Turner Business

The Operations division at CSU announced recently that a number of facilities initiatives aimed at enhancing the overall campus experience will occur during summer semester.  Among these initiatives, the Synovus Center Theater is set to receive some improvements over the summer.  According to CSU Assistant Vice President Steve Morse, CSU Operations will be installing a new dimming system to enhance the lighting control and overall experience in the theater.  The Synovus Center Theater is located on the second floor of the Synovus Center on CSU’s main campus, which is home to CSU’s Turner College of Business & Technology.  It is often used for guest speakers, awards ceremonies, and student orientations, among other events and occasions.  CSU Operations have taken great care in planning and scheduling this project in order to minimize any disruptions to summer activities. 

Four graduation-related events were held at Columbus State University on May 11 and 12 to celebrate the 948 CSU students who comprise the university’s Spring 2023 graduating class.  As many as 494 graduates identified themselves as first-generation college students, while this spring’s graduating class range in age from 18 to 70 years old.  More than 88% (835 students) of the spring class hails from Georgia, with the remainder representing 21 other states and territories.  Nearly 4% (35 students) of the spring class represents 20 different countries, with the highest concentration hailing from India.  Among the graduates were 21 active-duty servicemen and servicewomen (2% of all graduates), and 38 military veterans (4% of all graduates).  This spring’s class of graduates included 294 institutional scholarship recipients, 395 HOPE Scholarship recipients, 38 athletic scholarship recipients and 158 external scholarship recipients.  These awards total more than...

The “Dogs of the Dow” is a value investing strategy that selects 10 stocks from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on the basis of dividend yield.   According to ongoing research by Turner College finance professor Brett Cotten , Turner College student Autumn Wilson and Alan Tidwell of the University of Alabama, this strategy became popular during the 1980s and continues to enjoy a similar popularity today.   The new study by Cotten and his coauthors examines a recent variation of the Dogs of the Dow strategy that is referred to as the “S&P Sector Dividend Dogs.” This new strategy variant applies the Dogs of the Dow to the S&P 500 by selecting the five highest dividend yielding companies from each of the 11 sectors in the index.   Preliminary findings from raw returns suggest that Sector Dividend Dogs outperformed the S&P 500 in 12 of the 18 years analyzed.   On an annual basis, Sector Dividend Dogs earned an average raw return that was about 7.7 percentag...

Turner College MBA student Heidi Walker was the big winner of Cougar Business Pitch 2023 . The business that she pitched is called Mommy & Me Toys, Inc., which is a children's toy company that creates children's toys that spark faith and harness the power of play.   One product line offered by the company, “My Pray and Play Pal,” is a doll that says one of four special prayers once its hand is pressed.  With the win, Walker received a $3,000 grant to grow her business.  Even though the win came with a monetary prize, Walker indicated to Turner Business that the chance to simply participate in the competition was invaluable.  According to Walker, “I not only enjoyed participating in the Cougar Business Pitch Competition, I learned a lot of valuable information on how to raise capital for my business and how to start getting potential customers interested in my company's product.”  Turner Business  thanks Kirk Heriot , professor of management and holde...

The Violet and Thomas Buck Jr. Endowment A number of stories at Turner Business have mentioned the Turner College’s Violet and Thomas Buck Jr. Endowed Chair of Economics.  The current holder of the Buck Chair is Turner College economics professor Frank Mixon .  Established by Thomas in March of 2008, the Buck Endowed Chair is named for Violet and her husband Thomas, both loyal friends and benefactors of education who made significant contributions to the Turner College and to Columbus State University.  Born in 1917 in Columbus, Thomas was a graduate of Industrial High School in 1934 and attended Georgia Military College.  He began working at a young age with his father. At one time he was President of the Buck Bottling Company, Buck Ice and Coal Company, Eelbeck Milling Company, Buck Realty, Inc. and Buck Development Company.  Thomas was very active in civic affairs in Columbus.  He was a president of Columbus YMCA, Columbus Rotary Club, Columbus Chamber ...

The Turner College’s Student Engagement and Recruitment Specialist, Laurie Aiken , received the 2023 Olice Embry Award at the College’s annual spring retreat on May 3, 2023.  Aiken, who joined the Turner College in 2021 after serving as a recruiter for CSU’s Enrollment Services, often visits local schools to recruit students to the Turner College’s business and computer science programs.  Her efforts have been instrumental in growing the TSYS School’s Nexus degree program in cybersecurity.  Aiken earned a B.A. in public relations from CSU.  She previously worked as a senior pharmaceutical sales representative for Merck, and before that as a marketing and public relations director for Chastain Properties.

The Olice Embry Award The Turner College’s Olice H. Embry Jr. Award is given annually to a member of the Turner College of Business and Technology who represents the values and spirit of the organization.  Embry’s own values and spirit are described by the following text from his memorial.  “To know him was to know the importance of learning as much as you can, stay positive, try hard, be early to an appointment, to laugh, ‘give someone the shirt off your back,’ and lastly to love your families and spend quality time with them.”   Olice Embry, who was born in Birmingham, Alabama, was known throughout his youth “Sonny.”  He graduated from Presbyterian College and began his career with South Central Bell.  Embry later earned an MBA and a doctorate in management, both from Georgia State University, after which he joined academia.  Embry first served on the management faculty at the University of Alabama – Birmingham, and later joined the management faculty at ...

Five Turner College faculty were recognized with awards at the College’s annual spring retreat yesterday.  Winning the Turner College’s 2023 Teaching Award was Becca Jones , assistant professor of marketing.  This win capped off a big week for Jones, who yesterday also won the 2023 CSU Teaching Innovation Award.  John Finley , chair of the Turner College’s Department of Management and Marketing, speaks highly of Jones’ teaching talents.  “Becca consistently engages in innovative activities in her teaching, including experiential learning activities.  She is a very talented, dedicated and respected member of the Turner College and I am proud to have her as a colleague in the department,” Finley stated to Turner Business .  In one such example of Finley’s comment, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones invited sales industry professionals to visit her virtual classes to speak about their careers in sales and how the pandemic has impacted their jobs...

One faculty member from each of the Turner College’s three academic departments won big at the Spring 2023 CSU Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony.  Professor of finance Brett Cotten won the 2023 Excellence in Teaching Award .  Cotten has been twice nominated for the Educator of the Year Award (2018 and 2020), CSU’s highest faculty honor for teaching.  In April of 2020, Cotten received a “Great Teaching Note” from the CSU Faculty Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in recognition for his pedagogical endeavors.  Student evaluation scores on the quality of his teaching typically range from 4.5 to 5.0 (out of 5.0).  Turner College finance students appreciate the effort Cotten puts into teaching, including his development of (1) a  trading simulation in which students manage an investment portfolio, (2) out-of-class exercises related to capital budgeting tools, and (3) a senior project related to security analysis and portfolio management . ...

The quick development of the Internet of Things (IoT), a term that describes a network of physical objects (i.e., “things”) that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet , has made IoT devices appealing targets of various cyberattacks.  Fortunately, authentication and key agreement protocols can be used to ensure the security of IoT. However, there are still many challenges to devising proper authentication and key agreement protocols for IoT due to the resource-constrained nature of IoT devices.  TSYS School associate professor of computer science Suk Lee enters the picture.  Lee is currently working on developing and implementing an authentication protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography, which is a cryptography that is based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields.  According to Lee, “Elliptic curv...

Turner College management professor Johnny Ho recently joined forces with scholars from the University of Texas – El Paso’s Aerospace Center, W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation, and Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering to produce new research aimed at improving 3D printing technology.  The research points out that although epoxies are a popular polymer, some exhibit low physical properties and brittleness, leading to reduced toughness.  Thus, Ho and his colleagues explore the effect of adding short carbon fibers to expoxy-based polymer material on the material’s physical and thermomechanical properties.  To test the effect on tensile, four-point bending and dynamic mechanical analysis, the researchers printed test samples from a 3D printer using the laser powder bed fusing technique.  The findings of this research, which are reported in the current issue of the Journal of Composites Science , demonstrate the feasibility of improving the strength proper...

    Sixty six business students were invited to join the Turner College’s chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma at the end of spring semester 2023.   Among these are 46 undergraduate and 20 master’s level students.   Beta Gamma Sigma is The International Business Honor Society.  Since 1913 it has  recognized and honored top performing students  from around the world in business schools accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business ( AACSB ).  Beta Gamma Sigma, whose members are the top 10% of undergraduate students and top 20% of graduate students, maintains more than 600 collegiate chapters throughout more than 190 countries.  The Turner College of Business at CSU has maintained a chapter of Beta Gamm Sigma since 2004.   Danielle Navarrete currently serves as advisor to the Turner College’s chapter of the society.