The Daniels College of Business held its fourth Inclusive Case Competition on Friday, allowing eight teams total to compete for the first time.

More students applied to participate in the program than ever before according to Dorothy Joseph, associate dean for diversity and inclusive excellence at the Daniels College of Business. Joseph said that while last year brought applications from six four man teams, this year there were applications from nine teams each with five to six members. One team was eliminated before the competition.

“Compared to last time, we were basically overwhelmed,” Joseph said about the increase in applications.
Joseph said the increase in attention is due to increased outreach throughout Daniels and other departments for this year’s competition. This year, the department held two “lunch and learns” about the events, which allowed interested parties to learn about the program through a lunch discussion. Daniels also advertised with posts on Facebook and their website.

Joseph said they also reached out to other campus departments about the competition.

“This was the most diversity we have ever had in our divisions,” she said.

Participants represented six different departments on campus: the Daniels College of Business, the Graduate School of Social Work, Sturm College of Law, the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Division of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the Korbel School of International Studies.

Each team presented to a panel of judges a case proposal offering a method to solve a real-life company issue provided by Century Link. They asked students to present methods to hire technical workers and combat a maturing work force, as well as propose a way to fill 800 open spots in Monroe, La.

The winning team, who gave themselves the name “Daniels Diversity Consulting,” consisted of Elya Kinsey, a finance major; Vanessa Jones, a marketing major, Jacob Hancock, in his second year of the IMBA program; Matthew Cole, also in his second year of the IMBA program and Chris Ricci, earning a degree in the Juris Doctor/Master of Science in Finance (JD/MSF) program. They were awarded a total of $6000 award money.

The second–place team, “Inclusult,” was granted $4000 and the third place team, “Pioneers of Varietas,” was awarded $2000.

Each team was given three to four weeks to prepare for the competition after teams received the case on March 15.
“There are five of us in the team from three different programs, so scheduling was definitely the biggest challenge,” said Cole.

Accepting both undergraduate and graduate Daniels students, as well as students from other disciplines, the annual case competition gives competitors the opportunity to be recognized by companies and gain experience in giving a real case proposal.

The competition was judged by a panel of judges representing sponsoring companies including Target, Century Link, United Launch Alliance, Charles Schwab and Molson Coors.

Other companies which sent representatives were Kaiser Permanente, First Bank, United Launch Alliance and one independent consultant.

“That’s what our students get out of this is the opportunity to network with these companies,” said Joseph. Companies may also use student suggestions in their real practices, and some have even hired students after watching their presentations.

“It’s a lot of give and take,” said Joseph.