tcnj students shine in
business competitions

Last month, the School of Business received perhaps its biggest accolade to date when it was announced that it was named one of Business Week’s “Best Undergraduate Business Schools.” This past semester, a number of TCNJ students received individual accolades as part of their extracurricular activities that were sponsored in part by the School of Business. These out-of-class learning experiences allowed TCNJ students to show off the skills they have learned in class, and compete against their counterparts from other business schools. Here is a brief summary of how TCNJ students fared.

Institute of Internal Auditors Essay Compeition

Three sophomore accounting students from TCNJ swept the essay contest sponsored by the Philadelphia chapter of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). The contest was “designed to encourage undergraduate students to reflect upon contemporary issues that affect business and the internal audit profession,” according to the IIA announcement. Rachel Fetterman took first place and a prize of $2,000; Agnieszka Szczurko took second place and a prize of $1,000; and Hee-Jun (Larry) Joo took third place and a prize of $500. The awards were announced in conjunction with IIA’s spring conference.

SHRM Northeast Regional HR Games

Laura Cenker, senior business major; Danielle Damiano, junior business management major; Rob Screpka, senior business management major; alternate Jeff Joffe, sophomore business major; and SHRM adviser Pamela Kravitz, associate professor, participated in the 2008 SHRM Northeast Regional HR Games held at Bryant University, Rhode Island, on March 28–29. Competing in a jeopardy-style game, the business students placed fourth against 23 other teams from schools such as Cornell and Penn State.

National Collegiate Sales Competition

Michael Heaney, junior finance major, and Allen Soriano, junior marketing major advanced to the quarterfinals of the 10th Annual National Collegiate Sales Competition (NCSC) at Kennesaw State University on March 14–15, 2008. The goal of the NCSC is to be a positive and educational experience for all participants. Corporate sponsors have the opportunity to observe, interact with and recruit the top undergraduate sales students in the country and the NCSC provides student participants a venue to compete with their peers from other schools as well as to demonstrate their sales skills to our corporate partners.

Heaney and Soriano competed against 98 other students from 50 universities. They were awarded a $300 prize of a gift certificate for Tom James apparel, and both were heavily recruited by Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Standard Register, and Johnson and Johnson.

“The sales skills that we learned in class, and then developed in preparation for the event, were recognized by all of the sponsors,” said Soriano. “After competing, there were Fortune 500 companies hunting us down to let us know more about their programs. Who wouldn’t love having HP come find you to go out to dinner?”

“NCSC is the perfect venue for any student of business to finely tune their public speaking, networking, and interviewing skills,” added Heaney.

Phi Beta Lamda State Conference

Eight business majors at TCNJ received awards as part of the 32nd annual New Jersey Phi Beta Lambda State Leadership Conference, held at Mercer County Community College on March 1. Phi Beta Lambda is the national honor society for business students. TCNJ competed along with Rider University, Rutgers University, and several community colleges.

The participants competed in different categories, such a business communication, finance, and international business at the all-day event. First- and second-place winners will be able to compete at the Phi Beta Lambda National Leadership Conference in Atlanta in June.

Participants from TCNJ who will continue on to the national competition include Brian McCracken, junior finance major; Jackie Silvestrov, junior interdisciplinary business major; Jessica Sevecke, junior psychology major, who also won a $250 NJ FLBA-PBA scholarship; Shannon McGee, junior finance pre-major; Mira Shah, junior finance major; Michael Lamm, sophomore psychology and business double major; Kathleen Murphy, sophomore finance pre-major; Leann Sluzas, freshman open options business major.

The College and its students received a number of other awards that night, including Largest Local Chapter; Outstanding Member for Tiffany Cheng, senior finance major; Outstanding Officer for Sevecke; and Scrapbook Award. Danielle Catona (senior communications studies major) and Michele Dean (senior accounting major) both took home $250 scholarships, and two TCNJ students were elected to state officer positions: Sevecke was named state president, and Dan Eckrote (junior marketing major) was named state membership director.
Tricia Wallace, professor of accounting and information systems, is TCNJ's PBL adviser.