A Note from Desk of Dean Sarker

Dear Pamplin Family,

I hope you all have had a great week and are looking forward to some time off in the coming week. I wanted to take the opportunity to update you on a couple of ongoing and planned activities at the College-level.

As you know, Segal is currently conducting our organizational review and has been holding either 1:1s or focus group meetings with each one of you. They have received resounding response to their requests for times on your calendar. I want to thank you for taking the time to share your views on the current state of the college and providing thoughts on its future course. This input is invaluable as the College prepares itself for the coming years. This brings us to the next topic, which is the strategic roadmap process.

As I had mentioned to all of you during the College meetings and townhall, my desire is to cocreate the strategic roadmap through a collaborative process such that the roadmap reflects our collective vision. I am aware that this will be a huge endeavor, but I am confident that with careful planning and attention to detail, we will achieve it. This week, the academic leadership team spent an entire day deliberating on how the strategic roadmap creation process will unfold. We were aided in this deliberation by a representative from the University’s Office of Strategic Affairs as well as an outside consultant. We will take the next couple of weeks to reflect on our draft process outline and finalize it. Please stay tuned and we will reach out to you soon with the details of both the process and your involvement.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to (and appreciation for) each of you. I am grateful for the extraordinary community that we have built together here at Pamplin, and I excited about our future. I plan to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family and great food as well as enjoy some downtime and get recharged. I hope you do too and please stay safe.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Saonee

Announcements

Pamplin International Programs is looking for co-collaborators for our French partner, IMT. Please read details below and feel free to contact our partner or Dr. Clevenger.

We are  (IMT, France) reaching out to our esteemed partners to invite collaboration for a one-hour hybrid session on a topic related to common well-being, technologies, and their impact.  Our professor, Jerzy, is enthusiastic about leading a conference discussing the impact of technologies on workplace communication. His proposed topic delves into the paradoxes wherein remote work facilitates global communication yet demands enhanced communication skills for fostering strong relationships.  We believe in co-constructing these sessions. If any of your faculty members are interested in a similar session or have alternative ideas to explore, we're open to collaboration. The sessions, called "Les Mardis du Campus," are scheduled exclusively on Tuesdays from 5:45 to 7 pm.   Your participation and contributions would greatly enrich our initiative, fostering insightful discussions and learning opportunities. Please let us know if you or any faculty members from your institution would be interested or have ideas to contribute. We're excited about the prospect of collaborating and creating engaging sessions together.

Congratulations to Shane Wang, Professor of Marketing for the 2023-24 Research in Practice award! "Attribute Embedding: Learning Hierarchical Representations of Product Attributes from Consumer Reviews," (JM, 2022)) by Shane Wang, Jiaxiu He, David J. Curry and Jun Hyun (Joseph) Ryoo. Excellent job, authors!

Shane Wang – Double Congratulations! and to the co-winners and finalists of the 2023 AMA MR-SIG Don Lehmann Award for the best dissertation-based article to be published in Journal of Marketing and Journal of Marketing Research in the years 2021 and 2022! Ishita Chakraborty, Zijun (June) Shi, Xiao Liu, Kannan Srinivasan, Minkyung Kim, K Sudhir, Mojir Navid, Omid Rafieian, Hema Yoganarasimhan, Joseph Ryoo, Shane Wang, Shijie Lu, GIZEM YALCIN, Sarah Lim, Stefano Puntoni, Stijn Van Osselaer. American Marketing Association.

Employee Spotlight

Each employee below has been submitted for this recognition by their colleagues. 

Zhang

A’me Dalton, Special Projects Manager for Communications and Events, Office for DEIB, KUDOS COMPILATION! Thank you for your efforts to elevate DEIB in Pamplin and beyond! Congratulations on being a FINALIST for the Global Education Office (GEO) Photo Contest for your DEIB Around the World photo collection and super congrats for the anonymous kudos’ below:

  • Salute to Veterans Day (November)… “I just wanted to pass along my compliments to you and your team on a lovely salute to Veteran’s Day event….It was a lovely series of speakers and recognition of service to so many in Pamplin.” “The passion and planning your team put in was evident… Appreciate everyone’s efforts to foster a supportive and inclusive culture in the college.” 
  • DEIB LGBTQ+ History Celebration (October)… “First, it was great to see Pamplin listed on the monthly calendar of events for the University's LGBTQ+ History Month events. Secondly, it was very nice to see PAM1028 decorated and celebrating the community - not only as a 'safe zone' but also as a celebration space for National Coming Out Day. My best part was to see the faculty, staff, students and members of the University Pride leadership and community assembled during lunch for conversation and networking. I was so HAPPY to see the number of students that chose to attend from Fluid, Delta Sigma Pi (DSP), Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE) and more - members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies together listening and learning. The LGBTQ+ community in Pamplin needs a lot of work and we have a long way to go BUT you and your TEAM are helping us in a major way! LOVE is LOVE!”
  • “…I also wanted to give A’me MAJOR kudos…A’me was speaking with Morgan Stanley [not part of her formal job duties]. One of their Directors of the Operations team was asking questions about [the DEIB unit] and how they could get more involved and A’me did a phenomenal job explaining what [DEIB does] and talking to them about sponsorship and engagement opportunities 😊”
  • “You’ve been the most organized, helpful, and on-top-of-it [VT HBCU/MSI Summit] Planning Committee Member, I can’t thank you enough!” 
Venkatesh

Congratulations, Cindy Devers, on the acceptance of your SMJ paper titled “Shifting perspectives: How scrutiny shapes the relationship between CEO gender and acquisition activity”. Acceptance in SMJ is an outstanding accomplishment given that it is one of very few journals listed in both UTD and Pamplin Elite journals.

I understand that the first author was your Ph.D. student at Michigan State, and you continue to work with him. This is a good example of your continued mentoring. Thank you!

Venkatesh

France Belanger and Donna Wertalik, Marketing just filmed the November series for Voices of Privacy on WDBJ7, Black Friday Scams!

https://www.wdbj7.com/2023/11/09/voices-privacy-online-shopping/

The segments will air on the second Thursday of every Month and we have December filmed along with a list for 2024 topics.  If you have any ideas for Voices of Privacy as it relates to topics, please reach out.

Submit staff and faculty for upcoming issues here: Cheriw@vt.edu

Upcoming Events

Save the date for the Advancing Diversity Gathering 2024

Advancing Diversity Gathering, January 10, 2024

Thanksgiving Week Holiday:

  • Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023* 
    (Close at noon. 4 hours additional holiday leave) 
  • Thursday,  Nov. 23, 2023 – closed.
  • Friday, Nov. 24, 2023 – closed 

Registration for the following events will open soon so be on the lookout for an email from Advancement:

Pamplin Holiday Reception. Friday, December 1st at the University club from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Pamplin Holiday Luncheon. Thursday, December 7th at Eastern Divide from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

For more events, check out https://pamplin.vt.edu/events.html

Committee Corner

For a full list of committees, http://pampl.in/Committees

Extra Items

Remember the Holiday & Winter Closing Schedule: Information Here

Did you know?

Trivia about Pamplin and Virginia Tech.

Each edition we will ask a question about Pamplin. This will include trivia questions, historical details, or current events. The answer will be published in the next edition.

Nov 10th:  When does the University Choirs play at the Moss Center? Nov 10th:  When does the University Choirs play at the Moss Center?

                               “Don’t stop believing.”

Nov 17th:  Which Pamplin graduate just joined the MBA Advisory Board?

Check back next week to find out…..