewis. Welcome, Marianne.
Marianne Lewis: (00:45)
Oh, thank you, grant. It's such a pleasure to be here, and as soon as you say in my fifth year, I'm just amazed how time flies when you're having fun.
Grant Freking: (00:52)
Isn't that true? This is exciting, isn't it? I mean, I'm also glad selfishly that you're here with me for this first episode, Marianne. 'cause you are not only a veteran of public speaking, but of podcasting.
Marianne Lewis: (01:03)
Well, I, I appreciate being first too. I mean, it's just a lot of fun. I, I like guinea pigging and, uh, experimenting. But I also love where this podcast studio is right in the heart of the business school. So it's great.
Grant Freking: (01:13)
Well, with this being the inaugural episode, let's introduce people to Lindner, shall we? The Carl H. Lindner College of Business is a leading business school, consistently ranked in the top five nationally for co-op, which is short for cooperative education. For those that may be unfamiliar, co-op entails multiple paid professional work experiences undertaken by students. Through co-op students explore career options and build their skills, resumes and networks. Marianne, why is co-op an essential part of what we do here at Lindner? And what makes co-op at Lindner so unique?
Marianne Lewis: (01:45)
I think co-op is just so critical, Grant. I mean, because really the more you understand the power of learning, the more I think you understand the power of experience, right? That really building this feedback loop where students learn something in the classroom, go out, try it, see what works for them specifically, and in various opportunities and instances, and then they come back and reflect and it just goes, that's the cycle. It keeps moving. I think the other piece, I, I mean I talk to so many alumni and to a one, they will say the most important thing they did while they were here was co-op. It doesn't mean that the classes don't matter. Right. It's that it was out in the quote-unquote real world. They realized some of the most important things. For example, what they didn't wanna do.
Grant Freking: (02:34)
That was gonna be one of my points.
Marianne Lewis: (02:35)
It has to be, you know, what do you take off that list, that infinite list of what do you wanna do when you grow up? Which we ask ourselves our entire lives. You just start to figure out what really excites you, what you're good at, what you don't wanna be good at. And that's perfectly fine, but that experience can become so personal and it really powers learning.
Grant Freking: (02:56)
And I didn't personally co-op when I was in college, but having talked to current students and now former students, it's what you mentioned earlier, it's determining what they necessarily didn't want to do. Mm-Hmm. . And how that really helped them narrow down their options for their career fields, even if it's just slicing off one or two different areas of business and really helps them focus and kind of concentrates their, their interests that they build throughout being here at Lindner into funneling with what's best for them in their career.
Marianne Lewis: (03:23)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, uh, you know, and I'd share a another aspect too. I mean, the more students have work experience or business experience, what does it change what you can do in a classroom? So, lemme give you the example. I mean, I'm a management professor. I teach leadership in particularly with a younger and a very inexperienced class. People can read and you can talk about some of these things and they'll say things like, isn't that obvious? And that is my sign that you haven't been out there because unfortunately, great leadership is rare and it's why you need to have some experiences. I mean, the number one reason people leave jobs is their boss. So how do you make more of that? And so, when students have actually had those experiences, suddenly, you know, you're talking and you're teaching in an undergraduate, uh, classroom where it feels like an MBA classroom because they have the experience and you say, okay, let's really talk about, you know, a boss from hell. Let's get serious about what's working and what's not. Mm-Hmm. . And when people can say, well, let me tell you what happened in my last co-op, right? Well, in my internship last summer, I had, you know, and, and now you get it on the table. And that variety matters. And it's really makes it much more powerful, especially in, in my view, some challenging topics like management and leadership. You gotta know the good, the bad, and the ugly. And that takes experience.
Grant Freking: (04:44)
Well, we at Lindner certainly have experience crafting tomorrow's leaders, in my opinion. And part of our mission, and perhaps the mission, is empowering business problem solvers from the moment they step on campus. When a student thinking about studying business at Lindner hears or reads business problem solving Mm-Hmm. , what should they think about? Mm-Hmm.
Marianne Lewis: (05:05)
Uh, you know, I, I think come becoming focused on our mission of empowering business problem solvers was just like this light bulb for me. And it was a, a process we started the first semester I was here, really kinda getting our arms around what's our higher purpose? Because if you think about business problem solvers, actually, and I'd add the word empower. The first thing goes, what kind of problems do you wanna solve? That's a really personal question. What wakes you up in the morning, gets you fired up? What keeps you awake at night? And what could you, kind of skills problem solving skills could you be good at using? Right? I'm not a mathematical person, I know that about me. I am much more of a communicator, an innovator, but boy, I've met remarkable people who are incredibly analytical, very rigorous in their thinking. Alright, I immediately can start hearing different majors, different minors, the different kind of career paths. That's really powerful. And that's the empowering piece is we have lots of options, right? Right? We do lots of majors, minors, that's tools, experiences, but it's about figuring out what kind of problems do you wanna work on and what kind of tools do you wanna get really good at using and putting those together. And I love that mix.
Grant Freking: (06:18)
And from our point of view from our faculty, it's about presenting those problems too. Because the students, they're, they're so young, they're so eager to learn, but they may not have, they have their own personal problems, but they may not be thinking about business problems. Yeah, exactly. Coming into the classroom, which is a fascinating thing to wind up, watch them grow up. And we have so many great students. And so, um, I know as you mentioned, as an instructor, that must be a thrilling feeling for you.
Marianne Lewis: (06:40)
You know, it is Grant. And, but the other piece I would think was as soon as you were saying that about problems, and, and especially when you're coming in, say you're coming in out of high school, right? You might not know what a business problem is versus a personal problem. I think this has been, you know, I've been studying my work for about 25 years. I study tensions and competing demands, and I was always studying very business strategy problems. And the more I got into them, the more I realized the business problems I was working on are human problems. They're life problems. Right? So I'll give you an example. Uh, one of the really challenging things that very senior leaders have to focus on is this tension between short-term long-term, right? What do I do today versus what do I really dream about for tomorrow?
Grant Freking: (07:23)
Constant balance.
Marianne Lewis: (07:24)
The balance. But that's a human problem. I mean, you need that. What what am I gonna spend my time doing right today? What am I gonna work on in terms of putting my head down and getting things done to do my classes today versus dreaming and preparing for tomorrow? We will deal with short-term, long-term tensions our entire lives. So I think there are a host of business problems that you don't have to be in a big corporation. You could be in a nonprofit, you could be sitting at home and you would face the same kind of problems. So empowering business problem solvers is really a way to empower people in all walks of their life and in, in our society at large.
Grant Freking: (08:04)
Well, speaking of future problem solvers, Marianne, you are constantly in front of current students at a wide variety of Lindner engagements. What are some of the common explanations students provide to you as to why they selected Lindner?
Marianne Lewis: (08:18)
It, it varies. Certainly Grant, I mean, I'm a big believer that choosing your university is a vital and very personal decision, because it's about fit. And I think a big piece of it comes back to our prior discussion around co-op right? They see opportunity. They come here because they say, I want to try it out. I wanna figure out what I wanna do. I think though, it goes beyond that. I mean, when we talk about co-op and, and you know, work study opportunities, we're also talking about just broader experiential learning. You don't come to Lindner if you wanna be in an ivory tower 'cause that's not who we are, right? We're a place where we want roll up your sleeves and try things out. It's why we send so many students overseas for study abroad. We now do domestic travel, which we call study away.
Marianne Lewis: (09:06)
Um, we do projects in the classrooms. All of these things are about practice, right? And feed that feedback and learning loop of say, have an experience, see what worked, what didn't reflect on it, try it again. Right? And I think a lot of students come to us because they say, I, I don't know what I don't know. And the best way to learn is through experience. I also certainly think they come to us, um, because of the variety of disciplines, majors, minors, areas of interest. I mean, we're incredibly good at, for example, analytics. We're one of the very best in the country. Same with marketing. We've got the fourth largest marketing program in the country. But you know, we're sitting in Procter and Gamble's backyard. That makes great sense. Mm-Hmm, . And I could give you kind of a whole laundry list of options for things you could study in Lindner and across this campus. But that, the beauty is, it's up to the students to start figuring that out. And unlike most business schools, we do two things in addition to co-op that are really unique. One, Grant, is our students start in business day one. And that matters.
Grant Freking: (10:14)
First Year Experience.
Marianne Lewis: (10:15)
First Year Experience, just hit the ground running, start to build those skills, start to explore it. It doesn't mean for those listening, we don't care about the liberal arts. We absolutely do. I mean, we think you need all sorts of different kinds of insights to build a well-rounded you for the future, but the sooner you start in the business, the more opportunities you have. So you start day one. I think the other piece is, unlike most places, nearly all of our students are double majored. I mean, our students who really get started early, they have two majors, a minor, they've co-op'd and studied abroad. The earlier you start figuring out, Ooh, what do I wanna do? The more you can take advantage of what we have. And I love that it's a launching pad.
Grant Freking: (10:58)
Perfect. That dovetails perfectly into my next point and question for you: pathways. Flexible pathways to be specific. The cover story of the 2023 issue of Portfolio, Lindner's annual magazine, explored the idea of all roads leading to Lindner. Writing that story, I was particularly intrigued by the notion of how the road less traveled, one marked by twists and turns is absolutely the norm for college students. As you and I both know, Marianne, students from a range of backgrounds, locations, and stages in their lives turn to Lindner. What does that mean for us to be able to accommodate the, that wide mix of students and who come to us from all these different directions?
Marianne Lewis: (11:36)
I think it's a, it's a few things. And, and maybe before I share kind of those paths, I think one of the aha's, and for those of you who don't know my background, I was here for 18 years. I led our undergraduate program. I then did a Fulbright in London and then became a dean in London for four years. And while I was there, I was served on a number of groups that I've, I basically got had the privilege of studying and visiting business schools around the world, and particularly outside of the U.S. But even sometimes in the U.S. I found how very much most, uh, programs you get locked in early. Mm. And it was one of the many things that drew me back to UC and to Lindner, because I do not think that is in a student's best interest. When I left for London, I remember a stat, and I don't know what it is today, that the average undergraduate student changes majors five times. Wow. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, well let's see if we can't get through four of those your first year. Right? But that means that takes some real work. And if we lock you in and you have to start over, what, what a horrible waste of time, money.
Grant Freking: (12:41)
Setting up both parties to fail.
Marianne Lewis: (12:42)
Everything. Right? So I'll, I'll go back to kind of how, how do the, how do the pathways work because I, I love the flexibility of our pathways. It's something we continue to innovate and build on here at Lindner. And it fits into the experiential piece as well. So, you know, you start out that first year experience, you're working on project strategy, which means everyone is in a small team, they're working with a company, they're doing a SWOT analysis, which is a strategy kind of approach. And say you start to think, oh, I really like the marketing side. I like these questions. I'm asking about the customers and the markets. And okay, here I am at UC, P&G''s backyard, giant fabulous marketing program. I'm gonna start in marketing. That's great. You do that first co-op and you come back and say, oh, I like marketing.
Marianne Lewis: (13:34)
But I don't know that I liked exactly what I was doing. I like, let's, let's, I'm playing with marketing. I mean, marketing is a huge tent. So now maybe I'm figuring out, you know what I'm the analytical, rigorous type. I'm gonna add say a double major in business analytics or economics. And I am really going, gonna go into market research and I'm gonna get into that nitty gritty of the power of big data. Or you come back and you realize, I love the creativity. Well now maybe I'm gonna go to CCM and digital media. Maybe I'm gonna go thinking about DAAP and some of the design.
Grant Freking: (14:07)
Or dabble in entrepreneurship.
Marianne Lewis: (14:08)
Dabble in entrepreneurship and, exactly right. You what what I'm doing? Or oh, the mind of the consumer. Now maybe I'm gonna go into anthropology or psychology. I mean that's where the world is your oyster truly, it opens up, but you don't even know where you might explore until you start taking steps forward. And then they start to veer. And now that path less taken is your path because every step is a little bit different because you're trying things out. And you might take a step backwards 'cause something didn't work. Totally fine. This is where you do it, this is where you experiment. Mm-Hmm. . And I love that.
Grant Freking: (14:44)
And I think prospective students and current students can take comfort in the fact that there is maybe someone who doesn't have the identical journey to them, but someone whose journey is very similar. And I'm talking about transfer students, transition students, international students, students who might be parents, students in the military, any number of areas that they come from, there is a, a group for them, whether it's at Lindner mm-Hmm or someone, or, uh, a UC group that, that can support them. And we're also here to support them as well. So I think it's just having spent the last two and a half years storytelling on behalf of the Lindner College of Business and meeting all these different students as well as staff and faculty, it's just a constant, um, it feeds the engine of storytelling, talking to these different students and it's, it's such a great thing.
Grant Freking: (15:28)
Speaking of Portfolio, which we touched on just a second ago, Assistant Dean for Inclusive Excellence Nick Castro,wrote in his annual state of inclusive excellence column that the recent academic year was one of quote explosive engagement by Lindner staff, students, and faculty. Now, there are so many ways in which Lindner supports and drives inclusive excellence, whether it's through student programs like business fellows, single-day events like Lindner women in businesses' empowerment day, to high school programs, notably Withrow Pathway to Lindner or the recently announced RDI Entrepreneurship Program at Saint Ursula Academy. How would you characterize Lindner's philosophy on inclusive excellence and making sure all of our students, staff, and faculty feel welcome here?
Marianne Lewis: (16:10)
I love what we do in inclusive excellence. I so value Assistant Dean Nick Castro and the whole team and everybody involved. I mean, I think there are a couple of pieces to inclusive excellence, right? I'm gonna talk about kind of maybe the why first and then the how. I think in terms of the why, it's, there's a reason why I've always just deeply valued the label that we've used of inclusive excellence, um, because I do study tensions and, and even paradoxes. And I believe both of those terms are absolutely critical. Let's start with the excellence. Mm-Hmm. . The higher the bar we hold, the higher, the better students will do. I've seen it all my life. I believe in it fervently from tough love to great challenges, excellence matters. We will never lower that bar because it is absolutely what is best for students.
Marianne Lewis: (16:57)
Then you add the inclusive, you've gotta have a place that you feel safe. You feel like you belong, you feel like you've got the support, because if the bar is that high, you will fail at times. And that's actually kind of part of the process. It's important. It's okay. We wanna build your confidence, your resilience, your skills through this process. So inclusion means you, you know, your people. You've got places and your team around you, from your advisor and your career coach to different student organizations that you just mentioned, mentioned some of, um, so that you have people who are going along the journey with you, but are also supporting you. And that to me is both the why is we need to be inclusive, to have the power of belonging in support. We need the bar high. That is the excellence and the how is through lots of efforts to build smaller places in a great big university where you're, you're known by name, you know, what matters, you know, you're cared about. And I think those two pieces just work really well together.
Grant Freking: (18:06)
I think that's well said. And something I think about when, when it comes to not, not only, uh, inclusive excellence, but also just in general is listening to our students and hearing about their experiences. Because as we touched on earlier, the different pathways. Everyone comes in here with a different background, a different personal history. And I like to think we do a pretty good job of listening to our students, but there's always room for improvement. And as you, as you mentioned, we strive to keep that, that high bar and, um, work to make sure that all of our students feel welcome. Yeah.
Marianne Lewis: (18:37)
Well, you know, and as you say that, obviously people like us, our faculty staff, I mean, we're here every day because we're committed to our students and we know that our students will listen as much or probably more to other students than anybody else. So the more we have student ambassadors, student leaders, other people in all of the organizations around inclusive excellence that are there for each other, I think that just takes everybody further.
Grant Freking: (19:05)
Right. And those students are, happen to be instructed by some tremendous faculty. Lindner faculty are continuously producing research that impacts not only the business world, but our daily lives. They communicate the applications of their work, not only to our students — who often work alongside our faculty — but to industry leaders, academic publications, to media. Can you explain to our audience just how vital it is for Lindner to have engaged faculty experts?
Marianne Lewis: (19:30)
Oh, it, it is so critical. I mean, and I understand what some people will say. I, does it matter that you're a Research 1, Carnegie Research 1 university? I don't even know what that means. Oh, it means a lot. I mean, the, the value of being a research institution means that your faculty are creating knowledge, not just disseminating it. So it means that we're not just teaching out of a textbook, we're writing the textbook. We're studying what's going on in organizations and in the world and pushing that envelope of what's new. Um, because the world is always changing. I mean, it's, the one constant, is change. And so having people that are the faculty as researchers means that they are always learning so that they can help their students learn. And that loop is really critical. I mean, I've said it before, but it matters to me, whether I'm dean or not, that I'm continuing to research and to teach because I see them working hand in glove.
Marianne Lewis: (20:30)
The more, when I'm doing my research and I'm studying organizations and I'm learning and working with executives, I bring that right back into the classroom. And I can assure you, when I'm in the classroom, I'm learning what's working and what's not working from the students, and it's changing my research questions. And then it kind of goes back into my research. Um, and as a leader, and this is probably also because I study leadership, I get to practice it, which is phenomenal. And so then I, all these pieces, you know, really do work like a puzzle, but also maybe better like an engine fueling each other. And I love that the, the faculty here. Those that are doing the more traditional academic research are pushing the envelope. But we also have phenomenal educators who I consider professors of practice Mm-Hmm. , who have great industry experience that they bring into the classroom, and then they continue to build by working with executives externally.
Grant Freking: (21:20)
And they bring that experience from the real world into the classroom by then not only teaching from the textbook or from the, the source text of what the class is about, but also by these projects. That's right. The experiential learning that occurs both, you know, I've walked around Lindner Hall and seen various experiments. Even in the business college, you can, you know, have those, those science-type experiments that, that happen, uh, throughout, throughout the way. Um, and it's, it's so cool to see.
Marianne Lewis: (21:48)
Well, you're, you're absolutely right. And the other thing I, I always love and the Lindner Hall, the new Lindner Hall that we opened in 2019 is such a game changer. But we have visitors in this building every single day. We do. And it's phenomenal, right? And they're in the classroom, they're sharing what I consider living case studies, right? I kind of grew up, my father was at Harvard and they used case studies and I think I'll take our case studies over theirs any day because you've got someone actually giving you the messy, true story. It's not just a simplified version that's been written down. And I think that's great.
Grant Freking: (22:20)
Marianne, before we wrap up, are there any other distinctions about Lindner that our listeners should be aware of?
Marianne Lewis: (22:26)
You know, Grant, one of the things that I've really come to appreciate is Cincinnati. I love being an urban institution. We have a phenomenal business community. They are so engaged. It's what helps us always have visitors in this building. Um, but it, you know, it's also just helped me understand — you wouldn't study oceanography in a cornfield. And I sure think you don't study business there either because it lets you do so much more.
Grant Freking: (22:52)
Well said. Well, that's all the time that we have. Thank you to dean Marianne Lewis for being our guest today. Remember, you can listen to Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, YouTube, or Amazon Music. Stay tuned for our next episode, where I'll speak to a member of Lindner's undergraduate admissions office, and a current student, about all things admissions and applying to Lindner. So long for now.
Introducing Bearcats Mean Business and previewing forthcoming episodes.
Grant Freking: How do I gain admission to a top business school? What’s the deal with co-op? And what’s it like to be a Bearcat?
The University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business proudly presents Bearcats Mean Business, a new podcast where we’ll show you what it takes to gain admission to — and continuously achieve at — a leading co-op business school.
In the episodes to come, you will hear from Lindner students, faculty, staff, alumni, supporters and more about a range of topics, including — but not limited to — co-op, advice for prospective students and their parents, faculty research, and what a typical day looks like for a Lindner student.
We want you to gain a more intimate understanding of the many pathways that are possible at Lindner.
If you think you have what it takes to be a business problem solver, then Bearcats Mean Business is for you.
You can listen to Bearcats Mean Business on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.