Price E-News - February 2021

Making education affordable and accessible is core to our mission at OU and Price College. Please consider giving to our Momentum Scholarships, which support undergraduate students, or to our Do More Sooner® Scholarships for MBA students. Both scholarships allow students to focus more on their studies and less on financial concerns while obtaining the education necessary for success. 

The Executive MBA in Energy program welcomed its 15th cohort of students in January with a one-week residency on the Norman campus. Students completed four courses, worked with an executive coach and spent some time socializing (at a distance) through dinners and campus tours. They are slated to complete the 15-month hybrid program in March 2022.

EMBA in Energy Program

The U.S. Small Business Administration has recognized the Oklahoma Catalyst Programs, based at the Tom Love Innovation Hub (I-Hub), and Executive Director Tom Wavering with two prestigious 2020 Tibbetts Awards. OU is the first university in the nation to receive two Tibbetts Awards in the same year.

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Cortado Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Oklahoma City, and the Ronnie K. Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth (I-CCEW) have announced a “memorandum of understanding to mutually promote the diversification of Oklahoma’s economy through the success of its most promising startups, technologies, and entrepreneurs.”

Read about the partnership

The I-Hub prototyping services launched in 2020 to support entrepreneurs and researchers, and to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the I-Hub will expand their prototyping services to include a waterjet cutting machine and CNC mill. The waterjet cutting machine provides precision cutting of virtually any material, and the CNC mill enables precision milling of metals and plastics.

Read About I-Hub Prototyping Services

The 2021 New Year’s edition of The Sanford & Hall Report, a video series developed by Price College, is available to view on the Price College website. Launched last fall, The Sanford & Hall Report examines remote and hybrid workforces, as well as the development of cybersecurity ecosystems to improve outcomes in 2021. The next episode is scheduled to air online March 11.

Watch the Latest Episode

Cordney McClain, director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, was the featured guest presenter in the State of Oklahoma’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services’ recent Statewide Learning Services series Pivot, Episode 006: I.D.E.A. in Project Management on Feb. 17.

Watch the Episode

Poets & Quants for Undergrads, the leading online publication for undergraduate business education news, has listed Price College among the Top 60 Best Undergraduate Business Schools in its 2021 rankings. The comprehensive study ranks the top nearly 100 business programs in the United States based on admissions standards, academic experience and employment outcomes.

View Poets & Quants' 2021 Rankings

Oklahoma organizations have an opportunity to reinvent the way they train and educate online through a new $15k Wonder Grant. The Oklahoma Wonder Grant Group is facilitating the second Wonder Grant in conjunction with NextThought, an Oklahoma based online learning solutions company, and the I-CCEW.

Read More about OK Wonder Grant

The Gene Rainbolt Graduate School of Business has launched a new 360-degree virtual tour of its facilities for prospective MBA students. Located on the University Research Campus of the OU Health Sciences Center, the space contains 27,000 sq. ft. of cutting-edge technology and modern design, catering to the needs of graduate students and the business community.

Take a Virtual Tour

Brad Bao, co-founder and CEO of Lime, is the latest guest speaker scheduled for the I-Hub’s continuing 201 Talk series. Bao has changed urban travel by providing Lime scooters in cities around the globe. Bao’s online presentation is scheduled Feb. 24 and will feature live Q&A with participants.

Reserve Your Spot

The JCPenney Leadership Program’s annual Parker Leadership Conference was held as a virtual presentation on Friday, Feb. 19. Dave Gordon, co-founder of Gordon Creative and author of TIP: A Simple Strategy to Inspire High Performance and Lasting Success, will give the keynote address, Take it Personally: Pivoting After Crisis. The event is free and open to the public.

Read More about Conference

The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has recognized Ron Anderson for his mentorship efforts. Through its statewide mentoring initiative, the foundation promotes the growth and development of quality youth mentoring programs. The foundation also recognized Mallory Lambert, an international business and accounting senior, for mentorship with the JCPenney Leadership Program.

Read More about Ron's Recognition

BBA/MAcc student Molly Thompson (top left) is one of two first place award winners for the National Millennial Community’s recent Shop/Cook Challenge Cookbook 2020 competition. Her recipe for Molly’s Grilled Chicken Tacos with Black Bean and Corn Fiesta Dip and Chips won both the award and a $500 donation to her nonprofit of choice: the Children’s Hospital Foundation in Oklahoma City.

Visit Millennial Community Website

The Division of Management Information System’s graduate program in Business Analytics jumped up a spot to #22 in this year’s rankings by TFE Times. The program also is included in the 2021 Masters in Business Analytics Rankings by QS World University, an international ranking that includes nearly 100 business schools across the globe.

View TFE's 2021 Rankings

The Price College of Business is ranked among the Top 25 Ph.D. programs in a new ranking by College Consensus, a unique new college review aggregator. The Best Ph.D. in Business Administration ranking lists the most prestigious and highest academic degrees from around the country focused on business and management research.

View College Concensus' 2021 Rankings

In the wake of the global pandemic, a family of three brothers (all Price College alums), has launched a new company geared at providing PPE for businesses around the country. Germrip supplies disinfecting products, including electrostatic sprayers, ULV foggers, disinfectants, sanitizers, and more.

Visit GermRip to Read More

Three OU alums (two of which are from Price College) have launched ArborXR, an enterprise-focused company to manage devices, content and users in the enterprise virtual reality ecosystem. The company emerges from the recent sale of SpringboardVR, a leading provider of VR venue management software and the largest content marketplace for location-based entertainment.

Read More about ArborXR

Brant Christensen’s co-authored article, How do team workloads and team staffing affect the audit? Archival evidence from U.S. audits, has been published in Accounting, Organizations and Society. The article finds that heavier team workloads are associated with lower audit quality, particularly when team members have lower performance ratings or workloads of 60+ hours per week.

Read the Paper Summary

MIT Sloan Management Review posted an article co-authored by Mark Bolino, Price alum Anthony Klotz (Ph.D., Business Administration, 2013), and their colleague Ghufran Ahmad. How Good Citizens Enable Bad Leaders illustrates that leaders who take credit for their teams’ good deeds sometimes feel entitled to behave unethically.

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Mei Li’s co-authored article, Out of Sight, out of Mind? Modeling the Impacts of Financial Squeeze on Extended Supply Chain Networks has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Business Logistics. The article explores the impact of financial squeeze on supply chain network structure and operational outcomes.

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Jeremy Bellah’s research related to developing a standards-based project management information system has been published in the PM World Journal. Developing a Standards Based Project Management Information System describes the system and intends to spark interest and engage project management practitioners in the project.

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Alexandra Durcikova’s co-authored paper, Mitigating the Security Intention-Behavior Gap: The Moderating Role of Required Effort on the Intention-Behavior Relationship, has been published in the Journal of the Association of Information Systems. The paper addresses a need in security compliance literature to better understand an intention-behavior gap.

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Daphne Yiu’s co-authored article has been published in the Journal of International Business Studies. Public sentiment is everything: Host-country public sentiment toward home country and acquisition ownership during institutional transition theorizes that foreign acquirers will adjust their ownership levels in target firms according to what they see as acceptable and legitimate.

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The late Louis Ederington, Chitru Fernando, Scott Linn, and Huiming Zhang (Price College Finance Ph.D.) have co-authored a new paper in Energy Economics. The relation between petroleum product prices and crude oil prices examines the relationship between real spot Brent oil prices and real spot petroleum product prices, specifically gasoline and heating oil prices.

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Former U.S. District Judge Thomas R. Brett (BBA, Finance, 1953; Juris Doctorate, 1957) has passed away at the age of 89. Born and raised in Oklahoma City, he was a third-generation attorney and judge. Following his graduation from the OU College of Law, he served as a Tulsa County prosecutor and a trial attorney for two firms before his judicial appointment by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Brett served as a judge for the Tulsa-based Northern District court for 24 years. He was chief judge from 1994 until his semi-retirement in 1996, at which time he assumed senior status until retiring fully in 2003. A retired colonel with the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps, Brett was a past president of the Tulsa County and Oklahoma bar associations. He was a former member of the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents and a former trustee of both the Oklahoma Bar Foundation and the Mabee Foundation.

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William “Bill” Joseph Rea, Jr. (BBA, Marketing, 1952) has passed away. Rea grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and started a lifelong involvement with the Boy Scouts in Troop 7, where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout and was selected to the Order of the Arrow. After graduating with honors from OU, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. He was subsequently stationed at Ft. Lee, Ft. Gordon and Ft. Hood. In 1955, he left active duty and moved to Tulsa to join Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, where he began a lifelong passion with the financial services industry. At Merrill Lynch, Rea was known as an exceptionally talented investment advisor who always put his clients’ interests first. He officially retired from Merrill Lynch on January 9, 1998, after 43 years.

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Eliot Feiler (BBA, Marketing, 1977) has passed away at the age of 64. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he moved to Norman at the age of 17 to attend the University of Oklahoma. Feiler went on to pursue a rewarding career in law and was a founding member of the Oklahoma City Commercial Law Attorneys Association. When he wasn’t cheering on OU football, trying out a new ice cream recipe or telling bad “dad” jokes, he was very active in philanthropy. He earned a life member achievement for his long-standing membership and work with Kiwanis Club

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Lee B. Thompson, Jr. (BBA, Management, 1954) has passed away. He grew up in Oklahoma City, a 1949 graduate of the original Classen High School. Upon graduation from OU, Thompson was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force and served two years active duty. Following initial employment in the oil industry, he became a New York Life Insurance agent in Enid, Oklahoma, where he enjoyed a successful career as a Chartered Life Underwriter. He was a member of the Million Dollar Round Table each of 48 years, reaching its highest-ranking levels of Top of the Table and Court of the Table. He was New York Life’s Oklahoma City General Office’s Agent of the Year eight times. His love of OU sports and friendship with broadcaster Bob Barry, Sr., eventually earned him the role of producer and director of the Sooner Football Network broadcasts.

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Earnest James (“Jimmy”) Carpenter (BBA, Petroleum Land Management, 1962) has passed away. He was born and raised in Abilene, Texas, and played on football teams that won 49 consecutive games and three straight state titles, 1954-56. He also was a three-time all-state baseball player for the Abilene teams that won the state championships in 1955 and 1956. At OU, he lettered three times in football and twice in baseball. He was inducted into the Texas Football Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Big Country Hall of Fame in 2013. After graduating from OU, he was employed as a land man with Pan American Petroleum company in Billings, Montana. His jobs in the oil field moved him all over the United States, but he settled down in Edmond, Oklahoma, to work for Walter Duncan and, after two years, he established his own land management and consulting company.

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