The Cadre

UPEI business students score major national victory

By Kent J. Bruyneel EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

UPEI’s School of Business, long the subject of pride in this com- munity, has received a national title that places it comfortably among the best undergraduate faculties in the country. Three fourth year students from the school-Tara Burley, Shara Clow and Shanna Craswell- have won the University Award of Ex- cellence- a case study competition held annually in Montreal.

Each of the competing teams was given acase relating to the field of human resources and industrial relations. The competitors were asked to respond and provide rec- ommendations within an hour of reading the situation. They were required to submit a report and pre- pare an oral presentation to a coun- cil of jurors who posed ten minutes of questions. The cases were drawn from real-life Canadian cor- porate dilemnas.

“The time restrictions made us panic at first,” said Burley, “but we got over that and settled down.”

There were teams from 17 other Canadian Universities at the conference-including McGill, Carelton and Bishops. The event had never before been won by a team outside of the province of Quebec.

UPEI was asked to enter a team last year, but, according to Don MacCormac-the team’s coach and an assistant professor at UPEI- he did not feel ready until this year to enter the event. The victory is made even more remarkable, MacCormac explained, because most of the competing schools have actual majors in Human Resources.

“They have seven or eight courses in most of their [human re- source] programs,” MacCormac explained, “and we have only two.”

MacCormac was not overly

rise a. the viciony but

thrilled with the result the team achieved on what was such a diffi- cult task.

Other faculty members were seen beaming in the halls of Kelley building at the victory, but few were terribly surprised that UPEI could compete on a national level.

“Tt is not surprising,” said Ac- counting professor Albert Ferris, “if you look at how well our students do in all their studies.”

Ferris went on to explain that UPEI ranks 20-25% higher each year on pass rates for the Uniform Final Exam-the chartered accoun- tancy designation exam-than the national average.

Burley, and MacCormac had modest hopes upon entry and completion of the competition and were floored to hear they had won unanimously.

“The judges told us after that when we walked out of the room, they were convinced we were the winners,” said Burley.

“We had no idea. There is an element of fake confidence when you are standing in front of the panel pretending to be consultants,” Burley said, “ but we just decided to be as confidant as possible. I was just hoping to place third”

MacCormac said he would have been elated with an “honor- able mention” and is very proud of the students who competed.

This most recent accomplish- ment can only be good for the School, and MacCormac who is also the Director of the School's In- ternship programs, hopes: “this achievement will be a strong incen- tive to other students in the pro-

The help of the local business community in critiquing practice cases was invaluable, Burley added. The School of Business has long been associated heavily with the Charlottetown business community, as could be witnessed at their enor- mously successful Business Society

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