Price Newsletter - December 2022

Dear Friends, 

Another exciting and productive semester is almost over, and in a few short days, another record-breaking class of students will be able to call themselves Price College alumni. 

It’s been a privilege to see this graduating class grow and overcome the challenges they faced amid a global pandemic. We can’t wait to see all the success their futures will bring them. 

Here at Price College and the University of Oklahoma, the future is equally as bright. 

This fall, OU launched a momentous $2 billion comprehensive fundraising campaign. The “Lead On” campaign is by far the most ambitious fundraising effort in university history and will shape the future of OU for decades to come.  

Price College will play a major role in the Lead On campaign as we seek to raise $200 million over the coming years to transform business education at OU and realize our vision of becoming bigger, broader and better. 

I’ll have more on our fundraising efforts soon, but until then, much has happened since our last newsletter. 

In November, we celebrated the life and legacy of our namesake, Michael F. Price, with many of his family and friends in attendance. This wonderful event brought together the OU community and highlighted Michael’s enduring impact on Price College and the university.  

That same weekend, we held our annual Adams Society Dinner at the stunning First Americans Museum and hosted our annual Price College alumni and friends tailgate, which was sponsored by Rib Crib. Thank you to everyone who was a part of this fun and rewarding weekend.  

Please enjoy the latest news from Price College, including our latest jump in the national rankings, a generous gift from the Moffett Family Foundation and all of the latest achievements of our students, faculty, staff and alumni. 

Happy Holidays! 

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 Price College and OU communities celebrated the life and legacy of Michael Price on Nov. 3 in Dodson Courtyard. Visit ou.edu/price/price-life-legacy to learn more about Michael Price and the Michael F. Price Legacy Fund, download the ceremony program and view a replay of the ceremony livestream. 

Price College hosted its annual Adams Society Dinner at the First Americans Museum on Nov. 4. Simple Modern CEO Mike Beckham ('03) delivered this year's keynote, while national business and tech journalist Shibani Joshi ('98) moderated a student panel during the event. Learn more about the Arthur B. Adams Society. 

A gift to OU from the Moffett Family Foundation will elevate the David Moffett Professorship of Corporate Finance in Price College to the status of endowed chair. The work conducted in this position focuses on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, venture capital, private equity, investment banking, corporate bankruptcy and more. 

Price College sophomore Manuvel Sibichan, of Edmond, was named one of three inaugural AT&T Stephenson Scholars. The program, which honors the legacy of former AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson ('86) provides scholars with a significant scholarship, a paid summer internship with AT&T in Dallas, a full-time job offer upon graduation, and professional development and training. Learn more about Sibichan in our Q&A with him.

MBA candidate Morgan McCoy’s life changed forever while in college due to several medical challenges. Learn how McCoy persevered in pursuing her dreams of attending OU.

Price alum Alex Holt joined the Marine Corps immediately after high school before enrolling in college. Get to know the former scout sniper, whose military background has helped him thrive as a financial advisor.

Alex Holt: Focusing on the Target 

When Caleb Kelly’s football career didn’t go according to plan, the linebacker called an audible. Here’s how Kelly is making good use of his MBA to help the next generation of football stars be better prepared for life after sports.

Caleb Kelly: A New Beginning

Price student Margo Gianos didn’t think it was possible to open her own business until receiving encouragement from her mother. Now, she’s the founder of a budding self-care and beauty brand.

Margo Gianos: A Dream into Reality

College Consensus ranked the Price College of Business’ online executive MBA program No. 18 nationally on its 2023 list of best programs. Price College offers two EMBA programs — EMBA in Energy and EMBA in Aerospace and Defense. Schools were ranked based on a culmination of student reviews and established national rankings. 

The Michael F. Price College of Business has appointed Stephen L. Vargo as the Siegfried Centennial Professor of Marketing. He will join the Division of Marketing and Supply Chain Management beginning in the spring 2023 semester. Vargo was recently included in Clarivate’s list of highly cited researchers for the ninth consecutive year and joined Web of Science Group’s “Highly Cited Researchers” list for the past eight years. Read more about Stephen Vargo.

The Tom Love Innovation Hub will lead a new program that supports biotech startups growth in central Oklahoma. Oklahoma Biotech Startup Programs, or OKBioStart, is one of the six initiatives that make up the Oklahoma Biotech Innovation Cluster sharing in a $35 million award from the U.S. Economic Development Association’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge. 

The Princeton Review ranked Price College No. 10 (up seven spots from last year) on its 2023 list for best graduate entrepreneurship programs. Price's undergraduate entrepreneurship program checked in at No. 43 nationally. In the Southwest region, Price ranks No. 3 among graduate entrepreneurship programs and No. 7 among undergraduate entrepreneurship programs. Price remains the top entrepreneurship program, both graduate and undergraduate, in Oklahoma. 

Fortune ranked all of Price College’s eligible MBA programs in the top 100 nationally. The Professional MBA ranked highest at No. 42 and second among Big 12 schools. The EMBA in Aerospace and Defense and the EMBA in Energy jointly ranked at No. 52, and the Full-time MBA ranked at No. 65. The online MBA has not been in existence long enough to be included for consideration in this ranking. 

OK Catalyst was recognized as one of 44 recipients of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s  FAST awards. This is its third year to receive the funding. OK Catalyst, based at the I-Hub, offers no-cost training and support to innovators and researchers throughout the Midwest. The purpose of the FAST program is to strengthen the competitiveness of small businesses and startups to improve Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program outcomes. 

Demo Day, a biannual pitch and expo event, showcased emerging startups and other entrepreneurial projects from across academic and non-academic programs at OU. OU Startup Programs, which presented the event Nov. 18, awarded $5,000 each in grant funding from the Startup Innovation Fund to Nox Wallets, Helion Illumination and Jibe Dating. 

Almost 130 people attended the JCPenney Leadership Program’s annual Women in Business Leadership Conference in November on the Norman campus. Sports agent and attorney Kelli Masters delivered the keynote and University of Oklahoma First Lady Ashley Harroz, who is a businesswoman, attorney and CEO, provided opening remarks. The conference theme was “Power Spectrum: Exploring Power Dynamics in the Workforce.” The event included breakout sessions and a networking lunch.  

Thirty-two Price Multicultural Business Program students visited Williams Companies in Tulsa and met with a career panel that included recent alumni Austin Welch and the company’s chief human resource officer and chief financial officer. As part of the trip, the students also explored Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District and visited the Greenwood Rising history center. Read more about the Williams visit.

The MIS Division’s Programming Bowl returned with 26 students that competed in Round 1 in October and the competition concluded in November with six student teams presenting the design and development of an app to help Price College students. Munduu Munkhburen earned first place in Round 1, while Connor Burns and Matthew Brinkmeyer took first in Round 2. Event sponsors included American Fidelity Assurance, Pioneer Natural Resources, Love’s Travel Stops, OU Tom Love Innovation Hub, Price College of Business, and the Center for MIS Studies. You can view photos of the teams here.

A team of Price College of Business digital marketing students qualified for the finals in the 2022 Digital Marketing Competition, placing third overall from a field of more than 220 international teams. University of Oklahoma students Carly Neal, Claire Adams, Rachel Rottino and Elle Webster are enrolled in one of the Digital Marketing courses taught by Kim Gaddie in the Marketing & Supply Chain division. The student team was tasked with submitting an eight-minute video of their digital marketing strategy for a real-life business and then reviewed by a panel of industry professionals and the client. The finalist teams were then invited to pitch their ideas in person via Zoom to the case sponsor. 

Price College students Chase Borchardt, Erica Miller, Gracie Silver and Taylor Smail, coached by Professor Ana Voican Bolino, won first prize in the 2022 CUiBE International Strategy Case Competition organized by San Diego State University. The team represented eight different majors — accounting, economics, entrepreneurship and venture management, finance, international business, marketing, MIS and sports business. 

A trio of Price College finance students have placed in the top 15 twice in international financial modeling competitions this year. Jonah Barth, Cooper Browning and Danny Dempster placed 14th overall after qualifying for the finals in the 2022 Financial Modeling University Championship in the spring. In October, the team placed 15th out of 124 overall and fifth out of 44 North American teams in the Microsoft Excel Collegiate Challenge. 

Price senior Olivia Griffin, of Colleyville, Texas, was named one of OU’s 16 Outstanding Seniors for her exceptional achievements in scholarship, honors, awards, leadership and service. She is a B.B.A./M.Acc. student. 

Claire Hudson (second from right) was chosen to represent the University of Oklahoma on the 2023 WISE Connections Advisory Board. She succeeds Megan Bagrosky (second from left) as OU's representative. The WISE Connections Advisory Board consists of female supply-chain students and plans events focused on empowering female leaders in the industry.

About 100 students, faculty and staff volunteered for 10 organizations on Oct. 22 for Price College Service Day. Tasks included yard work, cleaning and organizing donations. The organizations served were: Food & Shelter, Mission Norman, WildCare Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Reaves Park, Mary Abbott Children’s House, OU Food Pantry, Second Chance Animal Rescue, Assistance League and Meals on Wheels. This is the first in-person event since 2019.  

The JCPenney Leadership Program will present its annual Parker Leadership Conference from 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. March 3 at the OCCE Forum Building. The free conference is funded by an endowment created to honor Ken Parker. The conference allows students to explore and swiftly develop their leadership qualities as they hear opinions and knowledge from professionals and established leaders. Attendees will review, discuss, debate and present on the most challenging case studies. Those not affiliated with JCP are welcome to register for the Parker Leadership Conference here.

Price College celebrated the retirements of Beth Gatewood and Dr. Terrie Shaft this fall. Gatewood joined Price College in August 2013 and most recently served as Price's executive director for finance and operations. She has been with the University of Oklahoma for a total of 37 years. Shaft, an associate professor of Management Information Systems, leaves Price after joining the faculty in 1999. Dr. Shaft’s research interests included the cognitive processes used by IS professionals during system development and maintenance, the role of IS in environmental management and obtaining value from IT investments. 

Ty Anderson has joined Price College as director of administration, finance and operations. He most recently served as assistant vice president of administration and finance at East Central University in Ada and has over 14 years of progressively responsible experience in higher education administration. In his role at Price, he is responsible for planning, implementing, managing and controlling all of the college’s financial, facility and administrative-related activities.  

Brad Blaylock’s co-authored paper, “Do bondholders incorporate expected repatriation taxes into debt?” was published in the Review of Accounting Studies. 

Mark Bolino’s research on the topic of quiet quitting appeared in several outlets. He wrote a piece for Psychology Today about the potential personal and professional costs of quiet quitting. He also led a discussion about quiet quitting for Harvard Business Review on the HBR Discussion Group on LinkedIn and it garnered more than 23,000 impressions, at least 340 reactions and more than 100 comments. Sinclair Broadcast group interviewed Bolino about quiet quitting and the news piece aired on local affiliates around the country, including in Oklahoma City. He also was quoted in a Sinclair Broadcast group article about employers and how they are responding to job seekers’ demands for work-life balance. 

John Paul Broussard served as an opponent for the doctoral dissertation of a student at the University of Vaasa in Finland. The dissertation is titled “Essays on the New Blockchain-Based Digital Financial Market: Risks and Opportunities.” Broussard said, “Dissertations in Finland are defended in the ‘old-school’ way, with an opponent, e.g., me, being hard on the Ph.D. student in full view of his family, friends and, in this case, over 1,000 watching the event. In the end, though, it was a great effort.” 

Russ Browder and Stella Seyb’s co-authored paper, “Pandemic Makers: How Citizen Groups Mobilized Resources to Meet Local Needs in a Global Health Crisis,” was published in a special issue of the A-level journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. The issue is titled “Crises and Coronavirus: A Special Issue on the Responses of Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurial Organizations to Catastrophic Events.” 

Shelly Grunsted presented about “The Impact of McGirt v. Oklahoma, Two Years Later, and Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta” to NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the NASA Office of General Counsel and the Goddard Space and Flight Center’s Native American Employee Resource Group, along with the greater NASA community. Grunsted discussed the impact of these recent U.S. Supreme Court cases on tribal sovereignty and the potential impact on businesses doing business with the tribes in Oklahoma and across the nation.  

Matt Jensen was quoted in an Associated Press  article about partisan print and online publications that are made to appear as the products of local news outlets. 

Lubo Litov wrote about the significance of this year’s recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in a column published on the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships website. In his piece, he mentions work by Scott Linn, professor emeritus of finance, and Ehsan Azarmsa, assistant professor of finance. 

Pankhuri Malhotra examined the marriage of brands and what companies can look for in prospective partners to avoid ugly breakups, in an article published on The Conversation. 

Shawn McClean’s co-authored piece “Is working with artificial intelligence hampering your best-performing employees?” was published in the LSE Business Review. 

Bill Megginson had three articles published in the A-level Journal of International Business Studies  this year, “The Dark Side of Globalization: Evidence from the Impact of COVID-19 on Multinational Companies,” with Omrane Guidhami, April Knill and Lemma Senbet; “Governments as Foreign Investors: Discreet Power Through State-owned Multinationals and Sovereign Wealth Funds,” with Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra and Anna Grosman; and “Foreign Ownership and Corporate Excess Perks,” with Lifang Chen, Minghui Han, Yong Li, and Hao Zhang. 

Hua “Jonathan” Ye’s co-authored paper, “Mitigating IT Professionals’ Turnover in Non-IT Organizations: An Organizational Identification Perspective,” was published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Another co-authored paper titled “Information Technology in Open Innovation: A Resource Orchestration Perspective” will be published in Information & Management.