College News

A team of five University of Alabama students recently participated in the 2008 Walgreens Wrangle, a marketing case competition hosted by Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, Ark., and finished second in the 15-team event.

The competition is a Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) entrepreneurship case study and included teams from universities in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri.

SIFE is an international non-profit organization that is active on more than 1,400 university campuses in 48 countries. SIFE teams create economic opportunities in their communities by organizing outreach projects that teach market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success skills, and business ethics. Their projects are judged on creativity, innovation and effectiveness.

The faculty adviser for the Alabama team is David M. Ford, clinical professor and Sam Walton Fellow in the department of management and marketing at UA’s Culverhouse College of Commerce.

UA’s team, all members of the Entrepreneurship Club and SIFE, consisted of Danny Smith and Austin Cone, both second year M.B.A. students; Sam Mroczynski and Stephanie Reichman, both first year M.B.A. students, and freshman Kathleen Davis and junior Matt Doyle, both in the UA entrepreneurship program. The teams were presented a real case study about Schwan’s Home Service, the former ice cream delivery business which now delivers easy-to-prepare meals every two weeks to its customers.

The company is looking for ways to generate more business and increase online sales, and competitors had to conduct research and develop and present a reasonable, workable and creative marketing plan to help Schwan’s Home Service be more effective in using its website and other marketing approaches.

This competition was funded by Walgreens, Schwan’s and Finish Line.

Smith said this is the first full academic year for the Entrepreneurship Club and that the “interest level has been phenomenal.”

The Entrepreneurship Club provides members with the tools needed to pursue entrepreneurship as a business owner or in the corporate world, Smith said. “We have organized competitions, community service projects and forums this semester,” he said. Dr. Lou Marino is the club’s faculty advisor.

More than 200 students and business people attended the event.

“Our proudest moments came after we presented in the final round when the former president of Schwan’s and now consultant to the company informed us that the company would implement our idea into company operations,” Smith said. “The Schwan’s judges later commended us on our team chemistry and stage presence. This is truly remarkable given the diversity of our group and that none of the six team members had previously worked with one another.”

Smith said the judges included senior managers, vice presidents and store managers from Walgreen’s, senior managers and directors from Schwan’s and Finish Line, as well as professors from SAU.

Filipino diplomat, philanthropist and insurance magnate Alfonso T. Yuchengco has been named the first recipient of the University of Alabama’s Global Insurance Humanitarian Award.

The University created the award to recognize people in the insurance and financial services industries who make great humanitarian contributions and practice exceptional business ethics.

Born in the Philippines, Ambassador Yuchengco took over his father’s insurance business in 1953. The Yuchengco Group of Cos. comprises 60 companies spanning the insurance, banking, education, construction and health-care industries, and is one of the largest conglomerates in Southeast Asia.

Ambassador Yuchengco also has served as the Filipino ambassador to China, Japan and the United Nations. He is now a foreign affairs adviser to the president of the Philippines and a secretary in the presidential cabinet.

Ambassador Yuchengco’s relationship with UA began more than 30 years ago, and he has made several contributions to the university, including a $500,000 donation to the nursing school building fund.

In 1970, he founded the Alfonso Yuchengco Foundation to promote and fund education, health care and disaster relief efforts throughout the Philippines.

Ambassador Yuchengco received the humanitarian award at the 2008 Alabama Insurance Day Conference at UA.

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Five students in the Culverhouse College of Commerce have been named winners of the Award for Communication Excellence for their work on a communication audit project for the city of Birmingham’s law department.

The students conducted the audit as part of their management 395 class. The students are Allison Cronin, a senior majoring in management; Chris Kohlenberg, a senior majoring in general business; Angie Sayler, a junior majoring in finance; Wade Weaver, a senior accounting major; and Ensley Whidby, a junior marketing major.

The winners were chosen by a panel of industry professionals. Their final report was judged the best of nearly 100 projects. Each student will receive $100 and will be recognized at the college Honors Day observance next spring.

The Awards for Communications Excellence (ACE) is a competition to recognize excellence in all areas of communication. The ACE program has been designed to honor, reward and celebrate the achievements of outstanding communication programs, campaigns and projects, and to comprehensively encompass all areas of “communications excellence.”

The University of Alabama’s Manderson Graduate School of Business is ranked No. 3 for “Best Campus Facilities” in the new Princeton Review rankings released this week. The magazine ranks graduate schools in 11 categories each year and Manderson has been ranked in the top 10 in at least one of the categories for the past four years.

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Two specialty programs offered by the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration are ranked in the top 15 nationally by BusinessWeek magazine.

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