Turner Business

TSYS School cybersecurity nexus students received a real treat with a recent visit from Stacy Hughes, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer with Voya Financial in Atlanta.  Hughes, a senior leader in IT security, risk and compliance, with over 20 years of experience managing complex initiatives within Fortune 500 financial technology organizations, met every student, had small group discussions, dropped in on classes in progress to share her insights, and even had some one-on-one consultations with students.  “There’s no appropriate way to thank an executive who spends her day off driving 100+ miles to visit a bunch of students, even though those students think she is a rock star, which she is,” said Patrick Aiken , Director of the TSYS School’s Center for Cybersecurity.  “We are so grateful to have Stacy as a guardian angel who pours so much time and care into our students in the Cybersecurity Nexus program at Columbus State Univers...

Marvin Wayne Starks Scholarship Endowment Local businessman Wayne Starks is not a graduate of Columbus State University, but he may know better than most about what CSU and its students can do.  “Coming from the private sector and in human resources, I’ve had the pleasure of hiring a lot of CSU graduates,” said Starks, a business owner, angel investor and entrepreneur.  “Firsthand, I’ve seen the caliber of talent that comes out of CSU.  It’s impressive.”  Starks’ admiration for CSU cultivating a workforce of impactful business professions inspired him to give $250,000 to establish the Wayne and Stella Starks Scholarship Endowment within the university’s D. Abbott Turner College of Business.  “The college did an awful lot for my wife and me, and this was a good way to give back,” he said.  “There’s no comparison to what the college was back then to the university that’s there today.  The quality of the education there – you cannot beat it.  We thou...

A new study by Turner College economics professor Frank Mixon and his colleague Benno Torgler of Queensland University of Technology (Australia) examines the use of proxy voting in the U.S. House of Representatives during 2021.  As the authors explain, on May 15, 2020, House Resolution 965 , which authorized “remote voting by proxy in the U.S. House of Representatives and providing for remote committee proceedings during a public health emergency due to a novel coronavirus, and for other purposes,” passed a full vote in the U.S. House, 207 to 199.  In addition to proxy voting, HR 965 also authorized remote proceedings in committees, for Representatives to participate remotely during such proceedings and to be counted for purposes of establishing a quorum.   Mixon and Torgler point out that proxy voting has been heavily criticized by some media outlets and others as an excuse for engaging in non-legislative activities, or for reasons far beyond its intent, such as campai...

In their article appearing in a recent issue of the International Journal of Servant-Leadership , the Turner College’s Kasey Morris and Kevin Hurt provide a conceptual model depicting how servant leadership can lead to community-building in an organization through various interceding mechanisms at an individual, organizational, and societal level.  Morris and Hurt point out that the individual level of an organization, the stakeholders that servant leaders focus on are individual employees.  Each employee is valued as being capable of growth and development to varying extents.  The servant-leader has a genuine desire to serve followers at an individual level and in doing so, servant leaders can cultivate the best in their followers through one-on-one communication to understand their abilities, needs, desires, goals, and potential.  Morris and Hurt contend that this personalized communication between servant leaders and their followers at the individual level of an...

A recent entry to Turner Business reported that Turner College alum  Rachael Lambert , who earned an MBA from CSU, was selected to the 2023 GeorgiaForward Young GameChangers Cohort.  As reported earlier, Young Gamechangers is a unique leadership action program hosted by GeorgiaForward, a non-profit organization administered by the Georgia Municipal Association, that brings professionals from across the state to work on the persistent challenges of one Georgia community.  Since that entry, Turner Business has learned that three additional Turner College graduates are joining Lambert on the 2023 GeorgiaForward Young GameChangers Cohort.  They are Samantha Miller Gurski ,  Hayley Lyman  and  Cortney Wilson .    On its website, GeorgiaForward notes that i n her current role as Director of CSU’s Department of Continuing & Professional Education (CPE), Miller Gurski and a talented team actively serve the university and the Chattahoochee Vall...

Columbus State University recently received confirmation that it has been re-designated by the National Security Agency (NSA) as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD).     As Patrick Aiken , Director of the Turner College’s TSYS Center for Cybersecurity, explained to Turner Business , “So much vision and tireless effort goes into this type of prestigious award.   There is no way to recognize everyone who played roles in this designation, but special recognition has to go to . . . [TSYS School] . . . .  Shamim Khan , and . . . Graduate Programs Coordinator, Yesem Kurt Peker  for managing the application process that allowed us to earn this designation.   Atlanta Braves Senior Coordinator for Event Services, Jamiya Brinson, will be visiting the Turner College on Thursday, February 23, at 12:30 pm.   Brinson will be speaking in the Synovus Center Theater on professional research, customer service and event management, al...

New research by TSYS School computer scientist Rania Hodhod and her colleagues from Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Ain Shams University, Cairo University and King Abdulaziz University extends prior work investigating effective ways to interact with socially intelligent agents in unpredictable environments.  Hodhod and her co-authors point out that behavior trees allow for knowledge to be represented in graphical formats that provide a way for socially intelligent agents, which are agent systems that are able to connect and interface to humans (e.g., robotic systems, computational systems), to effectively interact with received information.  The studies explains that behavior trees are capable of storing prior social experiences that can be used by socially intelligent agents to provide adequate human-like interactions when facing new social situations.  According to Hodhod, “one challenge appears when a social agent with vast past experiences – represented...