News in 2014

BUS 100 Gives Back
The Faculty's BUS 100 class was featured on the U of R Homepage on December 19 highlighting some of the giving back activities done by the sections.


Faculty to offer DEP
The Levene School will be offering the Directors Education Program (DEP) in Saskatchewan through the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) in partnership with Edwards School of Business. The program is jointly developed by the ICD and the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and is offered nationally at Canada's top business schools. You can learn more about the program by visiting the ICD website. The first deadline to apply is January 30, 2015.


ICBC First Round Results
The Accounting team of Jaimee Dowdeswell and Jingwen Su, with faculty coach Shelley Lukasewich and the Marketing team of Brett Kitchen and Tiffany Lougheed, with faculty coach Tatiana Levit have made it to the final round of the annual Inter-Collegiate Business Competition (ICBC). These results in the preliminary round put the U of R in the top six Universities overall allowing them to also bring a Debate team. Kevin Chow and Robert Vancise will compete as the U of R Debate team. 
The finals will be held at Queen's University January 2nd to 4th. Congratulations to all the teams and coaches who participated in the first round!


Leaders Council Executive
Small changes were made to the Leaders Council Executive at the LC AGM on December 3. Prabha Vaidyanathan will continue as President, Jolene Anton will move into the role of Vice-President and Steve McLellan will move into the role of a Director. Director Grant McGlaughlin's term has ended and Mark Borgares will join the executive in his place.


ChamberLink Feature
The Faculty’s monthly feature in the ChamberLink magazine’s December 2014 issue talked about the Faculty’s offering of the Directors Education Program. The article can be viewed on page 9 of the issue.


Linton in Mexico
Faculty memberRandy Linton's experience delivering a seminar in Mexico City was featured on the YOURblog on November 26.


Insight Speaker
Kyle Jeworski, President & CEO of Viterra Inc., U of R Alumnus (BAdmin ‘98) and member of Leaders Council was the Insight: UR Business Distinguished Speaker on November 25. He was featured on the U of R Homepage on November 21.


ABEX Achievement
Congratulations to Paul Hill, Chairman, President & CEO of Harvard Developments, who was the recipient of the 2014 ABEX Business Leader of the Year award at the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce’s annual ABEX Awards on November 1.


Hill Business Dinner
The Business Students Society hosted their 41st annual Hill Business Dinner on October 30. The dinner featured a keynote presentation by Don Walker, CEO of Magna International Ic..


Ambassador Presentation
The Faculty of Business Administration welcomed Ambassador Selcuk Ulan of Turkey to speak to students, faculty and members of the University and business community. The presentation was featured on the U of R Homepage on October 24.


Accounting Fellowship
The Accounting Fellowship banquet was held on October 22nd to honour 17 students who are the newest members of the Accounting Fellowship Program, bringing the group to a total of 382 members.
This program recognizes the academic accomplishments of accounting students. Membership in the Accounting Fellowship Program is recognized by the accounting community as a significant accomplishment achieved only by the best accounting students. Students in the program have achieved a grade point average of 80% or more.
The awards banquet is sponsored by the professional accounting organization – CPA Saskatchewan.
The 17 new students joining the Accounting Fellowship Program in 2014 are: Lenard Arnold, Sindy Boczulak, Jin Hyun Cho, Quinn Cyca, Jordan Greve, Kyle Hanison, Alex Hornung, Courtney Kelly, Christene Laurans, Jonathan Maierhoffer, Nicole Nameth, Crystal Richard, Germaine Sikat, Rhys Sutter, Brenda Thiessen, Mathew Towill, Si Tu.
 

Insight Speaker
Pam Klein, President of Phoenix Group and member of the Hill Advisory Board, was the Insight: UR Business Distinguished Speaker on October 21. She was featured on the U of R Homepage on October 21.


Fall Convocation
The Faculty had 80 students graduate from the Hill School and 34 students graduate from the Levene School at the Annual U of R Fall Convocation on October 17.
Congratulations to Jia Deng who was the recipient of the University Prize in Business Administration and the Faculty of Business Administration Dean’s Medal. Jia was a student in our 2+2 program in partnership with Hunan University.


Hill Legacy Pin
The Faculty's Hill Legacy Pin ceremony, including the unveiling of the Hill Legacy Ring was featured on the U of R Homepage on September 23. The school worked with alumna Rachel Mielke (BAdmin'03) and her company Hillberg & Berk to produce the ring.


Tucker featured on Homepage
Faculty member Sean Tucker was featured on the U of R Homepage on September 19 discussing his research.


CPA Chair
Congratulations to faculty member Nola Joorisity who was announced as the Chair designate for the CPA Western School of Business in the September 2014 Joint Venture Newsletter.


Western Canadian Leadership Retreat
Congratulations to the Business Students Society on their successful bid to host the 2015 Western Canadian Leadership Retreat. The retreat welcomes all Western Business Student Society Presidents and JDC West Team Captains to collaborate and learn skills like team management, motivation, branding and leadership. The retreat will take place from May 7 to 9, with approximately 50 students in attendance. The Retreat has been hosted in Victoria and Lake Louise in the past.


Based in Business
The Faculty of Business Administration facilitated the Based in Business entrepreneurship boot camp the week of August 17 to 23. The Faculty hosted 19 Canadian Armed Forces personnel, past and present, who are transitioning from the Forces to opening their own businesses. They attended classroom sessions through the day, learning about Accounting, HR, Marketing, developing a business, and honing presentation skills. Each participant was paired with a student mentor who helped in the development of their business plan. Aside from the classes and work with student mentors, activities for participants included: a hay ride for everyone to get to know each other on the first day, a networking session for participants to speak to and get insight from local entrepreneurs, a visit to Bushwakkers for a business tour and presentation by the owner, and a formal commencement dinner and ceremony at Government House with Her Honour the Lieutenant Governor.
The initiative was headed by Enactus (an undergraduate student group).
Based in Business was covered by the Leader Post on August 19 and 26th, on Global Regina on August 19, on CBC News on August 18, and in the Financial Post on August 16. The offering was also mentioned in the Leader Post on December 2.


Voice of America Feature
Faculty member Bill Bonner was a guest on the Voice of America, Family Caregivers Unite on July 14. The episode title is the Confidentiality of Health Information.


Globe & Mail & Leader Post ad
The Faculty was featured in a one page ad (2,650 KB) in both the Globe & Mail (pg A14) and Leader Post (pg C9) on June 30. The ad highlighted the Hill & Levene Schools as well as Leaders Council the Advisory Boards for each School.


JDC West Recognition
Congratulations to the Hill JDC West team who received an award from the Regina Food Bank at their AGM/Tribute Luncheon on June 24th. JDC West was recognized for their time spent volunteering at the Food Bank since at least 2011. The team has spent over 1,000 hours volunteering with the Food Bank including sorting food and working at a variety of the events.


U of R Homepage Feature
Faculty member Andrew Stevens was featured on the U of R Homepage on June 24 discussing his research on the Temporary Foreign Workers Program.


Spring Convocation
The Faculty had 252 students graduate from the Hill School and 71 students graduate from the Levene School at the Annual U of R Spring Convocation on June 4.
Sanjit Uppal was the recipient of the Leon Goldman Scholarship and Mason Gardiner was the recipient of the Dean’s Medal. Congratulations to Sanjit, Mason and all of our graduates!


Canadian HR Reporter Feature
Faculty member Shelagh Campbell was featured in an article in the Canadian HR Reporter on June 2 discussing StatsCan job number data.


CFI Grant Success
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund (CFI-JELF) has agreed to partially fund the faculty's new Laboratory for Behavioural Business Research. The new lab space will be referred to as the LaBBR lab (pronounced labour) and our current plan is to open for business in Fall 2015.


Student Exchange
The Faculty’s Shanghai exchange was featured on the U of R Homepage on May 27.


Consumer Behaviour Symposium
The Faculty of Business Administration hosted the sixth annual Rupert's Land Consumer Behaviour Symposium May 23 and 24 at the Hotel Saskatchewan. The Symposium provides consumer researchers in the Prairie regions of Canada with an ongoing platform upon which to build research connections.


Guest Presentation
Faculty member Adrian Pitariu spoke at ENFORM on May 15 on the topic of The Big Crew Change - Navigating The Inter-Generational Divide. ENFORM, the safety association for Canada’s upstream oil and gas industry, is the advocate and leading resource for the continuous improvement of industry’s safety performance.


Anderson Saskatchewan Chamber Chair
Faculty member Bruce Anderson has been appointed as the new Chair of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce for 2014-2015. He was sworn in at the 2014 Conference on Business on May 12.


Levene Leadership Dinner
The Levene School of Business hosted their first annual Levene Leadership Dinner on May 7. The dinner featured a keynote presentation by Chris Getzlaf who is a Hill alumnus and Saskatchewan Roughriders Grey Cup champion.


New Levene Space
The Kenneth Levene Graduate School of Business moved into a new space on the 6th floor of the Education Building (ED 614) at the beginning of May.


Teaching Awards
Congratulations to Lisa Watson who was a recipient of the U of R's Centre for Teaching & Learning Award for Innovation in Teaching. Congratulations also to Wally Lockhart who was the recipient of the BSS Professor of the Year award (Lisa Watson was runner up by one vote).


Canadian Business Feature
The Kenneth Levene Graduate School including the new Levene MBA with Specializations was featured in an article in the Canadian Business magazine's April 2014 edition. The magazine had a "Special Interest Feature" discussing "Trends in Business Education" (pg. 75).


Entrepreneurship Course
The students Chris Street’s BUS 304 Entrepreneurship course completed their Online Venture Challenge business projects. Collectively they started 11 businesses and in 30 days generated $10,631.92 in sales, donating all their accounting profits of $6,515.89 to local charity partners in the process. In the Winter 2014 semester the students started four manufacturing businesses, three product distributorship businesses, and four service provider businesses. To date, the Online Venture Challenge businesses in BUS 304 have generated approximately $24,000 in sales and $14,000 in profits that go directly to local charity partners.


Enactus Tax Solutions
Congratulations to Enactus on their annual Tax Solutions initiative. The group of 15 students, led by instructor Randy Linton, processed 158 income tax returns during the month of March. This is a service they offer free of charge to students and members of the community. This year they processed returns for 91 University students and 67 young people in the community.


Student Success
Congratulations to Jeong Hun An, an exchange student in the Faculty of Business Admin on her success at the 13th Annual “Chinese Bridge” preliminary competition. She placed first in the Level 3 competition and received the “Award of Excellence”. She will represent Canada at the International “Chinese Bridge” competition in China in July. The Competition results were featured on the U of R Homepage on March 31.


CPA Competition
Congratulations to Hill students Kristen Hudym and Stephanie French who participated in the final round of the CPA Case Competition on March 28 and 29. While they did not place in the top three, they represented the Hill School well, successfully addressing the key issues in the case and providing value added discussion and analysis of the financial accounting and quantitative issues.


BSS "Keg-a-Rama"
The Business Students Society hosted their 42nd Annual Keg-a-Rama event on March 21 raising $14,957 for the Regina Firefighters Burn Unit. The event was featured on the CTV News on March 21 as well as on CTV's online photo gallery.


Voice America Feature
Faculty member Bill Bonner was one of two guests on the hour long VoiceAmerica Internet Talk Radio Show, Family Care Givers Unite! The segment title was, “What Individuals Should Know about Protecting their Genetic Information”. The show first aired March 17.


BSS "5 Days for the Homeless"
The Business Students Society "5 Days for the Homeless" campaign ran from March 9 to 14. 5 Days is a national campaign taking place at numerous Universities across Canada. For 5 days, 5 participants from the U of R slept outside to raise funds for Carmichael Outreach and to raise awareness for homelessness in Regina. The 5 participants this year included:

Lynn Barber from the Faculty of Business Administration
Greg Duck from the Faculty of Business Administration (and incoming VP Marketing for the BSS)
Liam McKinnon from the Faculty of Science
Christina Miles from the Faculty of Education
Brooke Patterson from the Faculty of Business Administration/Arts (and URSU Executive)

This year's campaign raised $25,681.57 which is a new record for the Hill School campaign!

Hill & Levene Advisory Boards Established
At a Leaders Council meeting on February 26 the Hill and Levene Advisory Boards were established. The members for each are as follows:

Hill Advisory Board
Members appointed by the Dean are Frank Hart, President, Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer for Greystone Managed Investments; Pam Klein, President of Phoenix Group and Doug McNair, President of McNair Business Development
Members elected by and from Leaders Council are Mo Bundon, Senior Vice President and COO of Harvard Developments Inc; Betty Hoffart, CEO of CMA Saskatchewan and Paul McLellan, CEO of Alliance Energy Ltd.

Levene Advisory Board
Members appointed by the Dean are Murad Al-Katib, President & CEO of Alliance Grain Traders Inc.; Terry Allen, Founder & President of Pivotal Capital Advisory Group and Harold MacKay, counsel to the law firm MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman
Members elected by and from Leaders Council are Cory Furman, Senior Patent and Trademark Lawyer and Principal of Furman IP Law & Strategy PC; Lynette Gillen, Vice President of Commercial Financial Services with RBC Royal Bank of Canada and Peter Jackson, Vice President of Operations for the Potash Business Unit of the Mosaic Company


Research Award
Congratulations to faculty member Haithem Zourrig who won a Best Paper Award in Retailing and Services Marketing for his paper: Shopping Well-Being: Is it Just a Matter of Pleasure or Doing the Task? (co-authors: Kamel El Hedhli from Abu Dhabi University and Jean-Charles Chebat from HEC Montreal). The award is discerned by the Federation of Business Disciplines (FBD) and the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators (ACME), and will be presented at the upcoming ACME conference in March.


CPA Case Competition
Congratulations to Hill students Kristen Hudym and Stephanie French who advanced to the live round of competition for the CPA Case Competition.
Twenty teams registered in the online round of the 2014 CPA Case Competition. The seven teams with the highest scores will participate in live final round in Regina on March 28 and 29. The Hill team is the only Saskatchewan team to make it to the finals.


Enactus
The Hill School Enactus group attended the Regional Enactus Competition in Calgary February 27 and 28. At the competition Hill Student Shahzadi Sayyid won “HSBC Woman Leader of Tomorrow”. Only the top six are picked in Canada with a chance to be the Top Woman Leader at the Enactus National Championship in Calgary on April 28 to 30. The recipient must demonstrate vision and leadership, her use of business concepts to improve the quality of life and standard of living of other, and an ability to serve as a role model and inspire others. The winner will have the opportunity to network with woman business leaders in Calgary.
The Hill Enactus team, including team members Shahzadi Sayyid, Amber Rittaler, Gurinder Gill, and Brianna Lobb, was the second runner-up for the TD Entrepreneurship Challenge.


CDC 2014
On February 7 the Faculty hosted our fourth annual student conference, CDC 2014 – Career Development Conference.  There were 60 students in attendance who enjoyed the discussion from our panelists. Thanks to Rosanne Hill Blaisdell of Harvard Developments, Pam Klein of Phoenix Group, Tafaline Wall of BMO Bank of Montreal and U of R President Vianne Timmons who led the “Women in Leadership” discussion in the morning. Thanks also to Leaders Council members Lynette Gillen of Royal Bank of Canada, Robert Haynes of SaskEnergy, Betty Hoffart of CMA Canada, Richard Kies of the Canadian Red Cross, Victor Thomas of Aspen Medical Canada, Jason Zhao of ISTDC Canada and Associate Dean Brian Schumacher who participated in the “A "Major" Decision: Your Future in Business” discussion in the afternoon. Thanks to Bruce Anderson, Pam Klein, Victor Thomas and Andrew Rink who helped out with our “Creating Your Personal Brand” discussion over lunch. Finally, thanks to CPA for being the Exclusive Sponsor for the event!


Insight Speaker
Ken Sunquist was the Insight: UR Business Distinguished Speaker on January 30. He was featured on the U of R Homepage on January 27. Mr. Sunquist was also featured in an article in the Leader Post (77 KB) on February 3.


Research Award
Congratulations to faculty member Haithem Zourrig who won a Best Paper Award in the Global and Cross Cultural Marketing track for his paper: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Consumer Perceptions of Service Failures' Severity: A Pilot Study (co-authors: Kamel El Hedhli from Abu Dhabi University and Jean-Charles Chebat from HEC Montreal).
The award is discerned by the Federation of Business Disciplines (FBD) and the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators (ACME), and will be presented at the upcoming ACME conference in March.


Successful Case Competition
Ace the Case is a two day workshop and competition designed and delivered by KPMG that is geared towards first, second and third year commerce students with a long-term interest in pursuing a CA/CPA designation. The workshop provides students with an opportunity to improve case-writing and analytical skills, as well as presentation skills. The program consists of three stages of competition: Local, National and Global. Our national winning team will represent Canada at International Case Competition (taking place in Brazil this year), competing against students from across 24 participating countries.
Hill Student Kristen Hudym was a member of a four person team which competed and performed well in this competition, placing second. Congratulations to Kristen!


Hill JDC West Team School of the Year!
Congratulations to the Hill JDC West team who earned the title of School of the Year this weekend at the JDC West 2014 competition hosted at the University of Regina! The Hill team also won Academic School of the Year for the first time based on their outstanding academic performances! The Hill School, let by co-captains Mason Gardiner and Lyndon Kifferling, placed in an unprecedented 6 out 11 academic competitions:

1st place: Human Resources – Amy Deibert, Tyler Fleury, Taryn Gullickson
1st place: MIS – Josh Duchin, Steven Eirich, Andrew VanOs
2nd place: Business Strategy – Masonga Chipanshi, Trevor Klein, Alex Piniach
2nd place: Marketing – Suzanne Barber, Isaac LeClair, Vanessa Wagner
3rd place: Entrepreneurship – Renee Boutin, Andrew Burant, Robel Sahlu
3rd place: Debate – Tommy Douglass, Aaron Fritzler, Kate Nimegeers, Sean Wilson

Hill students clocked over 2,300 hours of volunteer work in Regina earning them the award for most volunteer hours in the charity competition. This category is a point of pride for the team and constituted over 1/4 of the volunteer hours carried out by all 12 competing teams. The Hill JDC West team also came first in participation and third in social (Greg Duck, Maddy Lepage, Brooke Paterson and Cole Skrudland).

Congratulations to the 48 members of the Hill JDC West team on their solid performances over the weekend (as well as the 5 godparents and VPs)! Congratulations also to Lisa Watson who led the team as the Faculty Advisor. Thanks to the 12 Faculty coaches, 31 Alumni coaches and over 20 industry coaches for helping to prepare our teams!

Congratulations also to the JDC West Organizing Committee on hosting this great event including co-chairs Emily McNair and Victoria Johnson, their 32 member Organizing Committee and hundreds of volunteers! Thanks also to our 12 Faculty case writers! The event was a success thanks to the work of all of those individuals as well as the support of our countless sponsors!