Owen Hustles into Summer Excitement
Neil Pearson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, speaking at FMRC’s New Frontiers in Finance.
Summer has its own rhythm at Owen, but it is anything but slow. While the building falls quiet for a few days, it is not for long. Students of all ages take up residence, participating in programs that run from a few days to a few weeks.
The centerpiece of summer activity at Owen is Accelerator–our summer business institute that gathers undergraduates from around the country for an intensive month of project-based learning. At the same time, our Executive Development Institute runs both custom programs for corporations as well as short courses that are open to working professionals from any organization. At the youngest end of the age spectrum, Owen hosts Youth about Business during the summer months–an innovative program that helps high school students from underserved and diverse backgrounds learn about the world of commerce.
But management education is only part of the summer buzz. Owen faculty bring scholars from around the world to Vanderbilt for seminars and research conferences. This summer, our marketing faculty led off with its Marketing Research Camp–a full day of presentations and debate. This year’s sessions focused on the latest findings in consumer psychology and the implications for marketing management. A few days later, our finance faculty hosted the FMRC’s New Frontiers in Finance conference. The focus of this year’s conference was on the information content of option prices, option market liquidity, and implied market volatility. Researchers gathered from around the globe to share their thoughts and ideas. Among them were financial luminaries from Duke, NYU, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Neil Pearson pictured above), McGill University, University of Chicago and the University of Queensland. Bill Speth, Vice President, Research and Product Development of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, delivered the keynote address, discussing his views on bridging the gap between theory and practice in the options markets. (You can view the full agenda, presenters and topics here.)
This summer’s largest conference is still to come. HEALTHCARE 2015 is a joint venture between Owen, the Vanderbilt Medical Center and INFORMS. It will bring together more than 500 researchers to explore the role of analytics in creating greater value in health care delivery, a topic of critical importance and one for which the focus has never been greater for organizations in this industry. Accelerated downward pressures on reimbursements is pushing organizations to reinvent service delivery across the entire continuum of care. At the same time, healthcare systems are shifting from volume-oriented healthcare delivery to individual and population health, a model desired by consumers. Jonathan Perlin, President, Clinical Services and Chief Medical Officer, Hospital Corporation of America and Kris Joshi, Executive Vice President Products, Emdeon will be delivering keynote addresses on the role of big data and analytics in consumer driven healthcare. In addition to listening to expert presenters, conference participants will fan out across the city, visiting organizations like Aegis Sciences Corporation and Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital to get a first-hand look at Nashville’s healthcare enterprise.
In between these many conferences and programs, all of us at Owen are eagerly preparing to welcome the new and returning students in August. Summer is indeed an exciting time!
Leave a Response