COBE celebrates its extraordinary students, faculty
Dean George Low with the Beta Gamma Sigma Faculty Member of the Year Award Winner Dale Henderson during the COBE Awards ceremony.
Radford University's College of Business and Economics celebrated the extraordinary achievements of its students April 22 with back-to-back ceremonies in the COBE Building.
The evening began with the Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) honor society induction ceremony in COBE 320 and was followed by the annual Spring Honors Program in the COBE Multipurpose Room.
The International Honor Society Beta Gamma Sigma recognizes academic excellence at the world's top business schools – those accredited by AACSB International, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Since its founding in 1913, the society has established more than 500 collegiate chapters around the world.
Membership in the BGS is limited to COBE juniors and seniors who rank in the top 10 percent of their class or MBA students in the top 20 percent.
Senior inductees included Chadwick Hildebrandt (Accounting), Thomas Hoosier (Accounting), Kiera McIvor (Management), Kyle Noreen (Finance), Brian Ratchford (Accounting) and Anthony Turpin (Accounting).
The junior inductees included Kelly Albert (Economics and Finance), Kirsten Basham (Accounting), Bridgette Burchett (Accounting), Christopher Coia (Accounting), Margaret Cook (Management), Kohl Howard (Marketing), Robert King (Accounting), Zachary King (Management), Conner Lewis (Management and Marketing), James Mayhugh (Accounting and Finance), Victoria Sarver (Accounting and Finance), Joel Schmidt (Finance), Kelci Simonsen (Accounting), Thomas Stevenson (Management), Tyler Swarmer (Accounting and Finance) and Ross Taylor (Finance and Management).
Deborah Saunders was the graduate inductee.
Associate Professor of Finance Rodrigo Hernandez was this year's BGS faculty inductee.
Members of the newly inducted class of Beta Gamma Sigma members together after their induction ceremony.
"This now places a responsibility on you as our Beta Gamma Sigma members, and we expect a lot of out of you," said COBE Dean George Low. "We expect you to be leaders. We expect you to be an example to those other students and to carry the torch for the College of Business and Economics as you go out in the world."
The Radford BGS chapter also installed new officers for the 2015-16 academic year. Those officers will be: Tyler Swarmer, president; Christopher Coia, vice president; Georgia Logan, secretary; Kelci Simonsen, treasurer; and Benjamin Buzzard, member at large.
Following the BGS induction, the night's festivities moved down the third-floor hallway to the Multipurpose Room for a ceremony to recognize student organizations and the achievement of individual students.
"We celebrate excellence, and we honor achievement," Low said at the ceremony's opening.
Emma Deininger was named COBE's Outstanding Student. Professor of Management Dale Henderson received the BGS Faculty Member of the Year award.
Additional COBE outstanding student award winners included:
- Outstanding Accounting Major: Chadwick Hildebrandt
- Outstanding Finance Major: Stephen Hudgens
- Outstanding Economics Major: Emily Grant
- Outstanding Management Major: Sarah Ponthieux
- Outstanding Marketing Major: Lisa Diana
- Outstanding Full Time MBA: Nicholas Sayer
- Outstanding Professional MBA: Timothy Rowe
- Outstanding Student Service: Madalyn Dunn
- Deans Award: Heidi Flowers
- Delta Sigma Pi: Stephen Hudgens
- Delta Sigma Pi: Sarah Ponthieux
- Citizen Scholar: Raymond Boisvert
During the ceremony, COBE recognized members of Phi Kappa Phi, BGS, Beta Alpha Psi, Omicron Delta Epsilon, Sigma Iota Epsilon and Alpha Mu Alpha.
"These are talented and hard-working students," Low said in closing. "We are here to help these students in some small way to achieve the amazing things they're going to achieve throughout the rest of their lives."
Winners of the COBE Outstanding Student Awards: Front Row: Madalyn Dunn, COBE Service Award; Emily Grant, Economics Dean's Scholar; Sarah Ponthieux, Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key & Management Dean's Scholar; Lisa Diana, Marketing Dean's Scholar; Stephen Hudgens, Finance Dean's Scholar & Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key. Second Row: Nicholas Sayer, Full Time MBA Award Winner; Emma Deininger, COBE Outstanding Student; Heidi Flowers, COBE Deans Award; Raymond Boisvert, COBE Citizen/Scholar Award Winner, and Chadwick Hildebrandt, Accounting Dean's Scholar.