Category: Academics

Enroll Now: Summer Session 2016

By , March 21, 2016 5:04 pm

Summer-Session-2016Catch Up. Stay on Track. Get Ahead.

Whatever your goals are, spending the summer at UMKC is a great way to meet them. With flexible scheduling, a variety of classes, online offerings and in-state tuition for area Kansas students, UMKC’s summer session is the ideal way to set your own pace and start strong in the fall!

The first session starts on May 23. For a full rundown, including registration dates and course lists, visit Summer Session.

MBA Students Advance to Finals in National Case Competition

By , February 29, 2016 4:53 pm

A team of five students from the Bloch School’s Intensive Full-Time MBA have been selected as finalists for the 26th Annual Wake Forest Marketing Analytics Summit.

The Bloch team, comprised of Akash Kandhari, Aditya Rajagopalan, Ashley Hufft, Erin Christiansen and Kara Macy, is one of eight selected nationwide to compete for the top prize in Winston-Salem, N. C., on April 11 and 12, 2016.

The Marketing Summit is a student-run competition that offers both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to apply their marketing skills and creativity to real-world marketing challenges. First place in the graduate pool will receive a $20,000 cash prize, with a $1,000 MVP prize awarded to the team presenter that best represents the qualities of a top-level marketing professional.

Finalists for the 2015 competition included teams from top MBA programs such as Wake Forest University, Yale University and Northwestern University. The finalist teams were selected based on a case analysis and a creative video. The Bloch team’s video submission can be viewed here.

The 3-Minute Thesis

By , December 1, 2015 9:32 am

3 min thesisOften, it is difficult to impart the significance and value of research studies and graduate education to the public at large – and to policymakers in particular.

Recently, the U.S. Council of Graduate Schools has encouraged the establishment of a new program, referred to as the Three Minute Thesis, to address this issue. This program, adopted by other major universities worldwide, originated from the University of Queensland in Australia and is being brought to UMKC by the School of Graduate Studies.

The major goal of the program is enhanced oral communication. Essentially the Three Minute Thesis is a three-minute-maximum oral summary of a student’s dissertation or thesis research, aimed at educated lay people.

A three-minute thesis is not as simple as one would think. Students need to identify the most critical findings of the research and relay them to individuals unfamiliar with the technical subject matter. They need to state only the major take-home message they want to convey, without using technical jargon.

Student competitions are helping to popularize the concept. At UMKC, approximately 28 students have volunteered to take part in a Three Minute Thesis contest to be held in early February. Contestants are only allowed to use one PowerPoint slide in their presentation. The first and second place winners will receive cash prizes. Members of the audience will be asked to select a People’s Choice winner. The first place winner will be invited to present at the regional competition within the Midwest Association of Graduate Schools in April in Chicago.

You can see examples of winning presentations from other universities at: http://threeminutethesis.org/3mt-showcase

UMKC’s 4th Annual TEDx on Dec 5th

By , November 10, 2015 11:51 am

TEDx2015The TEDxUMKC event, “Big Challenges, Small Solutions,” will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5 at the WWI Museum at Liberty Memorial. Speakers include a UMKC School of Pharmacy student who has developed a health app, faculty innovators, and Kansas City Mayor Sly James.

Tickets typically sell out quickly and are now available for purchase at tedxumkc.com. They are $5 for UMKC students with valid student IDs and $10 for the general public. They include access to the live performances, T-shirt, gift bag and light refreshments.

The TEDxUMKC organizing committee, headed by co-curators Rahul Maheshwari and Ryan Sieli — both fourth-year UMKC Medical students — selected the speakers because of their diverse backgrounds and ideas worth spreading that are focused on solving global challenges with small solutions:

  • Reza Derakshani, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at UMKC and Chief Science Officer of EyeVerify
  • Terri Friedline, associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare
  • Mark Hoffman, director of the Center for Health Insights and associate professor for biomedical and health informatics at the UMKC School of Medicine, and director for translational bioinformatics at Children’s Mercy
  • Kansas City Mayor Sly James
  • Dakota Rosenfelt, UMKC School of Pharmacy student and creator of HemoTool, an app used by those with bleeding disorders that allows them to track and record their treatment, order new medications and locate Hemophilia Treatment Centers (HTCs) on the go in the event of an emergency.

The event, now in its fourth year, also will feature a performance by local contemporary jazz band AM Trio, led by singer Alyssa Murray, with drummer Joshua Blythe and bassist Joel Stratton, all of whom are UMKC students or alumni.

The theme for this independently organized event, “Big Challenges, Small Solutions” is described by the organizing committee:

“Although our society has made much progress, there are still major challenges facing us today. Some of these challenges are well known, while many are not. However, there are those among us that recognize, react, and resolve those problems. These pioneers, acting in the spirit of ingenuity and altruism, have paved a path to help make the world a better place. They bring awareness to unseen obstacles, and offer creative solutions to tackle them. Innovational in nature and quick in thinking, these individuals strive to expand our horizons by breaking the facade for others to follow and demonstrating that one individual can make a difference.”

For more details about TEDxUMKC, follow on Twitter and like on Facebook.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TEDlike experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.

 

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