Three teams emerged victorious Tuesday night in the inaugural Penn State Smeal College of Business PSU 6 Business Ethics Case Competition.
PSU 6, or first-year seminar, is a course offered to freshmen to facilitate a student’s adjustment to the high expectations, demanding workload, increased academic liberties, and other aspects of the transition to college life. PSU 6 First Year Seminar in Business Administration includes information on all facets of Smeal and contains assignments dealing with leadership, ethics, celebrating diversity, community service, major and career exploration, time management and goal setting, and team work.
Teams from the 44 sections of PSU 6 participated in the Business Ethics Case Competition. The case was built around a scenario in which Amazon applies for a patent for technology that would prevent customers using the wifi in their brick and mortar stores from being able to compare prices with other retail outlets.
The Section 19 team of Trevor Gabura, Ryan Quinn, Connor Andrews, Patrick Voss, Brett Richardson, Matthew Bean and Christopher Crimi, which is taught by Lee Citarella, a business process analyst at Penn State, won the first-place prize of $500. That section of PSU 6 will also be enjoying a small party to help celebrate the win.
The Section 31 team taught by Debbie Lissenden, director of records and core curriculum in Smeal’s Office of Undergraduate Education, took second place. Team members included: Kayla Esannason, Ryan Dillion, Ryan Myers, Madison Ozer, Brandon Rosica, and Cory Stivason.
The Section 17 team of Ben Donovan, Sean Collins, Victor Minnebo, Trevor Paolone, Gracie Seybold, and Liz Duplass placed third. That section is taught by Karen Serago, an academic adviser in Smeal’s Office of Undergraduate Education.
Michelle Darnell, who is in her first year as Smeal’s director of honor and integrity, proposed the case competition as a way to introduce Smeal’s culture of honor and integrity to students from their very first days in the college.
“Implementing a case competition for freshmen who have never been exposed to this type of learning mechanism or to Smeal’s culture is challenging,” Darnell said. “However, the instructors and leadership of our Office of Undergraduate Education enthusiastically embraced the concept and the students produced some truly impressive presentations.”
Judges Karen Maull, assistant clinical professor of risk management; Susie Wright, associate teaching professor of accounting; and Jamey Darnell, clinical assistant professor of entrepreneurship; narrowed the original field to the top nine teams. Those teams then went through semifinal and final rounds Tuesday night, judged by:
- Jennifer Eury, assistant clinical professor of management and organization
- Ozge Pala, instructor in management
- Erik Foley, Smeal director of sustainability and instructor of management and organization.
- Andrew Tomaskevitch, recruiter for Altria
- Michelle Darnell, director of honor and integrity