You can review schedules on Class Finder.

MBA students may take up to four electives from the following programs and may register on the dates mentioned:
• School of Education - December 21, 2009
• School of Engineering – November 9, 2009
• Graduate Programs in Software – November 4, 2009
(Note: If you take a class from one of these other programs, please notify your program advisor.)

Why do I need to submit a graduation application?

Your Commencement Coordinator collects multiple types of useful information and data from your application, including the following:

1) How do you want your name spelled on your diploma and in the commencement program? (Note: Even if you do not participate in the commencement ceremony, your name will still be printed in the program.)
2) Are you participating in the commencement ceremony?
- What size cap/gown do you need?
- How do you want your name pronounced when you are introduced?
3) Do you want a letter sent to your mentor or supervisor from Dean Puto, acknowledging your accomplishment in completing your MBA?

What if I need to make a change after I have submitted my graduation application?

We do our best to accommodate our students. BUT, this graduation process involves a lot of details and planning. So, please try to avoid changes or exceptions, especially at the last minute. However, if you do need to make a change, email Ms. Phairas.

Commencement Information

Due to the construction of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex on the St. Paul campus, the Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 Commencement ceremonies will be held off campus.

Fall 2009 Graduate Commencement Ceremony:
Friday, December 18, 7 p.m. (ceremony usually lasts about an hour)
Saint Paul RiverCentre Grand Ballroom (www.rivercentre.org)
Reception immediately following in the St. Paul RiverCentre Ballroom Concourse/Rotunda Overlook

Dean’s Reception:
Members of the Graduate Business Fall Class of 2009 and their managers, mentors or guests are invited to attend.
Thursday, December 17, 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Schulze Hall Atrium
Minneapolis Campus

For more information about Commencement: http://www.stthomas.edu/business/events/commencement/ or http://www.stthomas.edu/commencement/

As part of the ongoing series of Medtronic Business and Law Roundtables, four individuals who went to prison for white collar crimes in Minnesota will be joined by their respective federal sentencing judges and prosecutors to explore their offenses, the consequences, and life after prison.

Panels include:
• Stephen Rondestvedt, former lawyer, and the Honorable John Tunheim
• David Logan, former CEO and public official, and the Honorable Michael Davis
• Nick and Carolyn Ryberg, former senior HR executive and his wife, and the Honorable Joan Ericksen

The panels will be moderated by University of St. Thomas Law School professor Hank Shea and Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Magill, who prosecuted the cases. The Honorable Diana Murphy, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, will provide closing comments. For more information about this event: http://www.stthomas.edu/ethicalleadership/

Please RSVP to reserve a seat to this free event at holloranctr@stthomas.edu.

Dear Xcited,
Your advisor is happy to talk to you over the phone about your course options! We do have a few suggestions to make the call more effective:

Sincerely,
Dr. Helpful

Graduate Business Career Services is located in Suite 251, Terrence Murphy Hall, on the Minneapolis campus. The suite includes staff offices and career resources. The office is open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily. You may reach the GBCS office at (651) 962-8807 or gradcareers@stthomas.edu.

http://www.employmentdigest.net/2009/10/how-to-find-a-contact-name-inside-a-target-company/

How to Find a Contact Name Inside a Target Company
Posted on 19. Oct, 2009 posted by Bill in Employment News

Career experts always say, “Don’t send your resume to the Human Resources department, where it will get lost in the shuffle – send it to an individual person in the company.” Well, great – but how do you actually do that? It’s not so easy to pin down a name for a person who could actually read your resume or pass it on to the hiring manager. Here are ten tips to get you going.

1) Look on the company website, under About Us. There should be Management Bios section. Either the VP/leader of the function you’re interested in (e.g. Marketing or Engineering) or the VP/leader of HR is a great person to call or write to. Both of those people should be listed on the website (although a lot of the time, the head of HR is not shown in the Management Bios, because HR is often a second-class citizen, function-wise, sad to say). If the company is enormous – say 10,000 employees are more – the very lofty manager whose bio is on the website may be too lofty to do you much good, unless you are interested in an executive position. If that’s true, you need a closer-to-the-action person who will not pitch your resume (hopefully) immediately upon receipt.

2) Use LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), searching on the target company name, to find people who work there OR who used to work there OR who do business with the company now. Make contact with one of these folks (via a mutual LinkedIn connection) to express your interest in communicating with the correct person at your target company, about a job.

3) Use a WorldWIT email group (like DesertWIT in Nevada or DutchWIT in the Netherlands) to get contacts in a target company. Membership is free – just go to www.worldwit.org and join your local chapter. Men and women are welcome. (Full disclosure: I lead this group.)

4) Use Google to find someone appropriate at the target company. Try a search like Apex+Foods+marketing+director. Try a bunch of different things. You’ll find media profiles, reports of Apex Foods managers speaking at events – a ton of stuff, very likely. It’s actually pretty easy to collect names inside a company. The key is to get the appropriate names, and of course, to contact people who still work for the company.

5) Also use Google’s Blog Search functionality to locate people. Lots of stuff shows up on blogs that wouldn’t make it into typical Google web-search returns.

6) Check out the online archive for the local business paper in the city where the company is located (that is, the location that you’re interested in joining.) Sometimes you have to pay for a subscription to access the archives. If you buy and read the paper frequently anyhow, you might want to go ahead and pay for a subscription, if it will help you get the job you want.

7) Also search the archives at Yahoogroups.com to see any mentions of the company and its key folks, the ones you are seeking contact with, in any of the Yahoogroups discussion lists. Current or recent job postings show up like crazy in Yahoogroups archives, and if they’re current, the person who posted the job opening is almost certainly either the hiring manager (or connected to the hiring manager) or the assigned HR person. The only exception arises when a random (unconnected) employee of your target company posts a current job opening on a Yahoogroup that he or she belongs to, just to be helpful. That’s okay – if you contact this person about your career interest, he or she will understand why you did so (as long as they remember posting that job on Yahoogroups)!

Go to the website of the most relevant/logical association for the person you seek (in other words, the association that he or she would most logically be a member of), and search the site of the local chapter. Here’s an example. If you want to reach the PR manager at Apex Foods, and you’re located in Tallahassee, visit the PRSA website, Tallahassee chapter, and look for anyone who’s a member who works at Apex Foods. Most likely it will be someone in PR at Apex!

9) Back on the company’s own website, review what they say (if anything) about Community Involvement and local causes. There won’t be tons of detail on the company’s page – just, most likely, a link to the site of the charitable organization they support. Then go to the website of that charitable organization, and nose around for information (name and title) of representatives from your target company. For instance, if your target company is a big supporter of a kids’ toy drive, someone from the company will very likely show up on the toy drive group’s website. Then you can contact that person by phone (I doubt that you’ll find an email address) to ask for help in locating the person most closely related to the kind of career opportunity you seek.

10) Lastly, go to your alma mater’s alumni website, and search the database for a current employee or alum of the company you re targeting. Contact this person, letting him or her know your connection (you went to school at the same place and you both have made contact information available to fellow alums – otherwise, your message would be spam) and ask for his or her help in locating an appropriate person to talk with about your job search, at your schoolmate’s employer.

With these tips in hand, you should be able to vault right over the HR department and get your resume to a live human being. Here’s to your next interview!

Written by Liz Ryan, a workplace expert, former Fortune 500 HR leader and founder of the online network WorldWIT (http://www.worldwit.org). She writes and speaks about the workplace and corporate life. Liz lives in Boulder, Colorado.

UST MBA Career Workshops and Coaching

Graduate Business Career Services schedules periodic workshops on topics including MBA resumes, cover letters, and job search strategies. Visit the GBCS website at www.stthomas.edu/business/degrees/careerservices/default.html for workshop announcements. Career coaches are also available for individual appointments. Students can generally address their career concerns within a maximum of three appointments.

Online Job and Internship Postings on GradBizRecruiting

Graduate Business Career Services receives job and internship postings regularly throughout the year, and these are posted on the GBCS online system, “GradBizRecruiting.” To request access to the system, e-mail your resume and a sample cover letter you have used recently or would use, to gradcareers@stthomas.edu. A career coach will review your materials, help you make any needed improvements, and then provide access directions. After gaining access, you can view opportunities and post your resume for potential employers to review.

Career Contacts

We have an extensive database of business professionals who have offered to help Opus College of Business students and alumni with networking opportunities and informational interviews. The University of St. Thomas has more than 55,000 alumni, over 15,000 who are graduate business alumni. Using the resources of Graduate Business Career Services and the UST Alumni Association, you can make connections with alumni in your fields of interest and geographic area.

On-Campus Interviewing

Each year, a limited number of employers visit campus to recruit new MBAs. When you are within 12 credits of graduation, if you are seeking a new position, you become eligible to participate in on-campus interviewing. The GBCS office notifies you of your eligibility via email. Eligibility for on-campus job interviewing continues for three months following graduation.

“Master’s Connection”

To expand your St. Thomas network of professional contacts, plan to attend “Master’s Connection,” a networking breakfast held three times each semester for current Opus College of Business graduate students and alumni. Each program includes an interesting speaker, the chance to offer a brief “personal commercial,” and open-room networking for an hour following the presentation. Visit the GBCS website at www.stthomas.edu/business/degrees/careerservices/networking.html
for the current roster of speakers and to register online to attend.

SUMMARY

Graduate Business Career Services is here to assist you. With exceptional professional staff, multiple print and Web resources, a prime business location, and a superb network of alumni and business contacts, we stand ready to assist you at every step of the way toward the high goals for work and life that you’ve set for yourself by enrolling in the UST MBA.

Objectives

• Facilitate educational events and speakers from a variety of health care sectors
• Promote a sense of community and provide a forum for group members to share information, resources, and networking opportunities
• Provide networking and class project contacts with local health care industry professionals
• Promote UST as a premier program for graduate students interested in the business of health care

Useful Links
Health Care UST MBA
• Upcoming UST Health Care Events
• Recent UST Health Care Events
• Partners and Professional Associations
UST High Performance Health Care Blog
UST Health Care LinkedIn Group
UST Health Care on Twitter

The first meeting of this group will be taking place Thursday, Nov. 12, from 5:00-6:00 in TMH354. Evening & FT students are invited to attend.

Learn more about Mali and the UST Mali Project and enjoy delicious Malian food. For more information, contact Dr. Ashley Shams or 651.962.5284.

Thursday, November 19, 2009
7 to 9 p.m.
Koch Commons Fireside Room, St. Paul Campus

J-term 2010:
BETH 706 - Great Books

Spring 2010:
REAL 714 - Commercial Real Estate Valuation
MGMT 714 – Enterprise Risk Management
GBEC714 - The Nonprofit Economy
MGMT714 - Health Care Quality Leadership and the Bottom Line

BETH 706 - Great Books Seminar: Great Thinkers who Shaped Business Civilization

http://www.stthomas.edu/business/about/ethics/greatbooks.html

This one week, three-credit course is based on the world-renowned Aspen Institute Executive Seminar. It uses selected writings of great classic and contemporary thinkers as a beginning point for an intensive, focused discussion with peers on the enduring ideas and ideals of world civilization, the problems and opportunities of today and the issues to be faced in the years ahead. In a sense, the readings function as case studies in leadership and leadership values.

The readings revolve around such universal human concerns as justice, rights, liberty, equality, power, leadership, democracy, and community. Discussion and debate are spirited as students get to know one another in a retreat-like environment.

The Great Books Seminar is coordinated by Dr. Kenneth Goodpaster.

Course Format
A one-hour orientation is held about six weeks prior to each seminar and a one-hour closure session is held about six weeks subsequent to each seminar. Past instructors have included Professor Kenneth Goodpaster, Dr. Nona Mason, Professor Patricia Hedberg, Professor Charles Reid, Doug Baker, Dean Maines and Merritt Marquardt.

The nature of the discussion and study topics requires that participants be at or near the completion of their MBA degree. Designed to serve as the culmination of the degree program, the Great Books Seminar will provide participants with unique insight and perspective that will last long after they receive their diplomas.

This seminar qualifies as a three-credit management concentration course for MBA students. It may qualify as an elective for other St. Thomas graduate business programs; students should first seek approval from their advisors. The seminar is limited to 20 participants, with priority given on a first-come, first-served basis to current students. If space is available, the seminar will be open to alumni. We are able to offer alumni reduced tuition.

Seminar Dates and Cost
The week-long Great Books Seminar will be held at the Gainey Conference Center. Participants stay at the site during the week to make the most of the learning experience (no exceptions).

January 2010Sessions

January 3-8, 2010: Law and MBA (10 spaces available for MBA students.)
Moderators: TBA
Mandatory Orientation for January Session: November 19, 2009*,
4 - 5:30 p.m. Minneapolis Campus- Terrence Murphy Hall, room TBA
*Orientation scheduled by appointment for those who register late.

Closure meeting for January session: February 11, 2010 4-5:30 pm Minneapolis Campus

January 10-15, 2010: MBA
Moderators: TBA
Mandatory Orientation for JanuarySession: November 19, 2009*,
4 - 5:30 p.m. Minneapolis Campus- Terrence Murphy Hall, room TBA
*Orientation scheduled by appointment for those who register late.

Closure meeting for January session: February 11, 2010 4-5:30 pm Minneapolis Campus

Seminar Cost '10
Tuition (Current cost of 3 credits)
Lodging & meals $ 975
Deposit (Nonrefundable- covers Aspen books/materials, etc*) $ 400
*The $400 nonrefundable deposit will be incurred one week following the orientation session. You may deposit at the orientation session. Cancellation rates will be imposed on a rolling basis. Room and board contracts and royalty fees require this policy.

Contact Us
For more information, please call (651) 962-4211 or jmerolin@stthomas.edu.

For Spring 2010:

REAL 714 - Commercial Real Estate Valuation

Valuation of commercial real estate using the cost, market and income approaches to value are presented and evaluated from a decision-makers perspective. Professional ethics and standards of professional appraisal practice are extensively explored. Professional quality narrative appraisals using comparable sales, depreciated cost and discounted cash flow are reviewed and analyzed for adequacy and sufficiency. Additional topics studied include cost segregation, portfolio analysis and litigation support techniques.
Instructor: Dr. Tom Hamilton
Monday, 6-9pm
Mpls campus

Pre-requisite: REAL 600

MGMT 714 - Enterprise Risk Management

The present economic crisis, along with a range of other looming challenges (climate change, unrest in the Middle East, health and food security concerns, changing consumer preferences and social mobility), have presented global organizations with the most daunting array of risks in at least 60 years. However, turbulence in the risk environment is but one risk management challenge for firms today. There also is turbulence in the risk management field itself. Whereas risk management was once seen as a technical function (indeed, as a set of unconnected technical functions—insurance buying, financial risk management, legal risk management, health and safety, security), recent years have witnessed a rapid transformation. Today, risk management is viewed as an organization-wide and integrated method of assessing and addressing the widest possible range of risks. In fact, in a recent study by a major global auditing association, virtually every developed country in the world has been shown to have a requirement for risk management to be practiced in this way. The term Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has emerged as a means of capturing the essence of this holistic approach.

One of the more notable results of the ERM movement is that all managers are expected to act as risk managers within the scope of their duties. Yes, there will continue to be technicians with the risk manager title on their business card—but risk management is an expectation of virtually all managers and employees. It is the emergence of the expectation that ‘every manager is a risk manager’ that serves as the primary motivation for the development of MGMT 714. The study of risk management is no longer just for those interested in technical specializations such as finance, audit or safety/security risk; it is an essential topic for all business students.

A milestone in the advancement of ERM is the release in late 2009 of the ISO 31000 standard for risk management, which—among many things—serves to gather up the threads of many developments in the field and to present a cogent framework for thinking about and practicing risk management. Thus students (and professor!) find themselves at an exciting but challenging moment in the development of Enterprise Risk Management—frameworks and a general understanding have emerged, but many critical topics still require investigation. Among the key subjects of investigation in MGMT 714 will be:

- The specific challenge of engaging boards and executive management in order to get risk management onto their agendas, and moving this new awareness toward processes where organization-wide risk policies can be set and implemented.
- The difficulties in translating risk policy into risk management systems and structures.
- The particular processes necessary to knit together the existing technical specialist infrastructure.
- The development of sufficient risk management competence among the entire organization (and especially non-risk management specialists) so that day-to-day risk assessment and risk responses can be integrated into general management systems and actions.
- The problems of communicating relevant risk information to external stakeholders.

MGMT 714 will be led by Dr. Peter Young, the E. W. Blanch, Sr. Chair in Risk Management, who has written and consulted extensively on the subject of risk management, and who will be returning to St. Thomas after a two-year leave working on Enterprise Risk Management projects in Europe. Inquiries about the course can be made to Professor Young at pcyoung@stthomas.edu.

Thursday evenings, 6-9 p.m. on the Minneapolis campus

GBEC714 - The Nonprofit Economy

This course serves as an introduction to the nonprofit sector by providing an overview that includes size, scope, and types of organizations. Also addresses related topics such as charitable behavior and philanthropy, interrelationships among earned and unearned revenue sources, social entrepreneurship, governance and accountability, and interactions with the for-profit and government sectors.

Mpls campus
Monday, 6-9 pm
Dr. Mel Gray

MGMT 714: Health Care Quality Leadership and the Bottom Line

Health care leadership has historically delegated quality management. With or without healthcare reform, the importance of managing quality and its relationship to revenue, expenses, market, and most importantly, to the care and outcomes of patients, is becoming a key initiative and responsibility of health care leadership throughout the industry. The costs and harm of poor quality and lack of safety are pronounced in all health care settings. The need and opportunity to improve quality while lowering costs and raising revenues is massive. This course will define the role of health care leadership in improving environments, processes and culture to achieve improved quality and safety, while lowering costs, raising revenues and increasing market share. The class with also hear practical efforts from 3M, CentraCare, Fairview, HealthPartners, and HealthEast as they are transforming their organizations to increase quality and safety and its results.

Instructor – John Reiling
Minneapolis, Thursdays, 6-9 pm

- National Association of Women MBAs
- National Society of Hispanic MBAs - Minneapolis/St. Paul
- National Black MBA - Twin Cities Chapter
- National Association of Black Accountants Twin Cities Student Chapter
- Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting

The UST Chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs (NAWMBA) has been instrumental in the launch of a new Minneapolis-St. Paul Professional Chapter and is seeking membership from the Evening UST MBA program.
NAWMBA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women MBAs in order to propel more women into leadership positions in corporate America and to enhance the diversity of the nation's workforce.

If you are a professional in the Minneapolis or St. Paul area, then consider joining our chapter! Simply visit the NAWMBA membership (http://tinyurl.com/JoinNAWMBAMSP) site to register. Click on the Minneapolis- St. Paul Professional Chapter, and follow the Web site directions. There will be many great opportunities locally to connect with other women in business through a variety of fun and educational activities in addition to the following benefits:

• A one-year subscription to BusinessWeek
• Career counseling from IVY Exec, a premier (and free) career counseling company that connects top companies with professionals (ivyexec.com)
• Monthly NAWMBA newsletter
• Access to the national job posting database
• Monthly career advising webinars for only $10
• Deep discount to attend the national conference this fall in Anaheim, CA
• Networking events

If you have further questions, please contact Breanna Vanstrom at bvanstrom@hotmail.com or Ellen Cleary at ellen_cleary@hotmail.com.

National Society of Hispanic MBAs – Minneapolis/St. Paul (NSHMBA) Chapter

For more information, including a calendar of events: http://www.msp-nshmba.org/

National Black MBA – Twin Cities Chapter (NBMBAA)

For more information: www.nbmbaatc.org

National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) Twin Cities Student Chapter

Information about NABA can be found at: www.nabamn.org
Email: Naba.membershipminneapolisstpaul@gmail.com

Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA)

Information about ALPFA can be found at: www.alpfatwincities.org

- Tuition Refund Policy
- Alumni Registration Policy
- Student Health Services News (i.e., Health Insurance and Immunization Information)

Tuition refunds are granted according to the date you drop the class online, notify your academic advisor, or contact the Opus College of Business (OCB) Registrar. The refund percentages and dates are determined by the program offering the class and are influenced by when the classes begin and how long they run. Programs may run classes on different schedules; that is why there are different refund schedules.

If you drop your class before it begins, you will always receive a 100% refund. If you drop your class after it has begun, however, you must pay attention to the published refund schedule for that class in that program. For example, if you take an MBA class, the drop dates and corresponding refunds are listed on the evening MBA refund schedule. However, if you are an MBA student taking a BCOM, ETLS, HRDO, or SEIS class – or any course offered through another program – the drop dates are set by the other program. Refer to each program’s schedule. For clarification, contact your Academic Advisor or the OCB Registrar.

Alumni Registration Policy

If would like to return to take any graduate-level College of Business courses as an alum, please note that our policy has changed. As of fall 2006, Opus College of Business Alumni who return to take courses will be able to:

1) Audit courses for the cost of one credit. This means you can participate in the course and the course will show up on your transcript, but no academic credit will be asigned.

2) Take a course for full academic credit at full cost of tuition.

3) Financial aid is not available.

If you have any questions, please contact Margaret McKibbin at mlmckibbin@stthomas.edu or 651-962-4319.

Student Health Service News and Updates

HEALTH INSURANCE VERIFICATION REQUIREMENT
Domestic students: Graduate students enrolled in 9 or more credits are required to demonstrate health insurance coverage every fall and spring semester. Students may voluntarily purchase the UST-sponsored health insurance plan during the enrollment periods, and students who do not complete the health insurance verification process by September 23, 2009 will be automatically enrolled in and billed for the UST-sponsored plan. Students must enter their information via Murphy Online. This health insurance verification process will take place each semester the student is enrolled at UST, and Student Health Service will send messages to the student’s UST e-mail account with reminders.

Please contact the Student Health Insurance Office for additional questions or assistance at stuhealthins@stthomas.edu or (651) 962-6752. Students can also learn more about the requirement and the health insurance plan at http://www.stthomas.edu/studenthealth/Insurance/default.html.

Entering health insurance coverage information takes just four steps--

1. Go to Murphy Online at: https://banner.stthomas.edu and login with your student ID and PIN. If you forgot your ID number or PIN, contact the Tech Desk at 651-962-6230.
2. Click on “Student Services & Financial Aid”.
3. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and click on “Student Health Insurance”. Make sure you don’t stop at “Student Health (Immunization, Health History and Physical Forms)”. The one you still need to complete - “Student Health Insurance” - is the last one on this list.
4. Follow the instructions to enter your existing insurance information (provider name/phone number and your policy number) or purchase the UST-sponsored plan.

International students: F-1 and J-1 international students on a St. Thomas I-20 or DS-2019 will be automatically enrolled in and billed for the UST-sponsored health insurance plan. F-1 international students who want to waive the UST-sponsored health insurance plan can submit their U.S.-based health insurance information that meets the minimum requirements via Murphy Online at http://banner.stthomas.edu. F-1 international students who do not complete the Murphy Online waiver process by the 10th day of classes will be automatically enrolled in and billed for the UST-sponsored plan. Those whose waiver request is approved will still be enrolled in and billed for an evacuation and repatriation plan. J-1 international students are not eligible to waive the UST-sponsored plan due to Department of State requirements.

ADDITIONAL HEALTH RECORDS
The state of Minnesota requests MMR and Tetanus/Diphtheria dates on all students. Immunization information is to be entered under the Student Service tab via Murphy Online at http://banner.stthomas.edu. No changes can be made once this information is entered. You may contact Student Health Service at 651-962-6750 with updates, changes or questions. Registration holds will be placed on all undergraduate students and all international students that do not enter this information by the 45th day of classes.

STUDENT HEALTH SERVICE CLINIC
The Student Health Service operates a full service clinic staffed with doctors, nurse practitioners and registered nurses. Services include a certified travel clinic, care of acute and chronic illnesses allergy injections, sports related injuries, GYN exams, immunizations, laboratory services, physical exams, stress management, smoking cessation, etc. Students will be asked for a copy of their insurance card at the time of service, and any co-pays or fees not covered by insurance will be billed to the student account.

Student Health Service
Lower Level Brady Hall, St. Paul Campus
(651) 962-6750
http://www.stthomas.edu/studenthealth/