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Each year, the College of Business honors outstanding staff and faculty for their contributions to our community at the College of Business Awards. These awards recognize colleagues who made notable efforts to embody out shared vision of using education, research and engagement in support of our Business for a Better World vision. Earlier this year, employees nominated their peers in each category. Leadership reviewed every nomination, and after considerable deliberation, award winners were selected and awards presented at a ceremony before the start of the semester. |
Christine Hooks
Excellence in Innovation (Staff)
As the pandemic and recovery introduced countless disruptions to traditional business practices over the past few years, Christine Hooks used her vision to help her unit evolve. Driven by a positive, can-do outlook, she has identified innovative solutions to challenges central to the human resources office. Taking it upon herself to research potential technology, identify the optimal solution and then quickly learn platforms, Christine embraces new software to solve problems and eliminate bottlenecks. She also collaborated with other staff to develop a database to capture better employee data and streamline processes. Christine continually investigates process improvements to perfect efforts and reduce human error. Many of her solutions leverage existing systems and can be implemented without additional funding.
Turning her innovative mindset outside her unit, Christine has reached out across campus to better understand others’ processes and pinpoint how we can work more effectively with other units as well as how effective solutions used by others could be adopted by our College. Her work each day is guided by empathy, and a caring for how her work responsibilities and actions impact others. Combined with her amazing work ethic, Christine always demonstrates a desire to discover ways for improving our College, and in turn, improve the College’s abilities to make a difference in peoples’ lives.
Christine Hooks, we thank you for putting so much of yourself into making the College of Business a better place to work.
John Macdonald
Excellence in Engagement
John Macdonald has put a substantial amount of effort into connecting with both industry professionals and high school students interested in his discipline. He has a gift for fostering relationships and have used this skill to build partnerships in support of the Supply Chain Management Forum as well as the supply chain management program in general. His work with partner organizations has had a multitude of benefits including providing signature learning experiences for our students, creating professional networking opportunities for students, funding supply chain research within the department, and providing industry partners with insights to improve their businesses. Volunteering at high school events, John has educated students about supply chains, and thereby creating understanding of how markets function (or recently don’t function) along with insights into not widely understood career paths.
John’s efforts have served to elevate the supply chain management program’s national visibility and rankings, which have in turn helped the College of Business continue to grow the concentration while enhancing the diversity of our students. His hard work in partnering with industry and area high schools is emblematic of the College’s strategic engagement goal, and the partnerships formed will benefit the College for years to come.
John Macdonald, we salute everything you’ve done to connect our College to the community.
Adam Mader
Excellence in Service (Staff)
Adam Mader is known College-wide for his optimism that always makes collaborating with him enjoyable. That attitude carries forward into his professional duties as well, as he routinely approaches everyone with a positive attitude that makes even challenging projects seem less daunting. Working in a position in which he collaborates and produces materials for employees as well as students, Adam places his stakeholders’ needs at the forefront of each decision, and ultimately exemplifies top-notch customer service with every professional interaction. Not content to merely provide great service, Adam is known for offering to go beyond expectations and over deliver, providing solutions that surpass expectations.
As the amount of filmed content produced and archived by the College has grown, Adam has risen to his increasingly complex workload, developing new ways to streamline the process and deliver the professional-quality video content our students deserve. He has also stepped up to help programs gather footage capturing students’ and alumni stories – a task far outside of his job description.
Thank you, Adam Mader, for your contributions to our College’s success.
Michael Gross
Excellence in Service (Faculty)
Michael Gross has been steadfastly working to serve his discipline and the College for years. As a scholar, he has made countless contributions to his field. Michael is the outgoing editor in chief of the top journal in negotiation and conflict management. He also serves on six editorial boards and has reviewed more than 30 manuscripts per year. Michael serves on multiple committees for the International Association for Conflict Management and held the presidency of the 800-member conflict management division of the Academy of Management. While doing this, he spearheaded the Academy’s first joint International Doctoral Consortium that mentored 45 doctoral students. Michael has also developed a webpage and a pair of podcasts to distribute important research to the discipline.
Among his dedication to his field, Michael has also found time to serve the CSU and College community. He sits on the University’s grievance committee and the university scholastic standards committee. During the past year, he chaired two searches for tenure-track positions in the most challenging job market in years, while keeping both on schedule and within budget. On top of everything else, he recently completed workshops at the Office of Inclusive Excellence and will become a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion CSU Fellow in 2023.
Michael Gross, thank you for all you’ve done to make your discipline and the College a better place!
Rob Schonlau
Excellence in Research
Rob Schonlau received his PhD in 2010 and joined the College as an associate professor in 2020. In the past two years, he has published three papers in what are recognized as the finance discipline’s top five most prestigious and rigorous journals. And before joining CSU, they had published three additional papers in the top four finance journals. Given interests that extend into public policy, governance and mergers, Rob has also published papers in law journals such as Harvard Business Law Review and Vanderbilt Law Review as well as interdisciplinary publications like Management Science .
His research interests focus on factors that influence major decisions in a corporate setting, and include anti-takeover provisions, corporate governance, executive compensation, CEO labor markets, shareholder perks, capital structure, spin-offs, and short selling. These interests have provided the opportunity to help inform public policy and practice in several important areas.
In the few years he has been at CSU, Rob has had a positive impact on the department and started research projects with other CSU faculty members. With four additional promising projects in the research pipeline, he is well positioned for continue research success and impact.
Rob Schonlau, thank you for your contributions to your discipline and the College’s reputation
Lynn Shore
Business for a Better World Scholarship Award
When Lynn Shore originally published this research in 2018, it provided a model of workplace inclusion that was informed by reviewing and synthesizing research on workplace inclusion. The model clarifies the breadth of findings while pointing out directions for future research. In the three years since the article was published by Human Resource Management Review, more than 400 papers have cited it. In 2020, the journal awarded the article, which is titled “Inclusive Workplaces: A Review and Model,” its Scholarly Impact Award in recognition of its immense impact on the discipline.
The model set forth in the paper is comprehensive beginning with whether top management takes a promotion or prevention orientation towards diversity and inclusion. This helps integrate the largely separate literatures on inclusion and diversity with exclusion and compliance. It also bridges employees’ perceptions of practices with managements’ efforts of managing diversity. These avenues provide ample opportunities for researchers to better connect how inclusion affects talent.
The research has generated worldwide interest, with Lynn invited to present the work at influential workshops hosted by U.S. Army Research Institute and the Academy of Management, as well as at universities and workshops in Europe and Asia. Her work has helped define the conversation around workplace inclusion, and ultimately influenced many to consider pathways for improving equity in their organizations.
Lynn Shore, thank you for your positive impact on the business world as well as a career of highly influential scholarship!
Liz Cowle
Emerging Scholar Award
It’s always a notable achievement when an elite journal accepts one of our articles. When an elite journal accepts a researcher’s first-year paper written during her PhD program, it signals the start of a promising career as a researcher. Liz Cowle has already made good on that promise, with a second paper accepted once again in an elite journal, and with at least four other papers currently being revised and submitted to top disciplinary journals. These impressive contributions to scholarship have been made while she is only in her first year as an assistant professor.
Liz has also already greatly contributed to the College’s reputation for research with important implications for public policy and for improving business conduct. She has been invited to present their findings at some of the most prestigious accounting conferences and has already built a reputation in their research area. Outside of academia, her work has been featured in the mainstream press, with mentions in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Thomson Reuters, Accounting Today and others.
Liz Cowle, we look forward to watching your career as a researcher progress. Congratulations!
Tom Dean
Excellence in Graduate Teaching
Tom Dean has been involved in multiple graduate programs for several years. He is known among colleagues for incorporating changes to courses to ensure students receive current content that’s relevant to their future careers. Tom was heavily involved in developing the GSSE and Impact MBA programs, helping create core and elective courses, while also teaching capstone and elective courses in the Evening and Online MBA programs. Regardless of the course being taught, he strives to give students signature experiences that contextualize classwork in a real-world setting, while also reassessing and updating teaching methods to ensure continuous improvement.
Even behind the scenes, Tom has demonstrated commitment to graduate students. He has volunteered to take on additional courses beyond his standard course load to ensure students’ needs are met with appropriate course offerings. His efforts are consistently praised by students across his courses, citing Tom’s skill at tying ideas learned in prior courses together, helping them see the vast possibility of sustainable businesses. Students also often praise how his honest feedback drives their successes.
Thank you, Tom Dean, for everything you’ve done for our graduate student community.
Tiffany Trzebiatowski
Excellence in Service (Staff)
Tiffany Trzebiatowski has prioritized the importance of creating an inclusive and student-centered classroom. Drawing on her DEI research to design classwork that exposes students to multiple points of view, Tiffany encourages students to view subject matter from many perspectives. To better serve her students, she solicits feedback at the end of each class to inform subsequent class sessions and identify potential improvements for future semesters.
Tiffany has also made a tremendous impact on her program. As an assistant professor, she prepared three upper-division courses for the Human Resources program, including the creation of a new capstone course, Strategic Human Resource Management. Students in this capstone course have partnered with HR professionals at the City of Fort Collins and Canvas Credit Union, serving in a consulting capacity to address real-world HR issues. Ultimately, capstone students present their solution to the organization’s leadership, concluding a signature experience that exposes them to topics and projects many HR professions do not receive until years into their careers. Students often describe Tiffany’s courses as amongst their favorite at CSU. They particularly appreciate the c engaging nature of Tiffany’s courses and the extra efforts taken to prepare them for their professional careers.
Tiffany Trzebiatowski, thank you for your dedication to preparing our students.
Natalie Cartwright
Student Success and Access – Advisor of the Year
Navigating the coursework and curriculum requirements necessary to graduate on time and prepared for a career can be daunting for even the most focused undergraduates. Natalie Cartwright expertly ensures our students remain on schedule and ready to begin the next chapter of their lives by developing genuine relationships with students based on honesty and compassion. As one of two advisors in the Undergraduate Programs Office responsible for working with students just prior to graduation, she helps seniors navigate their final year. That often means utilizing a breadth of institutional knowledge to help solve issues and pressures that arise in students’ last semesters.
In addition to playing a key role in students’ journeys to graduation, Natalie also advises all students who enter the College’s study abroad program. She provides advisement to all study abroad students, helping them select locations, programs and coursework. At the onset of the pandemic, Natalie was instrumental arranging nearly 100 students’ safe return to the United States before borders shut down and provided ongoing support to those who couldn’t make it back before travel became impossible. She also guides students through the application processes of foreign programs and develops graduation plans that incorporate study abroad coursework. Her dedication to our undergraduates’ success shines through in every interaction with students, serving as an inspiration for everyone in the College.
Natalie Cartwright, thank you for everything you do to ensure our students’ success.
Excellence in Coaching
Hussein Al-Rousan
Hussein has been an IC in the MCIS Program for more than ten years. He is always willing to coach our students to success and is very valuable to the faculty he supports. Hussein is professional, dedicated, and has valuable experience in many content areas of the program. We are fortunate to have Hussein on the IC team!
Paulo Brito
Paulo is in his eleventh year of serving our students as an Instructional Coordinator. He regularly serves as classroom coordinator and shares his experience in international economics and finance with our students. His first-hand perspective helps connect the dots between theory and practice and is much appreciated by the students. Through his actions, Paulo consistently demonstrates dedication to our graduate programs and online learners.
Jennifer Zwicke
Jennifer stepped into the Classroom IC role in 2019 and is in her fourth year on the team, supporting both the MCIS and MBA programs. Jennifer’s academic and industry expertise add value to courses in both programs. As a Lead IC, Jennifer provides excellent organization and leadership to the teams she coordinates. She is professional, detail oriented and gives specific feedback to foster continuous improvement.
Transformer Awards
Crystal Brelsford
Scheduling graduate courses is a vital and complicated task necessary for the success of our academic programs. When the staff member who previously handled this responsibility departed CSU, Crystal Brelsford volunteered to assume this important duty. Setting her brilliant organizational mind to the undertaking, she reinvented the scheduling process in a short amount of time. Developing new spreadsheets, coordinating meetings, and developing new structures to organize multiple programs’ data and needs, Crystal kept scheduling running smoothly despite the challenges that short staffing in the Graduate Programs office presented. Her voluntary assumption of this immense effort relieved a potentially challenging situation, much to the relief of faculty and staff in multiple programs.
Crystal Brelsford, thank you for your willingness to go above and beyond!
Excellence in Research
Samantha Conroy already demonstrated a passion for research, but in the past year, she has also striven to instill that passion in our undergraduates. Sam played a critical role leading the Business for a Better World undergraduate research fellows program to help students gain an understanding of how business research can create understanding and direction for societal changes. She developed a plan to meet with undergraduate fellows for an hour each week for research seminar-style discussions, volunteered to lead the sessions each week and ultimately served as a liaison between students and faculty. The current success of the undergraduate research fellows program is largely due to her contributions.
Samantha Conroy, thank you for your commitment to our students!
Kevin Kuhnen
When unexpected retirements and illnesses threatened to cancel courses, Kevin Kuhnen stepped up to serve marketing students. Normally teaching one or two classes a semester, Kevin – who is soon to be promoted to a full-time position – accepted the challenge of adding two new course preparations on top of his original course load at the last minute. As anticipated, he performed brilliantly, succeeding in the classroom and connecting with students. Without his contributions, the College would have almost certainly had to cancel high-demand course sections. In addition, on top of his increased workload in the classroom, Kevin also continued to carve out time volunteering to work with students in the Sales Club.
Thank you, Kevin Kuhnen, for rising to the occasion!
