Turner Business

CSU Gives is fast approaching. In just two weeks we'll come together as a community to make a powerful impact and ignite positive change in hopes of reaching our goal of 540 donors. Your unwavering support is instrumental in our mission, and we can't wait to embark on this journey with you. There are several ways that you can prepare for CSU Gives.  First, keep an eye on your inbox and CSU's Facebook page  for updates, sneak peeks, and exciting announcements leading up to CSU Gives. It will be sharing stories of impact and revealing special incentives to maximize your giving. Also, h elp us build momentum by sharing our CSU Gives campaign with your network. Every share, like, and repost helps us reach more people and amplify our collective impact. Together, we can inspire others to join us in making a difference.  Lastly, start thinking about how you'd like to participate in CSU Gives. Whether you're considering a one-time donation, setting up a recurring gift, or v...

A federal spending bill was signed into law last week that includes $550,000 for Columbus State University. CSU  will use funding received through the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) to improve and develop curricula through current degree tracts within the Turner College of Business, College of Letters and Sciences, and the College of Education to meet the future workforce demands associated with the manufacturing and development of domestic chips production.  CSU will work with its partners throughout the community to ensure that not only will these programs be developed to benefit students but that they are also translatable to the demands of the greater Columbus region and state. This includes providing for the improvement of current robotics related curricula within the Muscogee County School District, which were originally developed in partnership with CSU using funding through the Community Directed Spending...

Last fall, Joseph Hamilton went head-to-head in pitching his newest invention against other area entrepreneurs in the annual “Shark Tank”-style BizPitch competition. The 2012 T urner College graduate wowed judges and captured more than $15,000 in prize money he’s investing into his endeavor.  Hamilton’s BizPitch -winning project is 4 Second Football , which he calls “the world’s smartest football.” According to Hamilton, it’s the first football capable of timing a quarterback’s throw and collecting performance data along the way.  “[4 Second Football’s] ultimate value is in its transparency,” Hamilton explained. “It builds confidence in a player because they now have to focus more in real time [during practice] when they see that they’re not performing to the level or the standard that the coach has set.”  The specially engineered football pairs with a wristband worn by quarterbacks. It provides players with instant insights into their throwing precision, timing and dec...

Turner College alum Diana Didenko is forging a successful career recruiting professionals into the mental health field.  Diana is now using her decade of experience in people-oriented roles, including community engagement, events, staffing, and marketing, as Lead Recruiter for Rocky Mountain Human Services of Denver, Colorado. In that capacity she has developed  strategies to streamline recruitment process and source candidates through various avenues, including non-traditional and traditional sources.  She also meets with hiring managers regularly in order to gain a clear understanding of ideal candidate, role function, responsibilities, and team's needs. Diana earned a bachelor's degree in marketing (with a minor in international business) from the Turner College in 2015. During her Turner College studies she was Vice President of the CSU chapters of the American Marketing Association and Society for Human Resource Management. Prior to joining Rocky Mountain Human Serv...

The Turner College is offering what Associate Dean Tesa Leonce-Regalado calls "a new and exciting course" during fall semester 2024 titled New Venture Finance. For fall semester 2024, this course is offered as BUSA 3555. In the future, look for the course as FINC 4125 and ENTR 4125 as it will be offered as both a finance and entrepreneurship course. The instructor assigned to the course is Brett Cotten , a professor of finance in the Turner College. A check of the CSU website  by  Turner Business  reveals that 20 slots currently remain open for the course, which will be held from 4:30 pm until 5:45 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Three finalists have been chosen in the ongoing search for a new Provost at CSU. The first of these, Jeremy S. Qualls, is currently the Dean of the College of Science, Technology, and Health at the University of Southern Maine. Qualls will visit CSU on April 4th and 5th.  On April 4th he will participate in an open forum from 2:15 pm to 3:15 pm in the Synovus Center Theater. Quarles earned a B.S. in physics from East Tennessee State University, and M.S. and PhD degrees in physics from Florida State University. He has spent much of his academic career at Sonoma State University.      The second finalist is Ian Ferguson, Dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology at Kennesaw State University. Ferguson will visit CSU on April 8th and 9th. On April 8th he will participate in an open forum from 2:15 pm to 3:15 pm in the Synovus Center Theater. Ferguson earned a B.S. in physics from Heriot-Watt University (Scotland), an M.S. in optoelectronic and laser d...

Turner College alum Kaylyn Carlisle recently produced her first television commercial, and she did so as a member of the CSU marketing team, which she has been a part of since 2021. According to Carlisle, "[It was a] n exciting day as we shot several scenes around campus for CSU’s brand new [television] commercial. [It was] 100% student-casted and they all nailed their scenes even though they aren’t actors, just volunteers.  Can’t wait to see how Allen Matthews  and Cyde McQuien  pull it all together to tell the CSU story." Matthews is the owner of Allen Matthews Productions in Columbus. McQuien is the President and Creative Director of Image by Design, also in Columbus. Carlisle earned a BBA in marketing from the Turner College in 2018, graduating summa cum laude . During her studies she was a member of the American Marketing Association and a student in the CSU Honors College. Prior to joining the CSU marketing team, Carlisle was a media and advertising specialist at S...

Turner College alum Cortney Wilson , Director of the William B. Turner Center for Servant Leadership, is currently leading a university-wide project to assess and define CSU's campus culture. Through the Campus Culture Assessment ,  Turner College faculty and staff have the means to share their perceptions of our culture and to gauge the current state of employee engagement. Turner Business joins Cortney, a graduate of the Turner College's MSOL program, in asking members of the CSU community to consider participating in one of the assessment's upcoming focus groups  or interviews .

Turner College alum William Duffield recently made a career move by joining Standard Solo of Rockville, Maryland, as Associate Project Manager. Duffield graduated from the Turner College in 2021 with a bachelor's degree in management information systems. While a student in the Turner College he was a member of  Sigma Nu Fraternity, the Inter-fraternal Council, the American Marketing Association, and the Student Government Association. Prior to joining Standard Solar, William worked in the project management arena for BayWa r.e. Americas, Lightsource bp, and Career Break. Turner Business congratulates William on this latest career milestone.  

The Turner College's Butler Center for Research and Economic Development is set to co-host a panel discussion on the impact of Korean-U.S. economic relations on Georgia. The event, which is described as  an evening of expert insights and forward-looking dialogue, is scheduled for 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 4th, in the Cunningham Center on CSU's main campus. Panelists for the discussion include Ambassador Sangpyo Suh, Honorable Consular General, Republic of Korea, Stuart Countess, President/CEO of Kia Georgia, Inc., U.S. Representative Drew Ferguson of Georgia's 3rd Congressional District, and Troy Stangarone, Senior Director/Fellow of the Korea Economic Institute.  This event is open to the community, faculty, students, and staff, all of whom are requested to RSVP here . A dessert reception will follow. Turner Business joins others in the CSU community in thanking the events co-sponsors. These are the Butler Center for Research and Economic Development, and the Hallock End...

The Turner College's marketing club welcomed John Bunn to campus yesterday. Bunn, who owns Century 21 Bunn Real Estate, is  a lifelong Harris County resident and leading local real estate professional since 1986. He earned a B.A. in business administration from LaGrange College in 1986.  He later earned an MBA from Troy University in 2006. Bunn's talk was held in the Synovus Center Theater (kudos to Turner College students for turning out), where pizza and other refreshments were served.

Aflac invites interested students to join its  summer internship program and be part of a flock that empowers individuals, cultivates relationships and gives back to the community while celebrating success along the way. Successful applicants will  contribute to meaningful projects for real-world work experience,  gain exposure to leadership through meetings with top executives, and  volunteer and support charitable organizations sponsored by Aflac.  Aflac, a Fortune 500 company, is an industry leader in supplemental insurance products and has been named to Fortune 's  World's Most Admired Companies list and recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. If you or someone you know may be interested, please send them to the link here .

Syracuse University economist Shane Sanders, an occasional collaborator on research with Turner College economist Frank Mixon , earned late-night television fame earlier this week when his study on shot selection in the NBA was profiled, and parodied, by Stephen Colbert in a new segment for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert . The first entry of Colbert's self-described "highly profitable, hastily assembled segment" called Talkin' Sportz , covered results of Sanders' new research indicating that "NBA teams are taking too many 3-point shots." Colbert jokingly stated that the study was published in the "prestigious New England Journal of Can You Even Dunk, Bro? "  Colbert then explained to his audience that the study indicates that players score more points by attempting 2-pointers rather than 3-pointers, after which he pointed out that the title of the study is "Estimating NBA Team Shot Selection Efficiency from Aggregations of True, Conti...

Local community members are invited to The Honors College next Crucial Conversations event to be held on Monday, March 25, 6:30 pm through 8:00 pm, in the Cunningham Center's Blanchard Hall on CSU's main campus. This event will feature  a panel discussion by three brilliant professors titled, " The Price of Knowledge: Is College Worth It?" Panelists include Andrea Frazier, professor of educational psychology, teacher education, leadership & counseling, and Associate Dean of The Honors College, Bryan Banks, professor of history and Chair of History, Geography & Philosophy, and Clint Barineau, professor of geology.  "Their unique perspectives on the history and current debate on the value of higher education will inspire moderated round table discussions that will follow," stated Cindy Ticknor, Dean of The Honors College. Light refreshments will be shared during these conversations between community members, honors students, and faculty. " Please ...

Proponents of servant leadership maintain that the other-centered motivations of the servant leader are altruistic, contending that the servant leader is not motivated by self-interest, but rather by a heartfelt desire to serve others.  Although the literature on servant leadership oft en uses altruism to describe the servant leader’s moral grounding, it rarely gives a complete definition of the term and does not address the full implications of altruism as an ethical principal.  A new study by Turner College management professor Kevin Hurt and U.S. Army Major Ross Nolan , a graduate of the Turner College's master's degree program in organizational leadership,  explains that although  altruism was first introduced by Auguste Comte in the 1830s to refer to the totality of other-regarding instincts in people, as the construct has evolved altruism has been used to refer to an actor’s intentions (i.e., motivation to help others for their own sake), behaviors (i.e. any a...

Applications are now open for the Turner College's 2024 Cougar Business Pitch Competition.  The deadline for submission of applications is Friday, March 29, at 12:00 noon.  All undergraduate and graduate students enrolled during the 2023-2024 academic year are eligible so long as they are in good academic standing with the university and do not have any holds on their accounts. Students may submit individually or as a team. Team members must all be students at Columbus State University. Teams are limited to four students. Students may only submit one entry for the competition, individually or as part of a team. Interested s tudents should use the website linked above to submit their plans using a business pitch process, sometimes called an elevator pitch. The finals will be held on Saturday, April 27, in the Synovus Center Theater.  Monetary prizes will be awarded to the top finishers. First place will receive $3,000, second place will receive $2,000, third place will ...

An intriguing stream of public choice research that has developed over the past few decades examines whether the disposition of military casualties during conflicts is, at times, impacted by the political desires of the government officials who are in a position to influence that disposition.  A new study by Turner College economist Frank Mixon and his colleague Richard Cebula of the University of Tennessee  extends this literature by exploring the political economy of death among foreign fighters in the Russo-Ukrainian War since the 24 February 2022 invasion. More specifically,  the study explores the role played by demographic factors, military institutions, and international trade relations in determining the number of foreign fighters from various countries who have died in support of either Ukraine or Russia during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Unlike prior research, however, Mixon's study, which is set to appear in a future issue of the Journal of Institutional Economi...

The first blog post of February 2024 here at Turner Business reported on a visit with TSYS Schools Nexus cybersecurity students by  Joseph Blankenship and Jess Burn, Vice President and Principal Analyst, respectively, at Forrester Research, an Atlanta-based research and advisory firm. Shortly after that visit, Burn (pictured at left) and Blankenship penned their own blog about their experiences during that visit.  In their blog, Burn and Blankenship describe the cybersecurity Nexus program as a one-year certificate program designed to give students of all ages and backgrounds an intensive and hands-on learning experience that will prepare them for careers in fintech. They add that the students are taught by former practitioners and have the opportunity to earn security certifications and participate in live fire exercises in a cyber range, both in addition to earning a cybersecurity Nexus degree. Local companies Global Payments and Synovus are mentioned as backers of the pr...

"It’s been 11 years since I studied servant leadership in grad school and it still is how I frame my workplace interactions." That's a recent quote from Bethany Yandell , Account Executive at Ackermann Marketing & PR in Knoxville, Tennessee. The "grad school" to which she refers is CSU's Turner College.  The program? The Turner College's master's degree program in servant leadership (MSOL). Long-time supporters of CSU's Turner College will remember Bethany, who worked as Recruitment Coordinator for the College from 2010 through 2013, just two years after earning an undergraduate degree in communications and public relations from the University of Tennessee. During her tenure in Student Services, she  managed recruitment efforts for the undergraduate and graduate degree programs, planned events and managed projects for students and prospective students, and coordinated advertising efforts for Turner College degree programs and wrote content fo...

The Turner College's Patrick Aiken , Director of the TSYS Center for Cybersecurity, recently spoke about "the opportunity-rich field of cybersecurity" at Calvary Christian School's Career Day Event. Accompanying Aiken on this occasion was Jammie "Peyton" Holloway , a CCS alum, volunteer baseball coach at CCS, and current student in the TSYS School's Nexus cybersecurity program. " CCS is a refreshing environment of holistic learning with eager students and engaged teachers and administrators. It was just lots of fun.  Special thanks to Gwen Lewis and Steve Childers  for hosting us, feeding us, giving us swag, and driving us around in a golf cart," Aiken stated.

Turner Business is proud to report that Turner College management faculty  Phi Bryant and Mark James  recently teamed up to produce a special issue symposium on pay transparency for Compensation & Benefits Review . Bryant, the permanent editor of the journal, put together the special issue topic last year and managed in conjunction  Tae-Youn Park, and Editorial Board member of the journal who is affiliated with Cornell University. " It has been a real pleasure working with Tae-Youn Park on the first pay transparency and communication special issue. [He] was integral in writing the initial call for papers, recruiting authors, reviewing and compiling the content, and writing the introduction to the first of these two special issues," Bryant explained.       The initial call for papers resulted in a tremendous amount of interest, prompting Bryant to devote two issues of the journal to the symposium topic. For that second issue, Bryant called upon hi...

The latest issue of the Turner College's academic journal, Servant Leadership Theory & Practice , was released earlier today. In announcing the issue's release, editor Kevin Hurt of the Turner College's management faculty, announced that the journal will be published in an online format going forward. Until now, it has appeared in hybrid format (i.e., both print and online). Articles in this issue of the journal include one by Andrea Lumpkin and Stephanie Jones, both of Texas Tech University, that, as described by Hurt, "state[s] that university department chairs have a great potential to positively impact faculty, staff, and students; while also noting that many university department chairs lack the experience and preparation for the numerous roles and responsibilities (e.g., personnel management, budget and resource management, development of a culture and climate, dealing with change and advancement, etc.) that they are expected to fulfill. The authors pro...

Since the beginning of 2023, Turner College business faculty have claimed seven publications in A-level academic journals. This list includes two publications in American Behavioral Scientist , and one each in Empirical Economics , Evaluation Review , Journal of International Marketing , Public Choice and Scientometrics . Carrying the torch in this regard are Ed O'Donnell , associate professor of marketing, and Frank Mixon , professor of economics. Over this same time period, Turner College business faculty have been able to claim nine B-level journal publications. This list includes two each in Education Sciences and the Journal of Financial Economic Policy , and one each in the American Journal of Economics & Sociology , Economies , Journal of Composites Science , Post-Communist Economies  and Research in Economics . Faculty involved is this endeavor include Uma Sridharan , professor of accounting, Johnny Ho , professor of management, Jasmine Bordere , associate professor o...

The TSYS School is currently conducting a national search for an assistant professor of computer science. The successful candidate will have a strong background in either, AI/machine learning, games, or data science/cloud computing, and will have teaching responsibilities in software development, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data science, cybersecurity and enterprise computing. In terms of credentials, the successful candidate will  possess an earned doctorate in computer science or related field from a fully accredited institution, although ABD candidates with documentation of degree completion prior to June 2024 will be considered. Candidates must show evidence of teaching success and potential to maintain an active research agenda, be able to demonstrate that they are staying up to date with advances in technology and industry trends, and be committed to advising and mentoring students, quality teaching, and continued instructional and scholarly development.  ...

Hedonic regression models of house prices increasingly incorporate information about location into both the non-stochastic (the regression model) and stochastic (error structure) components of the empirical model. These models typically incorporate information about location into the non -stochastic portion of regression models in one of two ways: either by including a set of dummy variables to represent individual locations called “neighborhoods,” or by using a set of distance (or travel time) variables to characterize house locations in terms of proximity to amenities and dis-amenities. Recent research presents an alternative to the second of these approaches that instead u ses a latitude-longitude co-ordinate system that requires no information on the number of amenities (dis-amenities) or their locations. One virtue of this alternative claimed by its authors is  that it can eliminate omitted variables bias in the estimation of the coefficients of non-distance variables in the c...

The TSYS  Center for Cybersecurity at CSU  has a world-class Cyber Range from Cyberbit  that is used to train TSYS School cybersecurity  students. The range administrator, Ehab Bedir ,  has the fun and rewarding job of launching cyber attacks against students and watching them figure out how to stop the attacks. To this end, the Center is hosting a cyber competition exclusively for TSYS School students this April, with a $1,000 scholarship as the grand prize for the winning team. TSYS School students are welcome to visit the range on the first floor of the Synovus  Center on CSU's main campus anytime to practice for the competition - and for their future careers.

A new study by Fady Mansour , the Director of the Butler Center for Research and Economic Development, and his colleague Nour Kattih of Middle Tennessee State University,  investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare utilization, spending, and health measures among the U.S. population. The study, set to appear in a future issue of Research in Economics , applies  data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to a propensity score matching techniques in order to analyze the variation in healthcare outcomes due to the pandemic. The findings of the study suggest that  the pandemic significantly reduced mental health status, the intensity of office, outpatient, and emergency room visits, and healthcare spending, including self-paid expenses.  On the positive side, the study reports improvement in health-related quality of life for females and other groups. However,  blacks, individuals with a high school diploma or less, the uninsured, and the low...