by Hanna Roberts | May 31, 2017 | Academics, Marketing, Student Spotlights
Our student spotlight this week is on Katherine Howell, a junior marketing major interning with a Financial Institution.
Katherine Howell is a junior marketing major from San Antonio, TX. This summer she has the opportunity to intern at a Financial Institution* and wanted to share about what she does and what she has learned so far.
Q: What have you done in your internship as of yet?
A: I am an IBM Marketing Operations intern for a Financial Institution. I have been learning the different marketing processes for each line of business (LOB; a general term describing the products or services offered by a business) at the Financial Institution. Soon, I will be helping IBM transition into new marketing roles for the Financial Institution
Q: What has been your favorite part?
A: My favorite part of working with the Financial Institution is learning the alliance LOB, which promotes the well-being of member households and provides support by leveraging relationships that provide value-added member solutions. I have also liked to see how the Financial Institution brands and markets with other companies.
Q: How do you see this experience aiding you in the future? What has grown you the most?
A: I have had to learn patience. It requires time to get used to how a company operates.
Q: What has been the most interesting aspect of your experience with this company?
A: It is interesting to me how the Financial Institution takes brand management very seriously. They have even outlined what the company would be like if it were a person!
*The name of the company at which Howell is interning has been removed due to client confidentiality agreements.
by M. C. Jennings | Jan 11, 2017 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Research
by guest bloggers Dr. Ryan Jessup and Dr. Don Pope
Well, the dust has settled on another bowl season and it is time to evaluate the success (or, lack thereof) of the JP ranking system.
You might remember from last season that we concluded that a blind squirrel would be about as equally effective as our ranking system. Well, this season that blind squirrel (technically, he is blindfolded) made us look silly.
Figure 1. How well did we do? If last season we did about as well as a blind squirrel flipping a coin then this season that blind squirrel took our money.
You see, out of 42 bowl games we correctly predicted the winner approximately 54% of the time, and, in the 6 games in which we predicted a different winner compared to the college football playoff (CFP) selection committee, we were correct half the time and they were correct the other half. However, we correctly predicted against Vegas 48% of the time. So, this year the squirrel beat us.
What went wrong? This is always a useful question. One issue is that the Big 10 was a Big Letdown, finishing a miserable 3-7 in their bowl games, performing overwhelmingly worse than expected. Likewise, Clemson outperformed expectations as they upset both Ohio State and Alabama, two teams that both we – and Vegas – thought would win. Why these things occurred is rather difficult to determine: did the Big 10 perform well against non-conference games – which usually take place early in the season – and then fall off later on? It is hard to know for sure.
Regarding Vegas, last bowl season the Vegas favorite covered the line approximately 60% of the time. Interestingly, they only covered the line a mere 35% of the time this season meaning even they had a hard time predicting the outcomes. But in the end, you can’t fight city hall, and, really, you probably shouldn’t mess with Vegas either as the house is truly playing with a stacked deck.
One thing that does give us hope is that, even though hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line for the college football playoff and a prestigious 13 member selection committee generates the rankings, our simple ranking system fares about as well, getting the same number of correct predictions. So, maybe next year the CFP should drop their committee-based ranking system and just hire that squirrel.
by M. C. Jennings | Nov 22, 2016 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Current Students, Research
by guest blogger, Noah Bastable
The most notable game this week happened on Thursday when the Houston Cougars beat Louisville in a tumbling loss for the Cardinals as they fell down from #5 to #14, even though both teams have a 9-2 record. This is, in part, how the Jessup-Pope College Football Rankings (much like life) works. If you notice the bottom 6 teams on the chart, their PageRank scores do not differ as much as the top 4 teams. Even the difference between Alabama and Ohio State is huge. This just goes to show it’s easy to get to the top, but it is hard to stay on top (even though Alabama may say otherwise).
The University of Houston Cougars were previously ranked #46 and are now ranked #17 on the Jessup Pope College Football Ranking system.
We hope that everybody has a great week off of school and work and enjoys their Thanksgiving meals, perhaps while watching the 9-1 Cowboys face the Redskins on Thanksgiving day.
by M. C. Jennings | Nov 8, 2016 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Current Students, Research
by guest blogger and marketing major from Japan, Noah Bastable
Hello wildcats and welcome back to our weekly blog post on the Jessup Pope College Football Rankings!
This week is the tenth week of college football and we’d like to talk you through some noticeable changes since last week.
Our top four teams – Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin – remain the same but their order has switched.
LSU lost to Alabama but they went up in the rankings from 16th to 11th. The score was close until Alabama broke the scoreless game in the last quarter by scoring 10 points.
Ole Miss shot up through the rankings from 28th to 17th after a 37-27 win against the Georgia Southern Eagles.
Nebraska went down from 12th to 20th after their staggering 62-3 loss to Ohio State.
The most interesting turnout, however, was one between two of our home state teams, Baylor and TCU. TCU “clobbered”, as Ryan Jessup put it, the Bears 62-22 defeating them so badly that their running back was sidelined for attitude issues. Perhaps there is a silver lining in the Bears-Frogs game, the lesson learned that no matter how rough a game may get, one must always maintain a right attitude.
That is it for this week. Come back and check us out again next week for more of the new and improved Jessup Pope College Football rankings! Go Wildcats!!
by M. C. Jennings | Nov 26, 2015 | COBA Events, Faith Infusion
Thanksgiving Proclamation
Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go. Washington
May God bless you and yours abundantly today. Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at COBA.
by M. C. Jennings | Nov 12, 2015 | Academics, COBA Faculty, Current Students, Research
Here are the JP College Football Rankings after the 10th week of the season. (See our first post for a brief explanation of our methodology.)
Our top two teams, Notre Dame and Clemson, remain unchanged and Alabama’s big win over LSU moved them from 6th to 3rd place. Notice that ours and the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings agree on 3 out of the 4 top. Yet here is one way we can see a dramatic difference between our ranking system and the more traditional polls and rankings.
In our rankings last week, Michigan State and Michigan were 9 and 10, respectively. This week, Michigan State, who lost, moved up 2 positions and Michigan, who won, moved down 4 places. This is because the former narrowly lost on the road to a decent Nebraska team (#19) whereas the latter won at home against a very weak Rutgers side (#104). Similar movements occurred all throughout our rankings. Another major difference between ours and more traditional ranking systems is that ours is forward-looking, meaning it is meant to predict future outcomes whereas more traditional systems are primarily designed to reward past performance. This is why a 3 loss USC is ranked 4th in our system (#3 last week) yet they are outside the top 25 of the AP poll. Baylor remains unchanged from last week at #60. A good performance against a very strong OU team (#5) this Saturday will probably see them rise, even with a loss. The top 50 teams are listed at the end of this blog post.
Relationship with courses we teach
One might reasonably ask what this has to do with the courses we teach. It turns out, quite a lot! For example, one of the courses I teach, data mining, initially involves separating data into two datasets or partitions. We then run our algorithm on the first partition to teach it. Next, we examine how well it forecasts the results in the second partition. This is exactly how we came up with these rankings. The benefit of this partitioning process is that when we say that we can beat the Vegas line 56% of the time, it means we are beating it on new data, not merely data that our algorithm used to learn. It is actually very easy to “predict” results that you are using to learn; what is hard is predicting or rather forecasting results that are new. In a later post we’ll discuss some of these ideas and their relationship with what we teach in greater detail. We will also examine other research applications of this ranking system.
| 1 |
Notre Dame |
| 2 |
Clemson |
| 3 |
Alabama |
| 4 |
USC |
| 5 |
Oklahoma |
| 6 |
Tennessee |
| 7 |
Michigan State |
| 8 |
Stanford |
| 9 |
Utah |
| 10 |
Florida |
| 11 |
LSU |
| 12 |
Ohio State |
| 13 |
Florida State |
| 14 |
Michigan |
| 15 |
Oklahoma State |
| 16 |
Mississippi State |
| 17 |
Wisconsin |
| 18 |
Ole Miss |
| 19 |
Nebraska |
| 20 |
Penn State |
| 21 |
Washington |
| 22 |
Texas |
| 23 |
TCU |
| 24 |
Louisville |
| 25 |
California |
| 26 |
Georgia Tech |
| 27 |
Navy |
| 28 |
Temple |
| 29 |
Arkansas |
| 30 |
BYU |
| 31 |
Texas A&M |
| 32 |
Pittsburgh |
| 33 |
Cincinnati |
| 34 |
Texas Tech |
| 35 |
Iowa |
| 36 |
UCLA |
| 37 |
South Carolina |
| 38 |
Bowling Green |
| 39 |
Memphis |
| 40 |
East Carolina |
| 41 |
Central Michigan |
| 42 |
North Carolina |
| 43 |
Auburn |
| 44 |
Oregon |
| 45 |
West Virginia |
| 46 |
Virginia |
| 47 |
NIU |
| 48 |
Western Kentucky |
| 49 |
Houston |
| 50 |
Northwestern |
by Neely Borger | May 1, 2015 | Academics, Careers In..., COBA Faculty, Current Students, Placement stories, School of Information Technology and Computing
COBA encourages students to go outside of the classroom and gain real working experience from companies in the business world via internships. In addition to classroom preparation for job and internship searches, the COBA Connections and Career Development team aids students by connecting them with internships to businesses and industries that the individual student is interested in. These internship experiences allow students to learn from experienced mentors and discover what field of work they may have a passion or interest for. Some of the companies COBA students have interned with in the last year include World Vision, Holt Lunsford Commercial, PFSweb, USAA, Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Northern Trust.
Cason Ford, a senior marketing major from Burleson, TX, learned a lot about the oil and gas industry through his internship with Dunaway Associates, L.P., an engineering consulting services company. At Dunaway, Cason spent time working with a project manager in the office as well as working on a land surveying crew, learning about project management and the process of business operations. After graduation, Cason will work as a financial professional for AXA Advisors in Austin. With the help of the COBA Connections Career Development office, Cason was able to connect with an ACU alum who is on the AXA team in Austin. In addition to the Connections Office, Cason is also thankful for the experience he gained with Dr. Terry Pope and the STAR (Student Trading and Research) program, enabling him to learn the business terminology and financial knowledge that he will need for his career.
“I feel confident entering this position because of the knowledge and skills I have learned while studying in COBA. I have learned the value of possessing and practicing with an entrepreneurial spirit, which is what I will need in my career,” says Cason.
Connor Osburn, a senior finance major from Southlake, TX, and the current President of Wildcat Ventures, has interned with both Holt Lunsford Commercial and Heil Trailer International. While at Holt Lunsford Commercial, he learned the ins and outs of commercial real estate, discovering how new developments can reflect the strength of a region’s economy and that location is key in any real estate investment. Going forward, Connor would like to pursue a finance role, specifically in analytics to identify young, promising companies. He is also interested in alternative energy/green technology and can see himself working with projects and companies in this industry.
Connor says, “COBA and the Griggs Center for Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy exposed me to interesting new ideas, creative thinkers, inspiring entrepreneurs and opportunities to learn about all different types of career paths. I owe a lot to the COBA professors who have been more than willing to offer me advice or point me in the right direction.”
Natalie Lemieux, a junior from McKinney, TX, has excelled with her internship experience. Natalie is pursuing a major in information systems with a minor in international studies and information technology. Last summer, she interned with Lennox International as a Commercial Business Systems Intern. Her biggest takeaway from the internship was learning how to deal with project management and the flexibility within handling those projects. This summer, she will be interning with PricewaterhouseCoopers with the Technology Consulting team. Eventually, Natalie wants to pursue her MBA in international business. Natalie is grateful for the Connections Office and COBA professors, like Dr. Brad Crisp, who helped her find these particular internships.
“COBA’s atmosphere really helped to prepare me to be in a professional environment. I know that I have set myself apart from many other applicants that have applied for these positions because of the relevant hands-on experience and projects I have done inside of the classroom,” says Natalie.
Cason, Connor, and Natalie are only a few of many students who have interned while at ACU. Through faculty and the Connections Office, COBA aims to provide students with internship opportunities in the specific career fields that students are interested in pursuing. Internships are the perfect way for students to gain exposure to different companies and industries, allowing them to gain an advantage when looking for jobs after graduation. Congrats to all students who have interned and are planning to intern this next summer.
by Neely Borger | Dec 9, 2014 | Academics, COBA Events, Springboard
In November, the Griggs Center for Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy hosted the first annual Startup Week. The CEO student organization along with the Griggs Center were busy with several activities during the week, including an Alumni Entrepreneurship dinner on November 18, a CEO chapel on the 19th with guest speaker Toby Thomas, and ending with the final Elevator Pitch competition after the chapel. The goal of the Springboard Elevator Pitch competition was to get students to create and present their idea, giving them the opportunity to gain real experience working with entrepreneurs. Three weeks prior to Startup Week, participants presented their Elevator Pitch ideas in front of a group of local entrepreneurs and ACU faculty members and learned how they would be judged as well as the deadlines for the competition. At the dinner on November 18, the 10 finalists were announced. The next day, the pitches were heard and the winner received $1,500 cash for the idea.
The winner of the Elevator Pitch was COBA major, Colby Hatchett, a junior marketing major from Fort Worth. His idea was The Mullet, a restaurant concept where parents could enjoy a nice meal at the front of the restaurant while their children would be fully taken care of in the back of the restaurant. After the pitch, Colby said he was incredibly grateful to meet entrepreneurs working in the marketplace and gain real experience from the competition.
Rudy Garza, President of CEO, was excited that students were able to meet and connect with ACU alums and other entrepreneurs. At the dinner, students were seated at tables with the entrepreneurs and were able to hear their stories and advice for those considering entrepreneurship as well as making valuable connections for potential career opportunities. When asked the effect of COBA with the Elevator Pitch, Rudy said, “Because the classes are smaller and the quality of the faculty is excellent, COBA students always excel in the Springboard Challenge competitions. The presenters are stronger and seem comfortable speaking in front of the crowd. Through the interactions between professors and students, students gain major insight into what entrepreneurship looks like, which is incredibly beneficial for them in this case.”
Overall, the competition was a great success. Some unique ideas were presented during the pitch and it was great to have so many ACU and COBA alumni back on campus. COBA is proud to see such amazing business and Christian leadership in the marketplace. Again, congratulations to COBA student, Colby Hatchett, on winning the competition!
“The Springboard Challenge is a great enhancement to COBA’s culture of ideation, creativity, and innovation. This competition pushes our students and culture in a good way!” says Dr. Rick Lytle, Dean of the College of Business.
by Neely Borger | Dec 4, 2014 | Academics, Accounting, COBA Faculty
“The student professor relationship in COBA is unique and unlike any other university at which I have taught. The faculty and staff are outstanding Christian people that I enjoy working with every single day,” says Accounting professor, Dr. John Neill.
This year marks the 15th year Accounting professor Dr. John Neill has been with COBA. Dr. Neill grew up in Abilene, graduating from Cooper High School before coming to ACU. He graduated from ACU earning both a bachelor’s and master’s degree and then went on to the University of Florida, where he earned his Ph.D. Before coming back to ACU to teach, Dr. Neill taught at Florida State University and Chapman in Orange County, California.
Dr. Neill says that one of his favorite memories in COBA is the senior blessing retreat held a couple of years ago. At the blessing, he enjoyed all of the faculty and staff gathering together to send off the seniors. He feels incredibly blessed to be part of such an encouraging community, knowing he has made a difference in students’ lives. Dr. Neill describes COBA as cooperative, student-focused, and professional, seeking to serve God and meet students’ needs above all else. Compared to other state universities, he feels that students feel comfortable in COBA, striving to learn and gain insight from experienced professors.
Dr. Neill’s favorite Bible verse is Romans 8:37-39, which says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Dr. Neill’s life is a clear reflection of how he lives this verse out every day, serving those around him and pushing students to reach their potential and live out their God-given talents. COBA has been extremely blessed to have Dr. Neill in our community. Thank you Dr. Neill for your Christian example and servant leadership over the past 15 years!
by Neely Borger | Nov 6, 2014 | Academics, Accounting, Careers In..., COBA Faculty, Current Students, Placement stories
COBA Interns at the EY Orlando Conference
COBA encourages and assists students in providing opportunities to pursue internships to gain real-world experience and learn hands-on applications from some of the most prestigious companies in the world. Tim Savage, a student in COBA’s Master of Accountancy (MAcc) program, interned with EY this past summer. Tim worked in the tax division and prepared multiple Texas franchise tax forms for large asset management companies. A large, global firm like EY offers many possibilities, allowing interns to tailor their career path based on their best interests.
EY also provided an all-expense paid trip to attend a firm conference in Orlando with about 3,000 other interns. At the conference, interns participated in workshops and team-building exercises, listening to executive speakers and learning from the top firm leaders. The interns were also given opportunities to have some fun! They went on excursions in Orlando and were able to spend some time at Disney World.
Throughout the internship, Tim learned how important it is to have a positive outlook and open mindset. By approaching his work with optimism, he believes he was able to build character and work diligently to be successful. After he graduates in May, Tim plans to take his CPA exams and start working full time with EY in July or August. He is thankful for COBA and the mindset it instills into their students, preparing them for Christian leadership and development in the marketplace.
“COBA’s accounting department is top quality. Not only are the professors well-qualified and excellent at teaching, they invest in their students and help them grow them into being top-performers in the workplace. I feel like the specialized knowledge taught by the experienced faculty equipped me well to take on the challenging aspects of my internship,” says Tim Savage, a MAcc student.
