A Succesful Year at the CBA

Dear Friends,

As spring commencement approaches, the UIC College of Business Administration has much to celebrate. We enjoyed another incredibly successful year during which we further established ourselves as a leader in innovative business education and research that is positioned to continue effecting positive change in the global marketplace. The following are a sampling of some of the college’s outstanding achievements from this year.

• Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review ranked our graduate entrepreneurship program 10th in the nation.


• Fortune Small Business magazine named the university’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program among the nation’s top 25.


• Sanogene Therapeutics, Inc., a startup venture founded by two of our MBA graduates, won the top prize at the Third Annual Chicago City Treasurer’s Business Plan Competition.


• Liautaud MBA teams dominated the Cardinal Challenge Business Plan Competition hosted by the University of Louisville with HeartSounds, Inc. and BioRegenix, Inc. taking first and second place respectively.


• HeartSounds also won the highly prestigious NASA Earth/Space Life Science Innovation Award at the 2008 Rice University Business Plan Competition. The award, which was given out for the first time this year, was presented to the team because its business plan “presents a life sciences technology which has an application to both the NASA space life science program and to Earth-based activities.”


• MS in MIS students Faisal Farooqui and Arun Muthalagu, and Mindy Isherwood, an undergraduate student majoring in information and decision sciences, were selected by the Illinois Technology Association as three of Illinois’ Fifty for the Future in Technology. The Fifty for the Future is an annual program that recognizes top students interested in the technology industry.


• For the second consecutive year, the Chicago Innovation Awards presented the CBA with a scholarship in recognition of its work to advance entrepreneurial studies and interdisciplinary product development.


• Professor Barry R. Chiswick received the 3M Economic Excellence Award from the Illinois Council on Economic Education in recognition of his outstanding advocacy for economic education.


• Professor Dan McMillen’s co-authored article “A Mismatch Made in Heaven: A Hedonic Analysis of Over-education and Under-education” was selected as the winner of the Georgescu-Roegen Prize for 2007 by the Southern Economic Journal.


• Professor James Chan was chosen to receive the Enduring Lifetime Contribution Award from the Government and Nonprofit Section of the American Accounting Association.

In addition to these accomplishments, several of our professors had books published this year, including: Professor John McDonald’s “Urban America: Growth, Crisis, and Rebirth;” Professor Abagail McWilliams’ "The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility;" Professor J. Christopher Westland’s “Global Innovation Management: A Strategic Approach;” and Professor Carmel Chiswick’s “Economics of American Judaism.”

While I am proud of all these accomplishments, what pleases me most is seeing each one of our eager, ambitious new graduates ready to take on their roles as business leaders. They are an immensely talented group distinguished by a strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Above all else, they are shining examples to the world of the tremendous impact someone with an education from the CBA can have on the future of business.

We are a college on the move.

Best wishes.

Stefanie Lenway
Dean, UIC College of Business Administration