Team members Salome Messam (leader), Brett Hannum, Juliana Restrepo, Justin Roszkowiak and Laureen Ramsey developed a smartphone app that would provide people with an interactive platform to better manage their decisions for living a healthier lifestyle. The team was from Regina Taylor’s lab, and was one of 18 teams out of 100 to make it to the semifinals.

(View photos from the event on our Facebook page.)

The second-place team, named “Advantage Consulting,” came from lab instructor Chaim Letwin’s class and included Daniel Dirani (leader), Robert Costa, Danilo Cuellar, Christina Jones and Parker Kyle. The third-place team, “R. J. III,” was from the lab of David Wo and included Jose Poon (leader), Jordan Gibson, Jeff Simmons and Rachel Harmon.

The Capstone course is under the direction of Bob Porter, Ph.D., a lecturer in the UCF College of Business Administration’s (CBA) Department of Management. Judges for the semifinal round included: Stephen Goodman, Ph.D., Lauryn Migenes, Richard Quinn, Kathie Holland, Marshall Schminke, Ph.D., Shannon Taylor, Ph.D., Michael Ciuchta, Ph.D., Brendan Richard and Ghada Baz.

CBA Hall of Fame members Paul Gregg, ’74 & ’76, and Bob Case, ’70, accompanied by Target representatives Nick Padoan and Grace Blankenship, were the judges for the final round and selected the order of the five winners.

“The quality of these students and their ideas are outstanding,” said Porter. “The UCF College of Business is continuing to evolve and advance as a premier business school and our students demonstrate that in these kinds of competitions.”

The Great Capstone Case Competition is held at the end of each semester and is designed to help students strengthen their analytic, communication, presentation and teamwork skills beyond the classroom by developing recommendations for real-world business issues.

The space is larger and able to accommodate more food, toiletries and clothing for UCF’s fellow Knights. The KHK Pantry helps all Knights in need. In a daily visit, students can receive 6 lbs. of food and unlimited toiletries. The clothing available is business casual and business professional which is perfect for an interview or conference.

On May 20-23, students, faculty and staff can take a tour of the pantry’s new location during the “Home Warming” celebration from 9 a.m.-11 a.m.  The hours are scheduled in the morning as to not conflict with daily operations.

Summer semester hours are: 12 p.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Thursday. During the fall and spring semester, hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

“Look forward to seeing everyone and remember if we all work together our motto ‘Knights don’t let Knights go hungry’ becomes a reality,” said Preston.

For more information, call 407.UCF.FOOD or email the Community Outreach Coordinator Nicole Preston at Nicole.Preston@ucf.edu. The KHK’s web address is: KnightsPantry.org, however, it will be down for a couple of days for maintenance.

The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, which is federally-funded at 158 institutions by the U.S. Department of Education, is designed to prepare students for post-baccalaureate degrees by encouraging research and faculty mentorship. The program, which is celebrating its 10^th anniversary at UCF this year, has included 132 scholars.

Melonie Williams Sexton graduated from UCF in 2007 with bachelor’s degrees in psychology and political science. She conducted research on the production of false memories alongside faculty mentor Dr. Alvin Wang, dean of UCF’s Burnett Honors College.

Williams Sexton said the McNair Scholars Program prepared her to pursue an advanced degree by exposing her to research and giving her the opportunity to present at national and international conferences.

“Participating in the McNair Scholars Program has ultimately defined my career,” she said. “Because of the McNair Scholars Program, I was already aware of the rigors of research that were expected at the graduate level.”

This spring, Williams Sexton will become the first McNair Scholar from UCF’s program to receive a Ph.D., earning a degree in cognitive neuroscience from Vanderbilt University. She has accepted a position as an academic advisor at Vanderbilt, where she will also teach and continue her research.

UCF senior Sara Bolivar Wagers, a molecular biology and microbiology major, will travel to Germany this summer to conduct research on infectious disease at the Paul Ehrlich Institute. Under the mentorship of Dr. Yvonne Maldonado from Stanford University, Bolivar Wagers has already been awarded at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students and presented her research on polio at STEM conferences.  Bolivar Wages was also a former participant in the PRIME STEM Program and is currently mentored by biology Professor Linda Walters.

“The McNair Scholars Program has motivated me to continue to do well in school while balancing my attendance at all of the great research conferences that I get to travel to in order to present my research,” said Bolivar Wagers.

Since the McNair Scholars Program was first funded at UCF, 88 percent of its participants have gone on to attend graduate or professional schools. Four of UCF’s McNair Scholars have received the Order of Pegasus, UCF’s highest honor, and eight have served on the President’s Leadership Council.

The McNair Scholars receive individualized academic and personal support from program staff members, and they are offered GRE preparation courses and free workshops on the graduate school application process, financial aid, scholarships and fellowships.

To be eligible for the McNair program, students must take courses full time and either be U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents. They must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0, have completed 60 credit hours and have a serious interest in pursuing a doctoral degree. Students must also qualify as a low-income student who is a first-generation college student or a member of a group that is underrepresented in graduate education.

“The McNair Scholars Program means having an academic family and community that will always be there to support you,” said Williams Sexton. “Even if you’re not from the same college, McNair Scholars universally know what it means to be a part of something special.”

For more information about the McNair Scholars Program at UCF, visit http://www.mcnair.ucf.edu.

Two other UCF venture proposals qualified for the competition. LightCloud was presented by Ph.D. candidate Malic Dekkar from the Institute for Simulation & Training, and Medical Laboratory Science major James Davis presented Optimed Lab Solutions. Both earned praise from event organizer Nathan Furr, Ph.D., for addressing important problems with innovative technology solutions. Over 1,000 venture proposals competed in regional events, and only 28 qualified for this international competition.

“Our students and their venture proposals were competitive with the top teams from Harvard, MIT, BYU, Wisconsin, and other elite universities. I’m extremely proud of how hard they have worked and how much they have learned,” said Cameron Ford, Ph.D., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the University of Central Florida College of Business Administration.

Tyler Salem’s company Care Capture offers a HIPAA-compliant software application that senior living communities can use to send wellness updates to family members. Some updates may include texts, videos, pictures and recent activities in which the patient participated. Salem has received numerous accolades for his venture, including a second-place finish in the UCF College of Business Administration/Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Joust Business Plan Competition in April.

George Gramatikas, ’04, UCF College of Business Administration Hall of Fame member and founder of Turbine Technology Services, traveled with the team and served as a coach. “UCF students proved worthy competitors in the ‘World Cup’ of business model competition. We should be very proud of how quickly we have arrived on this scene, and the work of UCF staff to enable this achievement, “ he said.

The competition is based on strategic principles such as Lean Startup and Customer Development. It serves as a basis for helping young entrepreneurs become innovative leaders for their own startup companies. The goal of the IBMC is to promote entrepreneurship education and to reward those who are making a difference in the startup business community.

The first-place winner received $25,000 towards his or her company’s startup plan. Second place received $10,000 and third place received $7,500. The judge’s panel was comprised of several leaders in the industry, including Nathan Furr, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at BYU and founder of the IBMC. Also judging the competition were Alex Osterwalder, creator of the widely used Business Model Canvas; Steven Blank, who co-founded E.piphany and wrote the book Four Steps to the Epiphany; and Thomas Eisenmann, the Howard H. Stevenson Professor Of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School.

This year thanks to Lonny [Butcher, director of our Office for Career Connections], I have a much better idea of where our undergraduate degree holders are going. Lonny took me up on my offer to buy lunch for cross- departmental groups wanting to discuss a college-wide issue. Actually in this case it was breakfast and the “lunch time roulette” group developed and implemented a survey of graduating seniors in our capstone course. Fittingly, I got the results on Friday afternoon about four hours after graduation.

More than 550 students replied to the survey. Forty-five percent of the students were looking for full-time work. And as Lonny puts it, among these job seekers only half report that they know what they want to do and less than 40% know where they want to work. At best, 40% have been to Career Services and most of that was just to meet with a counselor and have their resume reviewed. Less than a quarter have taken advantage of services such as workshops, company info sessions, mock interviews, etc. However, the same group is very confident of their skills to find that unknown job, scoring in the affirmative by 80% to questions about their interviewing and networking skills. In short, they don’t know what they want to do or where they want to work and have done little to hone their job search skills, but they are sure they will find something that suits them.

I don’t share their optimism. It is hard to look for work when you don’t know what you want to do. Will a skilled aimless search produce a better result than an unskilled aimless search? My guess is that both end with the first job offer. Only luck will produce a good much. A bad match hurts the alum, the employer and us. So how do we help students improve their career decision skills so that they do a more honest assessment of their job search capabilities and get a better start on landing the right job? Lonny and the group, looks like I’m buying lunch again..

Paul Jarley, Ph.D., is the dean of the UCF College of Business Administration. He blogs every week at http://www.bus.ucf.edu/dean. This post appeared on May 6, 2013. Follow him on Twitter @pauljarley

Led by Professor Karen Biraimah, director of international and special programs for the College of Education, the trip will enable UCF education students to gain hands-on-experience developing and implementing curriculum. Students will learn about the impact marginalization has on education in Botswana, and they’ll use what they learn abroad to address similar challenges for underserved students in the United States.

“We have to prepare our students to be ready for anything,” said Biraimah. “They will come prepared with several lessons about the United States and our education system that would be adaptable for ages 4 through 14. Hopefully, our students will be able to engage in one-to-one conversations with teachers. We’re coming in to learn, and hopefully we have teaching methods that can help them.”

Biraimah is no stranger to service-learning and teaching abroad. She lived and taught in a village in West Africa for two years, and she’s led trips to Malaysia, Singapore, Peru and Spain. In 2011, she took a group of graduate students and teachers to Botswana to develop curriculum and teach in several villages.

This time, UCF has coordinated with the University of Botswana in Gaborone to create lesson plans specifically for elementary through high school students. The UCF team leaves for Botswana on May 10. Their trip is funded by a three-year U.S. Department of State grant, which will pay for 75 percent of expenses this trip, 50 percent of the costs next year and 25 percent the following year.

To prepare for the three-week program, students have been meeting since January. They’ve read books and articles about Botswana and learned the country’s native language, Setswana.

“If you haven’t been in a country where you don’t speak the language, you’re not ready to teach,” said Biraimah.

In addition, the group has collected more than 600 pounds of clothing and school supplies that will be donated to schools when they arrive in Botswana. Each participant also raised $75 to pay the extra baggage fees, since the group will be brining 13 extra suitcases filled with donations.

For senior Philip Lacinak, who graduates in August with a degree in career and technical education, the trip will be his third to Africa. Lacinak previously traveled there as a cameraman for the syndicated documentary series Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild. Now an associate course director in photography at Full Sail University, Lacinak looks forward to teaching in the villages and bringing what he learns back to the U.S.

“I look forward to meeting the people that we’re going to meet along the way,” said Lacinak. “Both times that I visited Africa were life-changing experiences. We filmed wildlife, but the stories we came back with, the people we met, and the differences in cultures were most fascinating. I am certain that will be no different with Botswana.”

UCF senior Emmanuel Jackson, who is studying sociology and African studies, hopes that the program expands his perspective and helps him better mentor and tutor youth.

“I believe that what I learn in Botswana will allow me to share my experience with students in the United States and help them to appreciate and understand the importance of education,” said Jackson. “I hope to internationalize my thinking.”

After the program returns on May 31, Biraimah and the students will meet to record their experiences on the U.S. Department of State’s website. They’ll also help prepare the next group of UCF students traveling to Botswana.

Click here to learn more about the program.

View photos from the event on our Facebook page.

About this year’s Cornerstone Social Entrepreneurship Competition:

This year, 22 teams took part in the competition, which was sponsored by community leaders Jim Balaschak, ’86 & ’92, and his wife Debbie Balaschak, ’88, and judged by prominent local business professionals Carol Ann Dykes, Amy Zeh, Roy Reid, ‘88, and Cathy Mathwig. The finalists were:

The Wild Knights (Instructor: Nasser Kutkut, Ph.D.)

• Harry Atys
• Jennifer Bellorin
• Joshua Garrett
• Hector Gama
• Thomas Travers
• Diana Whitney

Wonder Women (Instructor: Ghada Baz)

• Sommer Andrews
• Alina Gubanova
• Lauren Heben
• Oanh Hoang Le
• Amy Messerschmidt
• Christine O’Connell

Business As Usual (Instructor: Ghada Baz)

• Yasin Arshad
• Carlos Cortes
• Mariah Garcia
• John Greene
• Helen Riddle
• Caitlin Swan

Team Heroes won the event and the Out of the Life team took home the Sustainable Social Entrepreneurship Award.

Heroes:

Team Heroes, led by Management Lecturer Nasser Kutkut, Ph.D., consisted of:

• John Olivares
• Aisse Baradji
• Brandon Bowen
• Camila Rocha
• Heloisa Moneiro
• Jude Jean

Their non-profit partner was the Coalition for the Homeless in Central Florida. The goal was to raise $1000 to purchase school supplies for the homeless children residing in the care of the shelter. To help achieve this goal, the students put on charity events, including a Zumba fundraiser and a 5-on-5 Soccer Tournament (watch the team’s promotional YouTube video)

Out of the Life

One very special team, coordinated by Lonny Butcher, director of Career Connections, was recognized by the judges for their philanthropic efforts in serving those who have been victimized by human trafficking.

The team, representing the local organization Out of the Life, not only stunned the judges in their description of what is was like working directly with trafficking victims, but they also delivered a powerful presentation on their efforts to preserve the mission of the Cornerstone initiative. Unlike any other team, the Out of the Life team was comprised of 120 students. The five students presenting on behalf of the group were:

• Amber Marken
• Coral Martinez
• Josh McCarthy
• Alexis Norwich
• Monet O’Brien
• Lidia Rodriguez

Each student played a key role in the team’s efforts and helped raise over $16,000 for the organization.

The team also:

• hosted an art show at the UCF Art Gallery showcasing pop art from victims
• hosted a 5K called Zombie Insanity, which was held at Omega Ranch in New Smyrna Beach
• helped Out of the Life gain new corporate partnerships, secure an additional safe house with eight new beds, and administer two additional staff members to the board of directors

About Jim and Debbie Balaschak:

The Balaschaks are very community-oriented people who have volunteered their time, talent and treasure to many organizations throughout the community. Their commitment to community and to UCF is demonstrated by their support of the Cornerstone program and the competition. They wish to encourage students to learn the value of volunteering and hope that the experiences gained in the Cornerstone program will continue after graduation. It is thanks to the Balaschaks’ generous financial support that UCF is able to recognize the outstanding students’ activities.

On Thursday afternoon, President Clinton addressed graduates from the College of Health and Public Affairs and the College of Medicine’s Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences.

President Clinton has spoken publicly in the past about the successes of Central Florida and UCF, and he discussed the region’s high level of cooperation between the public and private sectors during his speech, which marked his third visit to UCF.

“The successes of UCF are all a testimony to the fact that no matter how smart we are, how righteous we are, how close to the truth we are, we all do better when we work together,” President Clinton said.

His address emphasized the importance of helping others, accepting each other’s differences and working together. He also highlighted I.D.E.A.S., an organization founded by two UCF students to inspire and promote sustainability by providing other students and community members with opportunities to get involved in environmental and service-learning projects.

“My advice is, do what makes you happy,” said President Clinton. “Most people are happiest doing what they’re best at. Most people are happiest doing well and doing good, doing something for someone else. I hope you will do well. I hope you will do good. I hope you will have a good time doing it.”

President Clinton also was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by President John C. Hitt. The degree recognizes his service as the 42^nd President of the United States, as well as his work with the William J. Clinton Foundation both nationally and internationally.

More than 3,100 students graduated during Thursday’s two ceremonies. Nearly 4,700 other students are expected to graduate during ceremonies on Friday and Saturday.

Among Thursday’s graduates is Leslie Salas, who received a master of fine arts degree in creative writing.

“UCF really does stand for opportunity,” Salas said. “UCF not only helped me in learning my craft, but it also gave me real world experience and taught me how to live as a writer and an artist. The professors in the MFA program were truly amazing.”

More information about commencement can be found at http://registrar.sdes.ucf.edu/commencement/terms/2013/spring/.

As I wrote on Monday, we need more rituals in the COBA, pageantry that underscores who we are and what is important to us: That includes graduation. So in an effort to start a new tradition, provide inspiration to future students and make graduation more engaging, I want you all to tweet me (@pauljarley) your most uncomfortably rewarding moment at UCF… A time when you took a risk as a student and how it paid off. Please use the hash tag #ucfbusinessgrad. The best examples will be used throughout the coming year as quotes that will appear on our TV screens in BA1 and BA2. So make them inspirational and G-rated. Oh, and I’ll be tweeting some of you words of congratulations as well.

Go Knights.

Paul Jarley, Ph.D., is the dean of the UCF College of Business Administration. He blogs every week at http://www.bus.ucf.edu/dean. This post appeared on May 1, 2013. Follow him on Twitter @pauljarley

Maribeth Ehasz, vice president for Student Development and Enrollment Services, opened the event by reflecting on her experiences as a first-generation college student, and offered her congratulations to the scholarship recipients. Elsie Olan, from the College of Education, presented the keynote address referencing renowned poet Maya Angelou and encouraged students to continue on their paths to success. Several scholarship recipients had the opportunity to share their experiences at the program.

Each of the 54 students received a $300 scholarship. Desiree Reeves and Miguel Zaldumbide, were also awarded a scholarship for graduate school entrance exam preparation. Scholarships were funded by Target, Orlando Magic Youth Fund and Kaplan.

The MASS office is in the Division of Student Development and Enrollment Services.