Price Newsletter - October 2022

Dear Friends,

As we reach the midway point of the fall semester, Price College is as busy — and crowded — as ever. Our enrollment has reached an all-time high with nearly 5,500 students (!) enrolled in our undergraduate and graduate programs.  

Compared to last fall, Price saw an incredible 5.5% increase in enrollment. For perspective, one in five OU students is now a business major, and we are only getting bigger. 

Since our last check-in back in August, I’m happy to report Price College moved up 10 spots to No. 64 overall in this year’s U.S. News & World Report’s Best Business College rankings. We also kept our position as the highest-ranked business school in the state. I’d like to congratulate our international business program, which ranks 21^st nationally, and our entrepreneurship program, which checked in at No. 30, for their rise in this year’s rankings. 

Our latest leap in the rankings is a testament to the incredible contributions of our talented faculty and staff and the drive and commitment I see in our students every day. I am consistently impressed with the high caliber of students walking our halls. 

All of this makes me excited for our future. We’re also having an impact far beyond our classrooms. 

Last month, the U.S. Economic Development Agency’s Build Back Better Challenge awarded the Oklahoma Biotech Innovation Cluster $35 million in grant funding. What does this mean for Price? Well, Price and OU are playing major roles in leading this initiative, which looks to create life-changing health solutions and bring economic prosperity to the state.

Price’s Tom Love Innovation Hub will oversee the biotech startup programs portion of the grant in Oklahoma City, which fits perfectly with both Price and OU’s strategic focus on the future of health. We can’t wait to see all the possibilities this grant will bring. 

Finally, we have an important weekend coming up at Price. On Nov. 3, we will celebrate the legacy of our generous benefactor and namesake, Michael F. Price, which will be streamed online for those who cannot attend in person. Then, two days later, our annual tailgate party comes to Dodson Courtyard when OU hosts Baylor on Nov. 5.

In the meantime, please enjoy the latest news from Price College as we highlight the most recent achievements of our students, faculty and staff. Thank you again for your continued support, which helps ensure that Price College will become bigger, broader and better in developing the future business leaders our state and nation need.

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.

Registration to RSVP for Fall Convocation is now open. Price College made the decision in September to split its graduation into two ceremonies. The first ceremony will start at 5 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2022, at McCasland Field House.

Read Dean Phelps' Letter

Price College moved up 10 spots in the 2023 U.S. News and World Report rankings to No. 64 in the country. Price’s International Business program ranked 21st in the United States, while Entrepreneurship rose two places to 30th. Among public universities, Price ranks 42^nd overall and 2^nd among Big 12 schools.

The University of Oklahoma garnered a No. 2 ranking in entrepreneurship research productivity, besting more than 300 programs around the world, according to the list published by TCU’s Neeley School of Business.

College Consensus ranked Price College 13th on its 2022 list of Best Online Master's in Accounting Programs.

Best Accredited Colleges ranked OU No. 25 on its list of schools with the Best Bachelor’s Degrees in Marketing.

Price College welcomed 14 new faculty members this fall, at least one in each academic division.

Meet Price's new faculty.

Hundreds of Price College students participated in Business Week activities, taking advantage of the Resume and Interview Tips Boot Camp, Career Pop-Ups, a Student Organization Fair and more during the three-day event. Sales of Price polos, which took place throughout the week, raised $2,700 for the OU Food Pantry.

Early-stage venture capital firm Boyd Street Ventures celebrated the grand opening of its new location on Campus Corner in early September. The company is led by OU alum James Spann and Jeff Moore, executive director of the Ronnie K. Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth. Norman-based BSV was founded in 2021 to help provide funding and strategic and operational guidance for start-up companies developed within the OU ecosystem or founded by OU alums.

Following its success as a pilot program last spring, Price College has partnered with Knack, a free online tutoring program, to enable students to receive help in undergraduate business courses and potentially earn money as a tutor.

Price College Professor Emeritus  Jack J. Kasulis was named one of 15 recipients of the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in administration and governance in education. Kasulis, along with the other honorees, was featured recently in an ad in the central edition of the Wall Street Journal to celebrate the achievement.

Simple Modern and its CEO Mike Beckham, who is a Price College alumnus and Senior Entrepreneur in Residence, were featured in an article in The Oklahoman about the company’s new Oklahoma City manufacturing facility.  

Casey Farmer, marketing and communications manager for OK Catalyst programs, based out of the Tom Love Innovation Hub, was honored in the Media, Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising category of NextGen Under 30’s Leadership and Award Recognition program.

BBA/MAcc student Katherine Barton was selected for the 2022-2023 Jim Small Volunteerism Scholarship for community service sponsored by the Tulsa Chapter of the Oklahoma Society of CPAs.

Price College sophomore Noel Bland was the subject of an OU Foundation article about what inspired them to come to OU and pursue studies in management.

Save the date! The JCPenney Leadership Program will present its annual Women in Business Leadership Conference Nov. 4 at the Thurman J. White Forum Building on the OU Norman campus. This conference is open to all students, faculty, staff and community members. Attendance is complimentary and breakfast and lunch are provided.

Price finance student Marvin Mims was featured in a story in The Oklahoman, which touches on his passion for math and what led him to major in finance. Mims is in his third year with the OU football team.

Chad Richison, CEO and founder of Paycom, spoke on campus about “The Entrepreneurial Journey” in an event jointly presented by OU Athletics and Price College. Richison took time afterward to speak more directly with a smaller group of Price students.

All Price College students, especially those studying finance, are encouraged to attend our four-part Fall Speaker Series, presented by Capital Group. The remaining sessions are on Nov. 8 and Nov. 30.

Mark Bolino was interviewed by Reworked for a story about the benefits of offboarding employees who are quitting their jobs. 

Additionally, Mark Bolino and Anthony Klotz’s (former Price College Ph.D. student) paper “Bringing the Great Outdoors into the Workplace: The Energizing Effect of Biophilic Work Design” was a finalist for the Academy of Management Review's Best Paper Award. Klotz and Bolino also co-authored a piece for Harvard Business Review about “why quiet quitting can be worse than the real thing and how leaders can address the root causes."

Matt Jensen, Shaila Miranda and Shane Connelly, received continued funding for their research project titled, “Ideological Influence and Radicalization in Online Microblog Platforms,” from the University of Nebraska, National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center.

Heshan Sun was appointed as the senior editor of the Journal of the Association of Information Systems, an A-level journal.

The paper titled, “Managing Artificial Intelligence,” published in MIS Quarterly, September 2021, by Nicholas Berente, Bin Gu, Jan Recker and Radhika Santhanam won the runner-up award as Best Published Paper, by the Communication, Digital Technology, and Organization Division of the Academy of Management.

A paper co-authored by Matt Wood was selected as Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal’s Best Paper Prize winner for 2022. The paper, titled “The Production of Entrepreneurial Opportunity: A Constructivist Perspective,” was nominated and selected for its influence on the entrepreneurship literature and field. He was recognized at the Strategic Management Society 42nd Annual Conference in September. Wood also was presented with the Outstanding Reviewer Award and the Outstanding Bridge Reviewer Mentor Award by the Academy of Management Review.

Xuhui "Nick" Pan won the Best Discussant Award at the 2022 J.P. Morgan Center for Commodities Research Symposium held by University of Colorado. Other discussants at the conference include scholars from University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, University of Toronto and Federal Reserve Bank.

Pankhuri Malhotra won the Best Paper Award at the American Marketing Association’s 2022 Summer Academic Conference. Her co-authored paper, “Using Social Network Structures to Predict User Engagement: The Importance of Social Ties in Influencer Marketing,” won in the Marketing Analytics, AI, and Machine Learning Track.

Spencer Young’s co-authored paper, “Customer concentration of targets in mergers and acquisitions,” was published in the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting.

Krish Muralidhar had one of his papers, “A Re-examination of the Census Bureau Reconstruction and Reidentification Attack,” published into a book chapter. Dr. Carolyn Passig Jensen at the Business Communication Center provided editorial assistance in the preparation of the manuscript.