Victor Mullins, associate dean of the undergraduate program at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, stays connected with Smith students – while they are undergraduates and after they have earned a degree and successfully completed the four-year Smith journey. Dean Mullins recently asked Rohan Bajaj '17 to discuss how­­ being a part of the Smith journey helped him. Rohan graduated in December 2017 with a finance degree. He's looking forward to joining Capital One as a financial analyst.

Students in the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith of Business Innovo Scholars Consulting Program are helping the university implement a groundbreaking diversity initiative. Commissioned by the Registrar’s Office, the students investigated critical issues and made recommendations for implementation of the “Policies and Procedures Governing Preferred/Primary Names and Sex/Gender Markers in University Databases.” The bill was passed in spring 2017 by the University Senate and President Wallace Loh. 

University of Maryland undergraduates put their innovation and problem-solving skills to the service of their fellow classmates. Jamie Grossarth, Ananth Shrivatsan, Sylviane Alexion, and Isaac Adeeku presented their proposal for improving the application process to the university's education abroad programs to members of the University Cabinet as their final project for the fall 2016 Innovo Scholars Consulting program on Dec. 16, 2016.

Many universities face academic and administrative business processes that are inefficient and ineffective, yet seemingly immune to improvement. Despite significant investments of human, capital, and IT resources, there can be little resulting payback. 

New technologies and employer expectations are pressuring traditional colleges to innovate instruction. Despite predictions of higher education disruption, “smart and agile institutions will respond and even thrive alongside new competitors in this changing environment,” says Sandra Loughlin, Smith School’s director of learning and innovative instruction, the Office of Transformational Learning.

A Silicon Valley startup called the Minerva Project has put traditional colleges and universities on notice. Minerva students live together in rental housing and engage in experiential learning, but they don’t go to lectures or take final exams. “Higher education doesn’t work well anymore,” the system’s founder says. However, an initiative at the University of Maryland’s Robert H.

Smith student Philip Peker ’18 writes about the Innovo Scholars Consulting program for undergraduates at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.