Price E-News - December 2020

As we prepare for the virtual fall convocation ceremony on Friday, Dec. 18, we’d like to thank you for investing in student success at the Price College of Business. Please consider giving to our Momentum Scholarships, which support undergraduate students, or to our Do More Sooner® Scholarships for MBA students. These scholarships allow students to focus more on their studies and less on financial concerns while obtaining the education necessary for success. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 18 students in the Executive MBA in Energy program visited Norman Dec. 7-14 for a weeklong residency in place of their planned international module, with 11 students joining remotely. Instead of traveling to Europe, students in Cohorts 12 and 13 completed the courses with the same instructors, along with 12 guest speakers.

More about the module

In response to the challenges posed by the pandemic for the energy sector, the OU Energy Institute launched a new complimentary bi-weekly webcast series this summer. The latest webcast focused on the growth of renewable energy and what it means for hydrocarbons, with special guest Hunter Hunt, CEO of Hunt Energy, and moderator Harry N. Pefanis, President of Plains All American GP LLC and an Energy Institute board member.

Watch Enery Episodes

Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine have ranked Price College’s entrepreneurship programs among the top in the nation. According to their new rankings, Price College is ranked 8th in the country for its graduate program in entrepreneurship and 23rd in the nation for its undergraduate program. The MBA program also is included in the list of Best On-Campus MBA Programs.

More about this Ranking

Winners of this year’s OU Entrepreneurship Expo have been announced, with awards going to teams in five divisions. The annual expo serves as a public exhibition for students, local business owners and entrepreneurs of all ages, including K-12 students, to showcase new products and services, receive feedback, and compete for top prizes. This year’s event was held online and featured awards in numerous categories.

Read More About the Winners

Last month, the Tom Love Innovation Hub hosted a virtual conversation with three female tech founders to discuss the obstacles they have faced as entrepreneurs. Ariana Waller, a full-stack web developer who founded Wallway Technologies; April Dunnam, a leading Microsoft expert who founded ThriveFast, LLC; and Valerie Riley, founder of the lifestyle tech company LifeSquire, served as guest presenters.

Watch Replay

To address the growing demand for virtual graduate business education, Price College will launch a new online MBA program in spring 2021. The online format will make it possible for professionals to access Price College’s well-established, top-ranked and accredited MBA program, regardless of where they live and work. Applications for the first cohort currently are being accepted online. 

About the Program

This fall, Price College launched two exciting new graduate programs to address the demand for managerial and leadership development in the growing aerospace and defense sector in Oklahoma and beyond. We released a new promotional video that provides testimonials from several students currently enrolled in the programs. Please check out the video and share it!

Watch video overview

This fall, Price College launched the Sanford & Hall Report, which examines a variety of challenges that have risen to the top of the C-Suite agenda and are necessary for effective board governance. Drawing on national security career experiences from 9/11 to the modern pandemic, co-hosts Adriana Sanford, a global threats expert, and retired Rear Adm. Garry Hall address how to secure national and global supply, resiliency and post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

Watch Latest Episode

The most recent results of the Uniform CPA Exam, published by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, reported that nearly 88% of OU Master of Accountancy (MAcc) students passed the CPA Exam the first time in 2019, a result that was #1 among Big 12 schools and #12 in the nation out of 418 universities with MAcc programs.

More about the CPA Exam

Last month, students at the Ronnie K. Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth gave final presentations over technology commercialization, energy analysts, agile product design, Oklahoma funding accelerators and software business accelerators. The projects were presented online via Zoom.

Watch the Presentations

A new student organization called “LGBTQ+ in Business” held their first Zoom interest meeting in November. Joy Nath, economics and linguistics sophomore and the organization’s founder, said the organization is meant to give LGBTQ+ students and allies resources to help prepare them for the challenges they may face working in business.

More about the Group 

Augustine Wiah (BBA, Marketing, 2012) served as guest presenter for OU Lead & Volunteer’s Leadership Nuggets event last month. The in-person, free leadership lunch program for students, staff and faculty, drew a full-capacity crowd. Wiah serves as a program manager and Global Co-Chair for the Black@YouTube Employee Resource Group at YouTube.

Watch the video

Poets & Quants has listed Price College among the “Schools Making the Biggest Rankings Climbs” in the past decade. The college is listed at #64, which represents a jump of 23 spots in the past 10 years. The college’s MBA programs also are included in P&Q’s Best U.S. MBA Programs of the Decade list.

More about this Ranking

The MIS division’s Center for MIS Studies (CMISS) held its annual fall retreat last month. Nearly 70 participants, including senior IT executives, CMISS partners, MIS alumni, emeritus faculty, and friends in the community, participated in the virtual event. The retreat’s panel discussion, “Bitcoin and Blockchain,” was moderated by Brittany George (BBA, MIS, 2004).

More about CMISS

Mark Roberts, who teaches graduate-level entrepreneurship, introduced the concepts and ideas behind WorkSooner, a new collaboration between OU and online learning platform Coursera. WorkSooner caters to those seeking a cost-effective way to attain professional specializations by providing affordable workforce development opportunities. 

Visit WorkSooner Website

Logan Schoonover, an Accounting and Economics major from Aurora, Colo., was selected as this year’s Outstanding Senior for Price College. She and 15 other OU seniors were selected for their exceptional achievements in scholarship, honors, awards, leadership and service. The group was recognized at a recent awards ceremony led by OU President Joseph Harroz, Jr.

See Full list of Winners

The Oklahoma Society of CPAs recently awarded silver medals to two recent OU graduates, Josue Castro Lopez, Jr. (BMacc, 2019) and Hannah Kamphuis (BMacc, 2019). Lopez was awarded the medal for the highest scores over windows I and II. Kamphuis received the medal for the highest scores on windows III and IV.

watch recognition ceremony

SuccessfulStudent.org has named the Price College of Business the top school in their new Best Bachelor’s in Business Administration Degrees in Oklahoma list. The website describes the college’s undergraduate program as “an extensive program that prepares students for success in the world of business.”

More about this ranking

Cordney McClain, director of Diversity and Inclusion, was invited to speak at the Oklahoma City Black Chamber of Commerce as part of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Series. He also was a featured co-presenter at A Seat at the Table, a podcast presented by the State of Oklahoma’s Statewide Learning Services.

Listen to episodes

This month, The Mine Tulsa, a program of the Ronnie K. Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth, won a People’s Choice Award from Tulsa’s Young Professionals in their annual Boomtown Awards. The Mine was one of three organizations nominated for a Boomtown Award for their work helping Tulsa navigate a year full of challenges, including COVID-19.

Watch TyPROS Boomtown

The annual OU Regents’ Alumni Awards, which honor alumni or friends of OU who have given generously of their time and services to the University, were announced online in November. Numerous Price College alumni and benefactors were honored for giving generously of their time and talent. Recipients received a plaque and will have their names added to a permanent plaque in the Oklahoma Memorial Union.

Watch Awards Ceremony

Sixty students eligible to graduate from OU in December maintained perfect 4.0 grade-point averages throughout their undergraduate careers at the University. Of the total, nearly a quarter are Price College students, one of which is a twin. Each student received a bronze medallion on a crimson ribbon, which may be worn during upcoming graduation ceremonies.

See list of students

According to a recent study published in the journal PLOS Biology, 197 University of Oklahoma researchers are listed as among the most influential researchers in the world. The list includes nearly a dozen Price College faculty members. The study analyzed the career-long impacts of researchers globally across a broad range of disciplines.

See List of Faculty

Brant Christensen, Dipankar Ghosh and Accounting Ph.D. student Deonette Lambert have been awarded $25,000 by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) for their research proposal, Corporate governance response to concurrent internal and external risk, as part of the IMA Research Foundation 2020 Special COVID-19 Call for Research Proposals.

More about the Award

Brant Christensen’s co-authored article, The effect of audit materiality disclosures on investors’ decision making, has been published in Accounting, Organizations and Society. The article finds no consistent evidence that investors incorporate materiality disclosures into their investment decisions, and that investors’ understanding of materiality is not in line with regulator assertions.

Read the Paper Summary

Rajendra Singh’s co-authored paper, Ambidextrous Governance of IT-enabled Services: A Pragmatic Approach, has been published in Information and Organization. The paper examines how a U.S. health delivery organization responded to technological, regulatory and demand changes over a 15-year period and the effects of its actions.

Read the Paper Summary

Dan Ostas’s co-authored article, Corporate Beneficence and COVID-19, has been published in the Journal of Human Values. His article explores the motives underlying corporate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and supports the contention that during a pandemic, beneficence provides a more complete explanation of many corporate actions than the profit motive alone.

Read the Paper Summary

Ken Petersen’s co-authored article, Success Factors in Strategic Supplier Alliances: The Buying Company Perspective, is one of the 20 Most Cited Papers published by the Decision Sciences Journal over its 50-year history. The article is listed at #11 in downloads and #15 in citations for the publication.

Read the Paper Summary

Ashley Newton’s co-authored article, Performance peer groups in CEO compensation contracts, has been published in Financial Management. The article finds that while firms, for the most part, choose performance peers to better identify their CEOs’ impact on firm performance, they also tend to select underperforming peers.

Read the Paper Summary

Denise Parris has co-authored a paper for Organizational Dynamics. Her paper, Feeding Collective Impact: How to Foster Cross-Sector Partnerships that Build Innovative Solutions for Social Change, illustrates how Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida convened cross sector stakeholders to build innovative solutions for social change.

Read the Paper Summary

Chitru Fernando, Louis Ederington and Scott Linn have co-authored a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Their paper, Dynamics of Arbitrage, studies the dynamics of cash-and-carry arbitrage using the U.S. crude oil market, as well as the critical role played by the storage hub at Cushing, Okla., in the determination of oil prices.

Read the Paper Summary

Bill Megginson’s co-authored research was cited in a new article in Institutional Investor. The paper, The World’s Dominant Investors in Private Equity, is conditionally accepted for publication in the Annual Review of Financial Economics. Megginson’s research documents the rise of state-owned investors and how their state ownership affects their investment opportunity sets.

Read the Paper Summary

Pradeep Yadav and Scott Linn have co-authored a paper, Vertical and Horizontal Agency Problems in Private Firms: Ownership Structure and Operating Performance, which was published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. The paper investigates how ownership structure influences operating performance and implied agency costs.

Read the Paper Summary

Lubomir Litov’s co-authored paper, Actively Keeping Secrets from Creditors: Evidence from The Uniform Trade Secrets Act, was published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. The paper finds that an increase in a firm’s incentives to use trade secrets to protect its intellectual property results in a more actively managed capital structure.

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Mark Bolino’s co-authored paper, No obligation? How gender influences the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior, was published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology. Bolino also published an article about gratitude in the work force in Psychology Today.

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Nick Pan’s co-authored paper has been accepted for publication in the Review of Financial Studies. His paper, The State Price Density Implied by Crude Oil Futures and Option Prices, finds that the projection of the state price density on oil returns estimated from oil futures and option prices displays a U-shaped pattern.

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Tom Lumpkin’s co-authored article, Social Entrepreneurship and COVID‐19, has been published in the Journal of Management Studies. The article explores fundamental assumptions underlying the field of social entrepreneurship (SE) that have been challenged by the global pandemic, their implications for research and future research questions to guide SE scholarship.

Read the Paper Summary

Joshua Leffler (BBA, Energy Management, 2009) has passed away. Leffler graduated from Velma-Alma high school in 2004, and from OU in 2009, with degrees in Energy Management and Finance. At only 24 years old, he started his first company, Black Hawk Mineral Partners. He continued to be a founder and developer of numerous businesses, including Peak Energy in 2017.

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Royce Colbaugh (BBA, Marketing, 1980) has passed away. Colbaugh made his career in sales with Sysco Food Service as a buyer, then with Ming Foods as a national sales manager. In 1990, he joined Wisconsin Tissue, which became SCA and eventually Essity Professional Hygiene. On September 14, 2020, he celebrated 30 years with the company. He was a recognized producer, winning several awards, including trips to Stockholm, Sweden, and Monte Carlo.

Mike Samis (BBA, Finance, 1977), a private investor and philanthropist, has passed away. Samis led the negotiation to acquire Hospital Association of America’s interest in the former OU Medical System, which secured Oklahoma’s flagship academic medical center, as well as Oklahoma’s only freestanding children’s hospital. Samis also served as a director of BancFirst, Sovereign Asset Management (an investment of the Chickasaw Nation), the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, and more. He was appointed by Oklahoma Gov. David Walters as the first chairman of the University Hospitals Authority, where he served for 25 years. After graduating from OU, he joined Macklanburg-Duncan Co., a manufacturer of home improvement products, where he eventually served as president and CEO until the company was sold to General Electric. He also served as chairman of MD Building Products for several years.

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Harold Heiple (BBA, Management/Entrepreneurship, 1956; Bachelor of Laws, 1961) has passed away. Heiple, a longtime attorney and councilman in Norman, was hailed as an attorney who spent a career advocating for clients before the Norman City Council, Planning Commission and other halls of government. He served on the council during the 1970s and was chairman of the Charter Review Commission in 2014.

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