Members of the SBA Scholars will compete in the PNC Scholars Case Competition at noon, Saturday, March 3, in 237 Elliott Hall.
In the final Case Competition of the year, sponsored by PNC Bank, three teams of SBA Scholars will be presented a dilemma a business leader may encounter. Working under deadlines, each will analyze the situation and use their business knowledge to develop a recommendation, then present it to the judges. The members of the winning team will be awarded with a small prize.
Whether or not they take first place, all participants are winners, notes Dan LeClair, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a nonprofit organization devoted to the advancement of management education.
“Programs like (Scholars) can enhance student learning by making the outcomes of decisions more tangible,” LeClair says. “Team competitions provide opportunities for individuals to lead and develop vital professional networks.”
Case competitions also help develop superior future employees, believes Michael Bickers, Finance & Accounting ’86, who not only encouraged his company, PNC Bank, to sponsor Scholars but also mentors four students.
“It’s great to work as a team, but you have to hold yourself and your teammates accountable for their roles, which can be hard to learn,” says Bickers, PNC’s executive vice president and retail market manager. “You also learn to push each other to do extraordinary things; and that spills over into everything you do.”
The OU Branch of the MSU-Federal Credit Union sponsored the February competition.
For more information about Scholars, visit the Scholars web page.