Kogod’s staff is pushing for students to join external case competitions while they wait for the revamped version of the Kogod Case Competition to return in 2018.
Andrew Toczydlowski, associate director of graduate programming and student activities, said the competition was canceled this year to make room for the “Business of Diversity” series, which he describes as a series of opportunities to explore diversity and inclusion.
The new series begins on Thursday, Feb. 9 with a panel titled “Women Who Mean Business,” which will take place in the Kogod Student Lounge from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This will be the first of four major panels in the series that will conclude in April.
The second panel will discuss the effects of being LGBTQ in the workplace, and the third and fourth panels will feature two guest speakers, all taking place in the Kogod Student Lounge. They include Apoorva Gandhi, vice president of multicultural affairs at Marriott International and Darlene Slaughter, chief diversity officer and vice president of United Way International.
The Kogod Case Competition will return to campus in 2018. Toczydlowski said KSB faculty members are drawing inspiration from case competitions from other schools and companies to remodel Kogod’s format.
Toczydlowski said that KSB is hosting focus groups of students, faculty and alumni to get feedback from past competitors. KSB will announce the new format in the fall 2017 semester.
Undergraduate and graduate students that would have competed in KSB’s competition this year have found other competitions to enter.
Two-year MBA student AJ Ajiboye, who was a member of the winning team in the Kogod Case Competition of 2016, had the opportunity to compete in the University of Maryland Emerging Markets Case Competition. Ajiboye said he enjoyed going head-to-head with students from all over the country, rather than competing with only AU students. He also felt that his experience in the KSB competition prepared him for the rigor of the University of Maryland competition.
“I was focused on bringing back the gold for American University,” he said. “I took pride in representing the school and showing the academic community that we could compete with the best of them.”
Ajiboye will also be participating in the Ohio State University Keybank Case Competition taking place on Feb. 24-26 and is confident that his team will do well.
Other KSB students looking to participate in external competitions can search on KSB’s Case Hub online, where they can find the links to sign up for competitions like the University of Iowa Analytics Competition and Nespresso Sustainability Challenge, Toczydlowski said.
“Case competitions are a great way to put your academic knowledge and problem solving skills to the test,” Ajiboye said. “The opportunity to network with other MBA students and learn different approaches to analyzing business was invaluable.”
