As the son of a single mother, Khalil Pettus ’15 worried about paying for college. “I knew the financial burden could be pretty heavy for the two of us,” he says. Fortunately, a scholarship funded by alumni donors enabled Pettus to focus on academics during his Smith journey. He is making the most of his time, serving as president of the Smith Undergraduate Student Association and participating on the Dean’s Student Advisory Council.

Female managers often underestimate their value when negotiating raises and promotions, Smith School Vice Dean Joyce Russell told participants Oct. 10, 2014, during the keynote address at the National Association of Women MBAs Conference and Career Fair near Washington, D.C.

Commitment-shy shoppers carefully evaluate products before making a purchase, but new research from shows something different happens when the same people think about renting.

Frontline workers making minimum wage sometimes get angry when they discover how much more their CEO earns. Yet if the goal is to motivate performance, new research from shows that rank-and-file employees care more about the pay divide between them and middle managers. The study by Smith professor Hui Liao, with co-authors Wei Chi, Lei Wang and Qing Ye from Tsinghua University in China and Rui Zhao from the University at Albany-State University of New York, sets emotion aside and explores compensation design as a strategic tool.

Can Your Firm Pass Tata’s Performance Excellence Assessment? Few companies can match the recent global expansion of the Tata Group, which owns brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Taj Hotels and Good Earth Teas. Since 1991, annual revenue for the Indian conglomerate has exploded from $4 billion to more than $100 billion.

Bank executives sometimes viewed Smith professor Cliff Rossi as a killjoy during the buildup to the 2008 global economic meltdown. As chief risk officer at several of the largest U.S. financial institutions, Rossi faced the task of raising unwelcome concerns when banks started setting aside traditional safeguards and packaging subprime loans. “I had a front row seat at the party and the funeral,” says Rossi, who spent time with Citigroup, Washington Mutual, Countrywide Bank, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Smith Gets Real with Experiential Learning Overnight rain has soaked the trails at Little Bennett Campground near Washington, D.C., where University of Maryland undergraduates gather for class on Oct. 11, 2014. Instead of textbooks, the students carry folding chairs and other outdoor gear to a pavilion that provides shelter from a lingering drizzle. Conditions are perfect for economics major Shiri Cooper (Class of 2015), who has come with her teammates to test a prototype for lightweight waterproof boots that hikers can wear over their regular shoes.

Four Perspectives on Living With Drones  Tiny unmanned aircrafts will soon swarm your neighborhood delivering everything from hot burritos to medical prescriptions. Fulfillment will take minutes instead of days or hours, and big commercial carriers will face pressure to adapt or die. That’s the promise of some visionaries. But how much of the hype surrounding delivery drones is real? University of Maryland experts from the Robert H. Smith School of Business and A.

Executive MBAs Envision Better Marinas When faced with a problem, Dan Cowens, EMBA ’14 takes matters into his own hands. After a frustrating visit to a marina while on vacation, he decided he could operate a marina better than current industry standards. He and a team of four other Executive MBA students launched their entrepreneurial venture, Oasis Marinas, during a Smith School project in 2014.

In Clinton, Md., a warehouse gets ready to ship fresh fruits and vegetables otherwise destined for waste to local families and businesses. For Evan Lutz ’14, co-founder and CEO of Hungry Harvest, it’s just another day on the job. Lutz was one of three finalists from the venture track of the 2014 Do Good Challenge, an eight-week competition designed to inspire Terps to make the greatest social impact they can for their favorite causes. Students team up to volunteer, raise funds, promote awareness or advance their own social ventures.