Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great summer break, whether you had vacations with your family and loved ones, or you just took a little time off to refresh and recharge for the new academic year.

It is so exciting to start the new academic year and the Fall semester with beautiful weather, a refreshed Central Quad, and most importantly, many students, faculty, and staff walking around the campus! I am anxiously looking forward to seeing students and faculty in classrooms once the classes begin. As always, we have planned so many events and activities on campus this Fall, and I am sure all of you will feel the excitement of the institutional life and Brooklyn College campus culture in the coming weeks and throughout the semester.

During the summer months, our professional lives continued, and many of our faculty and students have achieved remarkable accomplishments. Please join me in congratulating the following KSB faculty, students, and staff for their acceptance/publication/presentation of research articles and/or recognitions for their scholarship and services since my last update on June 13, 2022:

  • Sholom Schochet and his co-authors have their research article titled “Is Corporate Tax Avoidance Related to Employee Treatment?” accepted for publication in Journal of Empirical Finance by Elsevier. This journal is ranked “A” in the ABDC list.
  • Dan Tinkelman and his co-author have their research article titled “The Rise and Decline of LIFO” accepted for publication in the Accounting Historians Journal by American Accounting Association. This journal is ranked “B” in the ABDC list.
  • Nadia Doytch and her co-author have their research article titled “Does knowledge matter for the environment? Global evidence of economic complexity and ecological footprint” accepted for publication in Environmental Science and Pollution Research by Springer. This journal is ranked Q1 on Scimago
  • Josh Fogel and his co-author have their research article titled “Direct-to-consumer prescription medication advertisements and use of different types of media” included in a recent book titled “Research Anthology on Social Media Advertising and Building Consumer Relationships,” Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
  • Merih Uctum was quoted in a recent article titled “Haitian businesses caught between serving and surviving as inflation persists” on The Haitian Times website. You can read the full article here: https://haitiantimes.com/2022/08/04/haitian-businesses-caught-between-serving-and-surviving-as-inflation-persists/.
  • Robert Bell has a recent article titled “L’UE pourrait produire suffisamment de biométhane pour remplacer le gaz russe” (Translation: “The EU could produce sufficient biomethane to replace the Russian natural gas”) published by Le Monde, the French language newspaper of record, on July 16, 2022. The article can be found here: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2022/07/16/l-ue-pourrait-produire-suffisamment-de-biomethane-pour-remplacer-le-gaz-russe_6135036_3232.html
    Mitchell Langbert was quoted in an article titled “Changes in Unemployment Rate by State” posted on WalletHub. You can read the full article here: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-unemployment-rates/74907. In addition, Mitchell was quoted in a recent article titled “Umbrella Insurance” posted the WalletHud. You can read the full article here: https://wallethub.com/edu/oi/umbrella-insurance/9808#expert=Mitchell_Langbert
  • Yoshie Lord and her student Patrice McIntyre were selected to participate in the 2022 Summer Undergraduate Research Program (URP) and the student received a $2,000 stipend.
  • Ngoc Cindy Pham was mentioned in an article about her student titled “Patch Me Studios: How BC Alumna Manuela Surillo Flips Thrifted Fashion” by The Brooklyn College Vanguard. You can read the full story here: https://vanguard.blog.brooklyn.edu/2022/07/20/patch-me-studios-how-bc-alumna-manuela-surillo-flips-thrifted-fashion/.

This Fall semester, we continue to offer many exciting programs and events for our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The following is an update on what had happened during last few weeks and what to come. Please continue to watch your emails for exciting upcoming events in the next weeks.

The Koppelman School of Business has a new face to the world!

Over the summer, with the help of Charles Thompson and the College’s Communications Team, we redesigned the Koppelman website to reflect the diversity of our students and faculty, the richness of our academic programs and engagement activities, and our vision to be a premier public business school in the country. Koudous to Charles and the Communications team for the design, the graphics, and many new features. We will continue to improve the content, functionality, and design of the site. Please take a look and send me your comments and suggestions.

Carol Connell is appointed the Interim Associate Dean

Carol Connell is appointed the Interim Associate Dean of the Koppelman School of Business, effective on August 25, 2022. As previously announced, Interim Associate Dean Merih Uctum decided to return to the Faculty of Economics to pursue her passion for research and teaching this Fall. Please join me in expressing our heartfelt appreciation and thanks to Merih for her love of our students, her passion toward our school, and her outstanding work as interim associate dean. Merih will continue to use her talents to serve the students and the school and lead new initiatives as a faculty member in the years to come. Carol will oversee academic affairs, student advising, assurance of learning, accreditation, and academic initiatives. Carol has been an outstanding and highly respected faculty member in the Koppelman School of Business for nearly two decades, and has shown tremendous talents in teaching, research, and services. Please join me in congratulating Carol on this new role and thanking her for her continued service to the Koppelman School of Business and Brooklyn College.

The Koppelman School of Business welcomes three new faculty members.

Dr. Xianfang Zeng, who received her Ph.D. in Management from the University of Calgary, Canada, joins the Department of Business Management as an assistant professor. Ms. Bernadeth Prentice, a former Olympian and KPMG and PwC veteran, joins the Department of Accounting as a lecturer. And Ms. Chani Mintz, a long-time accounting instructor at Brooklyn College, joins the Department of Accounting as a lecturer. Please join me in welcoming these new faculty members and extend your assistance to make their transition to the new positions as smooth as possible.

The Executive in Residence Program continues this Fall.

Following a successful debut of the Koppelman School of Business Executive-in-Residence Program in Spring 2022, we welcome Mr. Aaron Olson, Executive Vice President, Aon United Solutions, as our Fall 2022 Executive in Residence. Mr. Olson is an executive with over 20 years of experience in the fields of leadership, strategy, and human capital. As EVP of Aon United Solutions, he is responsible for developing new client capabilities within and across Aon’s Solution Lines and linking Solution Line and Regional growth priorities to facilitate delivery to clients. During his residency, Mr. Olson will kick-off the program with a conversation with Dean Hu on leadership and trend in the insurance industry. This is to be followed with weekly office hours for students and faculty in a one-on-one format for mentoring and consultation. Mr. Olson will also provide guest lectures in strategic management and leadership classes to share his experience in strategic decision making. It is expected that Mr. Olson will host a high-level industry executive on current issues in corporate management at the end of the semester. For more details and updates, check this website: https://www.brooklyn.edu/ksb/executive-in-residence.

The Koppelman Entrepreneurship Competition goes to the next phase.

Building on the success of the Ideas Competition in Spring 2022, this fall we will host the second, the Pitch Competition, and the final, the Plan Completion, in person on Brooklyn College campus. This series of completion is made possible by a generous donation from BC alum Don Buchwald, and outstanding work by Veronica Manlow and a group of volunteer faculty, entrepreneurs, and administrators from Brooklyn College and CUNY. Please announce this to your students and encourage them to participate. Details can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1EX5zaHzYfHuQYTbESsgKkPBQpbueVK_9zEa76vvs-t8/edit?usp=sharing.

The Business Week of 2022 was a huge success!

Huge thanks to all the alumni and industry recruiters who came on campus to meet with our students! And congratulations to Sabine Saint-Cyr and her team at the Magner Career Center for organizing yet another successful Business Week event. It’s truly heartwarming to see more than 80 students, alumni, and recruiters coming on campus and sharing experiences and opportunities in person. A special shout out to the companies and organizations represented at today’s event: BlackRock, Bloomberg, PwC, KPMG, GuidePoint, JP Morgan, Forvis, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And thanks to all the students and staff members who showed up at this in-person event for their courage and passion.

As you can see, the Koppelman School of Business in on a noble mission to provide a transformative, distinctive, and affordable business education to students from diverse social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds through innovative curricula, applied and theoretical research, and impactful engagement. I am thankful to all of you for your continued dedication and passion to teaching courses, advising students, publishing research, and supporting students, faculty, and staff, regardless the challenges we are facing and will continue to face. Let’s keep up our good work and continue supporting each other and treating each other, including our students, with respect, compassion, empathy, and flexibility.

During this semester, I am planning to be in my office on most the days each week if I am not out for meetings, and I welcome everyone to drop in and have a chat.

Wish you all a great Fall semester!

Qing Hu, Ph.D.
Dean, The Koppelman School of Business