Review highlights from the Mendoza College of Business's stories and events throughout 2022. From College news to stories about teaching and research, read about how our alumni, students, faculty and staff have worked this year to Grow the Good in Business.
College News & Events
New Undergraduate Business Core
Starting with the class of 2026, it will be easier for undergraduate business students to specialize in a second major or minor. Mendoza redesigned the Business Core, the courses required for a Bachelor of Business Administration, to enable students to better create a curriculum suited to their particular academic interests and career aspirations.
Importantly, the reduced requirements and enhanced flexibility also will enable further course innovation in the future, allowing for our faculty to offer new courses aligned with their academic and social interests.
Leadership roles restructured to foster growth and innovation
Dean Martijn Cremers announced a realignment of the associate deanship roles as part of the College’s ongoing organizational restructuring. The associate deans include Ken Kelley, Edward F. Sorin Society Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, continuing as the senior associate dean for Faculty and Research; Kristen Collett-Schmitt, associate teaching professor of finance, appointed as the associate dean for Innovation and Inclusion; and Craig Crossland, professor of Management & Organization, appointed as the senior associate dean for Academic Programs.
Mendoza reflects on the 50th anniversary of women at Notre Dame
At the mid-century mark of the first female students enrolled at Notre Dame, women associated with Mendoza – alumna, students, faculty and staff – were invited to look ahead and reflect on the challenges, charges or hurdles they have or continue to face on the path to gender equality.
Welcoming Mendoza’s first-ever Ph.D. students
For the first time in the University’s history, the Mendoza College of Business has launched a Ph.D. program. The inaugural cohorts of the Ph.D. in Analytics and the Ph.D. in Management programs are led by professors Ahmed Abbasi and Jason Colquitt, respectively. These programs signal a new era for the College in its pursuit to develop preeminent business research and support the next generation of business faculty and leaders.
Graduate programs earn STEM designations
Two graduate business programs – Master of Science in Finance and the Master of Science in Management – were granted STEM designations, an important recognition of their quantitative-based curricula that provides graduates with significant benefits. Offered by the Mendoza College of Business, these designations are effective immediately and apply to the current incoming Class of 2023 students.
Being STEM-designated will allow Notre Dame to remain globally competitive by attracting and successfully placing quantitatively oriented students, especially international students, who are interested in becoming finance professionals...
Economics conference brings experts from around the globe to campus
In October, Mendoza and the College of Arts and Letters co-hosted the “Midwest Economic Theory and International Economics Meetings,” with about 100 attendees participating in the three-day event. Academics from across the U.S. and from international universities spanning Asia, Latin America and Europe attended and presented their research in parallel sessions in two fields — economic theory and international economics.
Coach Freeman discusses faith, leadership and DE&I
In February, the Jordan Auditorium hosted Marcus Freeman, the Dick Corbett Head Football Coach at Notre Dame, as a featured speaker for the Mendoza Dean’s Speaker Series in a fireside chat format. Freeman shared how growing up influenced his perspective of diversity, the value of servant leadership and the importance of faith.
I think there is power in young people seeing somebody maybe that they resemble in a position of leadership.
TEACHING & RESEARCH
Fighting to Grow the Good in Business
When professor Wendy Angst began her Innovation and Design Thinking course, the goal was to help the St. Bakhita Vocational Training Center in Kalongo, Uganda achieve financial stability. With immersive learning and research, students tackled the challenge to help the school continue to train Ugandan women in skills that are key to economic prosperity.
Greener Measures: In Light of Laudato Si’
Seven years ago, Laudato Si’ called upon businesses to get serious about sustainability. Today, Mendoza professors Sandra Vera-Muñoz, Peter Easton and Jessica McManus Warnell are putting the encyclical’s words into action by showing what it takes to measure and manage environmental impact.
The Magical Realism of Colombia
As director of the Meyer Business on the Frontlines program, Viva Ona Bartkus shares her story of immersing herself and team in Colombia to understand and address what hurdles need to be overcome and how to do so. Through longitudinal and hands-on research, the Frontlines team is helping Colombians find a path forward for a stronger economic future.
CARE launches cross-disciplinary journal
The Center for Accounting Research and Education has launched Accountability in a Sustainable World Quarterly, a new research journal. The journal aims to provide practitioners with essential dialogue to assist in making critical decisions regarding sustainability, accountability, data and measurement, related assurance, high-quality information for investment decisions, and accountability in setting of personal, corporate, and public sector goals.
Study examines ‘Bathroom Bill’ to reveal implications of CEO activism
A study from Management & Organization professors Adam Wowak and John Busenbark examined reactions to North Carolina’s controversial 2016 “Bathroom Bill” to shed light on how CEO activism influences their employees’ attitudes and behaviors. The study shows that employees’ reactions to activism hinge on the alignment between their own ideological values and the CEO’s public stance.
Gender-diverse teams produce more novel, higher-impact discoveries
Research from Yang Yang, assistant professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, examines about 6.6 million papers published across the medical sciences since 2000 and reveals that a team’s gender balance is an under-recognized, yet powerful indicator of novel and impactful scientific discoveries. The study is the first large-scale systemic investigation of the performance of gender-diverse research teams in the medical sciences.
Operational transparency mandates help reduce pharmaceutical drug shortages
Research by Junghee Lee, assistant professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations, analyzed whether or not mandates requiring drug manufacturers to report any manufacturing interruption might help reduce shortages. The study found that mandated reporting policies do reduce both time-to-recovery and annual-days-of-shortage. But the success of the policies hinges on the level of competition in the industry.
Before the mandate, it took competitors in the industry much more time to recognize when one firm was failing to supply a drug and then realize it was an opportunity for the competitor to ramp up production.
Patient care improves when hospitals choose a single vendor for medical records software
Research from Katie Wowak, Ken Kelley and Corey Angst, professors of IT, Analytics, and Operations, shows that the sourcing strategy chosen for electronic medical records by hospitals impacts the quality of patient care. When hospitals move closer to a single-sourcing strategy, patients receive better evidence-based care.
Students & Programs
MBA program reports record career outcomes for class of ‘22
The class of 2022 employment report showed a second straight year of record outcomes for Notre Dame full-time MBA graduates. Within three months of graduation, 96% of the class received and accepted offers. The average starting salary increased by 9% from 2021.
MBA program announces new pathways framework
Starting with the Class of 2024, Notre Dame MBA students will experience a more career-focused program with new majors and minors for added flexibility. Each student will select one of four pathways – consulting, finance, marketing or tech – to better align each student’s coursework with their career aspirations. Additionally, 13 minors have been developed to increase the versatility of the curriculum.
This broader ecosystem offers dedicated career coaches that specialize in each pathway, separate tracks in our Career Leadership Course to provide more targeted information and a strong network of student-led clubs that support career development goals.
Inaugural DE&I case competition winners address wealth gap
Mendoza’s Specialized Master’s programs participated in the first-ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) Grow the Good in Business Case Competition in spring 2022. Nearly 30 teams of students submitted proposals to be considered, with the top three presenting their plans and answering questions from a distinguished panel of judges. The winning team included Master of Science in Management students Katelyn Derifield, Maya Dodson, Maria Schorr and Kelly Straub.
Mendoza launches Ethical Leadership Specialization on Coursera
The new online program is designed to help emerging leaders navigate the challenge of ethical decision-making and leadership. The Specialization in Ethical Leadership is a non-credit program offered in a fully online and asynchronous format through Coursera and features several of Mendoza’s most forward-thinking faculty.
Jerome Bettis returns to Mendoza to finish his degree
Former Notre Dame football running back Jerome Bettis announced his return to Notre Dame to finish his business degree 30 years after leaving for a Hall of Fame pro football career. In this story, Bettis discusses how this academic experience differs the second time around while applying his own business experience in the classroom.
Undergrads travel to Mexico to explore the deeper meaning of business
The Business Honors Program brought seven of its undergraduate students to Guadalajara, Mexico. Invited by the Universidad de Panamericana, the students experienced a jam-packed schedule with the goal of balancing educational and scholarly, cultural and social opportunities. Although lectures taught by UP faculty presented similar lessons to those at Mendoza, students shared that each discussion offered new perspectives.
Stories of Community
Student-athlete starts nonprofit to help kids battling cancer
Men’s lacrosse team member Maxim Manyak (Finance ʼ23) was introduced to then-10-year-old Ian McMillan through a Notre Dame program that sends student-athletes to visit with hospital patients. That experience inspired him to found the nonprofit Pediatric Pep Talk, an app-based platform that connects college athletes to children’s hospitals, their critically ill patients and their families across the country. The players send the young patients encouraging video messages to bring them joy and make them smile.
Man on a Mission
Motivated by decades of military and government work, Kevin Graham (EMBA ‘21) was looking to save those most vulnerable to human trafficking. To bring this idea to life, his former classmates helped him create a nonprofit, The Village Mission, during electives week at Notre Dame.
There was kind of this magic moment where we were all looking at each other. Like, ‘My gosh, man, talk about growing the good in business. Let’s do it.’ And we did.
Mendoza undergrad helps Ukrainian refugees in Poland
This past summer, Christian McKernan (Finance ‘23) and his fellow Ukrainian-American classmate had the desire to help refugees from the war in Ukraine. With the help of Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies, they undertook service learning at the Office for Refugee Support at University Ignatianum in Kraków and at a refugee center operated by Centrum Wielokulturowe w Krakowie.
Mendoza delivers a post-COVID graduation celebration with compassion and closure
During Memorial Day weekend, the Class of 2020 came together for an in-person celebration of about 500 alumni to celebrate their accomplishments. Although initially the two-hour ceremony was intended to be low-key, as the event drew nearer, graduates made their desire to walk well-known and Mendoza staff and faculty made major pivots to not only meet, but go above and beyond those expectations.