UAlbany to Build on Success of Chinese/MBA Program With New Freeman Foundation Scholarships (March 19, 2001)

The University at Albany will be able to build upon its success in preparing students for the global economy, due to a new $245,000 three-year grant from the Freeman Foundation to the Department of East Asian Studies for its "BA in Chinese Studies/MBA Program."

During semester breaks, Paul Miesing sometimes journeys to far-off lands to teach. And he invariably returns to the University at Albany's School of Business convinced that he has learned at least as much as he has taught.

Business owners and senior managers often face information systems, marketing, finance, or human resources problems that impact their firms' growth and survival. Some attempt to devise their own solutions. Others call upon UAlbany School of Business faculty and students for help in the form of a Living Case.

Salvatore Belardo

Rami Hyary knows motivation and talent when he sees them. So when he had an idea for an initiative that will enable students to use their expertise in giving new business ventures a jump start - and, in the process, form a company that may employ them after graduation - he brought it to his alma mater, the University at Albany

Frank Poore founded Commerce Technologies, Inc. (CTI), in 1997 with one employee—himself. Today CTI has 15 full-time and five part-time employees, and the group and its computers seem about to burst out of the green-hued windows at the University's Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM), where the goal is to provide innovative incubator firms with a running start.

UAlbany School of Business Dean Richard A. Highfield feels it is important to give our students a very thorough education in the basics, as well as experience where theory meets practice. Through the MBA field project, they get both.

A group of undergraduate business students at the University at Albany worked to make a difference for people in one of the poorest countries in the world.

While others were sitting at home on New Year's Eve waiting to see whether their heat and power would go out, School of Business Professor Paul Miesing greeted the millennium in Bangkok as part of a month-long tour of Southeast Asia.

For many alumni, the University at Albany was not just the institution where they earned degrees and got started on their careers. It was also the place where they met the loves of their lives.

Farm Direct Distribution, Inc., a group of 70 small farmers from across New York State, wanted to cut out the middleman. They came to the University at Albany's Small Business Development Center (SBDC) recently for help in directly marketing their dairy, livestock and other products. The SBDC helped the fledgling group create a business plan whose centerpiece is a World Wide Web site through which restaurants, hotels and other institutional customers in the Northeast may order food on line from Farm Direct's members in an easy-to-use, grocery store-style format.

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