University Day 2015 had a decidedly College of Business flavor as COB members collected two of Oregon State’s highest honors during the awards presentation part of an all-day program Sept. 21 at the LaSells Stewart Center, Reser Stadium and the CH2M HILL Alumni Center.
Sandy Neubaum, Dale McCauley, Lauren Caruso and Vaerine Bauder accepted the Student Learning and Success Teamwork Award on behalf of the college’s Austin Entrepreneurship Program.
And Malcolm LeMay picked up the OSU Professional Faculty Excellence Award.
Neubaum is the AEP director, while McCauley serves as program manager, Caruso is civic engagement coordinator, and Bauder is an office specialist. Headquartered in the Weatherford Residential College, where roughly 400 budding entrepreneurs live each year, the AEP’s multifaceted mission includes outreach in the form of financial literacy education and social entrepreneurship, including a summer 2015 student trip to Uganda.
LeMay becomes the 22nd winner of a Professional Faculty award that dates to 1992. The COB’s director of operations, LeMay oversees both long-range administrative projects in the dean’s office and the college’s day-to-day operations. A former Marine Corps aviator, he was instrumental in organizing the college’s move from Bexell Hall to Austin Hall – which opened exactly one year prior to the day he received his award.
The honors for LeMay and the AEP were part of a full day of recognition and addresses, including remarks by OSU President Ed Ray, to kick off the 2015-16 school year.
Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education, delivered the keynote address, titled “Aiming Higher Education at Great Jobs and Great Lives.”
Busteed noted how surveys of academic officers indicate a strong belief that universities are producing graduates ready for the work force, but similar surveys of employers and the general public show something entirely different. He also talked about how university mission statements, of which he has read more than 1,000 – “It’s a terrible hobby to have,” he joked – love to talk about goals such as instilling critical-thinking skills but uniformly avoid wording related to trying to place graduates in terrific jobs.
Busteed also focused on the topic of well-being and its impact on everything from on-the-job productivity to the need for medical care (the more well-being you have, the more productive you are and the less health care you need, research has shown). Given those sorts of factors, Busteed pointed out, well-being isn’t just something that’s nice for employees to experience, it’s economically vital.
Gallup uses survey methodology that breaks well-being into five types: Purpose, social, financial, community and physical. Especially with what’s at stake beyond simply happiness, society is best served when higher education and employers team up to help each person attain well-being in as many of those five as possible.
