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A formal receiving line awaited dinner guests on June 3, 2014, in a scene inspired by the PBS series Downton Abbey. “You can never be too classy,” explained the host, Charles Olson, Professor of the Practice and Director of the Business Honors Program at the Smith School. 

Busy professionals have a new source for bite-sized business tips and hot topic alerts, delivered weekly to their email in-boxes from the Smith School. Smith Brain Trust, launched in spring 2015, draws upon the school’s broad knowledge of everything from accounting to zero sum games.

Incoming undergraduates at Smith got a taste of what’s looming in job and internship interviews during Critical Thinking Night, a new Welcome Week workshop added to meet employer demand. “Your business savvy and ability to think on your feet will be tested,” Smith senior Lindsay Weilminster ’15 told the freshmen who packed into Frank Auditorium during back-to-back sessions on Sept. 8, 2014.

The Smith School is introducing a set of 15-credit minors to equip University of Maryland students with business skills and entrepreneurial savvy. General business and a second minor, innovation and entrepreneurship, will open in fall 2015 for up to 180 UMD undergraduates in each program, complementing a recently launched business analytics minor.

People love or hate capitalism, but a potential third option emerged Sept. 30, 2014, at the BB&T Colloquium on Capitalism, Ethics and Leadership. “Why has capitalism been so morally controversial for the last quarter millennium?” asked keynote speaker Jonathan Haidt, a professor of ethical leadership at the NYU-Stern School of Business.

A new $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will fund Smith’s Center for International Business Education and Research through 2018. The four-year award will support global enrichment opportunities for students and faculty, including continuation of the center’s annual Emerging Markets Forum. New initiatives include the launch of developmental seminars for regional businesses in 2015.

Female enrollment lags in MBA programs across the United States, but the Smith School has pledged to close the gap in all of its graduate programs within five years. Smith senior leaders announced the “50/50 by 2020 Pledge” on March 5, 2015, during the school’s fourth annual Women Leading Women forum prior to International Women’s Day. The 2020 target will coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which guarantees U.S. women the right to vote.

Cupid’s Cup is turning 10, and Under Armour founder Kevin Plank ’96 is celebrating with an expanded entrepreneurship competition starting 6 p.m. April 22, 2014, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. For the first time, student teams from outside the United States will join the field vying for $115,000 in cash prizes.

The football field wasn’t the only place Terrapins quarterback CJ Brown, MS ’15, faced pressure to deliver during the team’s inaugural Big Ten season in 2014. He also studied delivery of products in Smith’s Master of Science in Supply Chain Management program.