Smith Business magazine-summer24-paperturn - Flipbook - Page 4
DEAN’S LETTER
Greetings from the Dean
This has been an unbelievably successful
year at Smith. We had huge growth in the
sports management and computational
昀椀nance programs. Our Smith Business
Leadership Fellows and Interdisciplinary
Business Honors are two of our marquee
programs. Now in their second year, these
programs continue to gain interest and
attract high quality students. Of our
27 strategic initiatives, 26 are already
completed. We are 昀椀ring on all cylinders.
The next frontier for us is AI, which
is already transforming the way people
work. Our cover story gives you a glimpse
of the many ways we are approaching AI
transformation. We have expertise that few
other schools can boast. We’re teaching
students how to use generative and
contextual AI, how to spot and mitigate
bias in algorithms, and how to design
work昀氀ows that capitalize on human
creativity. We have 28 faculty (and more
joining us!) doing AI-related research,
leading the way in thought leadership
across 昀椀nance, marketing, cybersecurity,
supply chain and much more. This is an
important aspect of our strategic plan to
Reimagine Learning and Address Grand
Challenges. There is even more information
available about our AI initiatives on our
website for you to explore.
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I’m particularly excited about the
hands-on learning experiences we’ve
brought to our students. Did you know
our students manage more than $11
million in real money through studentrun funds? Our students are also hearing
from leaders in industry and government
with our new Finance Grand Challenges
Speaker Series. We brought more than 115
experiential learning projects to Smith
this spring. We need to continue to grow
the number of real industry projects for
students by at least 25 percent. Many of
the projects came through our alumni.
You can get involved by contacting our
Of昀椀ce of Experiential Learning.
Our ability to impact the lives of our
students, community, state and world is
made possible by the involvement and
昀椀nancial support of our alumni. Thank
you for everything you do for Smith.
—Dean Prabhudev Konana
Our ability to impact
the lives of our
students, community,
state and world is
made possible by
the involvement and
昀椀nancial support
of our alumni.
rhsmith.umd.edu