Marietta sending 3 faculty, 1 student to 55th annual MBAA International Conference

by Tom Perry

Marietta, Ohio (03/19/2019) — Faculty members in Marietta College's Department of Business & Economics are dedicated to conducting research together and with undergraduate students.

This collaborative work will be shared during the 55th annual MBAA International Conference, which opens Wednesday, March 27th, in Chicago. Participating in this year's event, which runs until Friday, March 29th, will be three faculty members - Dr. John Fazio, Julie Harding, and Grace Johnson.

All three attended last year as well and will be joined this year by Taylor Pennock '19 (Beverly, Ohio).

Fazio will participate in three activities. He is serving as a session chair and as a discussant for a second session. In addition, he is the co-author on an article accepted for presentation - Another Look at the Y2K Computer Bug: Understanding the Role of Organizational Culture and Metaphor in Crisis Management Education.

Fazio, Assistant Professor of Management, also mentored Pennock's independent study work, The Role of Perceived Organizational Support and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors on Academic Performance and Stress, which was accepted for a poster presentation.

"I will be discussing the relations between students' perception of support from their higher education organization (Marietta College) and their performance as measured by GPA, as well as their level of academic stress," Pennock said. "Additionally, students helping and citizenship behavior are examined in an interactive role."

Harding is making a presentation on Critical Tools to Transform Group Project Learning. The presentation will outline a variety of pedagogical tools she has researched and discovered to improve student learning and minimize disruption in courses requiring group projects, particularly those projects that span the course of an entire semester.

"Because surveys of employers tell us that the ability to work in teams is an essential workplace skill highly valued by employers, I employ group projects in many of my upper-level classes," said Harding, Assistant Professor of Marketing. "Specific tools that will be covered in the presentation include 'Speed Teaming' (an approach to team selection), a 'Getting to Know You' exercise (after teams are appointed), a 'Team Contract' and 'Midterm and Final Peer Evaluations.' "

Johnson, who serves on the Board of Directors for the North American Accounting Society, is presenting research that was conducted during her recent sabbatical, "Deep Dive 2018: A Survey of Data Analytics Course Requirements in the Undergraduate Accounting Curriculum."

"This paper examines whether stand-alone courses in data analytics are required, offered as electives, or not included in the undergraduate accounting curricula at 176 universities across the United States," she said.

Johnson is also chairing a session on accounting education and participating in an MBAA-International innovative teaching techniques poster session with "Bridging the Communication Divide."

"[It] describes a new series of communication assignments for upper-level accounting majors, explains why they were developed, addresses feedback about the assignments, and identifies modifications," said Johnson, who plans to make to these assignments for the 2019-20 academic year.

Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy back in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers 49 majors and is consistently ranked as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review, as well as one of the nation's best by Forbes.com. Marietta was selected seventh in the nation according to the Brookings Institution's rankings of colleges by their highest value added, regardless of major.

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