Dear friends,
We know that our business environment requires us to work across boundaries. In the Carson College of Business, we are creating a new generation of business leaders who are committed to working with others to have a positive impact on the economy and quality of life in Washington state, throughout the region, and across the globe. To accomplish this, we are actively listening, learning, and collaborating with our colleagues across the University and in industry to constantly improve what we do.
Throughout this issue of eDividend, you will read about partnerships that are integrated into what we do to provide richer learning experiences for our students. Don’t miss the feature highlighting the collaboration among the Carson College MBA students; the WSU College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences; and members of the state’s fruit industry to develop a marketing plan for the launch of the Cosmic CrispTM, a new variety of apple that promises to be a premium product for Washington growers.
You can also see how new developments in our online MBA go beyond our college walls to support the University’s land grant mission. Highlighted are recent tuition assistance programs that are providing employees and their spouses from The Boeing Company, Chic-fil-A, and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories with access to higher education that may not have otherwise been possible. These relationships with great employers near and far support our goal of offering the best online MBA of any university in the Northwest, and set us up to go even further.
As you browse through the features in this issue, you will also discover how local and global hospitality industry leaders have tapped our students to deliver recommendations for best practices in hotel sales, marketing, and social media communication. Students are gaining critical international perspective in cooperation with Hotel de Londres in Switzerland and valuable hands-on learning experiences right here in Pullman in a hotel sales and marketing class cotaught by a team of Marriott executives and Dr. Jenni Sandstrom.
We continue to benefit from the engagement of our alumni and others in the Cougar network, such as finance alumnus Jed Collins and HackerAgency’s Chief Executive Officer Spyro Kourtis, who deliver guest lectures that help our students prepare for successful careers. In turn, our students are lending their expertise to businesses throughout the state and beyond, as you will learn in the features highlighting projects in Professor’s K.D. Joshi’s business intelligence class and the international recognition by AACSB International, our accrediting body, that recently honored the innovative work of students in the WSU Vancouver Business Growth Mentor and Analysis program.
In the Carson College, we are on a path toward establishing our programs as the best in the Pacific Northwest and bringing business education to many more Cougs than ever before. We span boundaries to provide learning opportunities that benefit WSU students, the business community, and our region’s economy. We aim for no less than to be a model representing the best of American higher education.
Go Cougs!
Chip Hunter, Dean