The Director's Blog
Thoughts from our Founding Director and other invited contributors.Welcome to the Director’s Blog
This blog was founded to provide unique insights on the issues more important to the students, faculty, and community at Western Carolina University as well as to give some perspective to the goings-on at CSFE. Enjoy!
-Edward Lopez, Ph.D
Opening Doors for New Opportunities
I could have never imagined all that I could accomplish in a year and the doors that would open due to the experiences allowed to me because of the funding and mentorship of the CSFE Pre Doctoral program. I started my journey with a trip to the Green Sport Alliance Summit at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA in June of 2018. This was my first experience at a mixed conference (academics and practitioners) and allowed me to experience this new world I was entering.
My second conference was to the Sport & Entertainment Venue of Tomorrow (SEVT) at the University of South Carolina in November of 2018. This afforded me the opportunity to present research that I had conducted with Dr. Brian McCullough. Our paper was nominated as a “Best Paper Finalist.”
Throughout the entire fellowship, I was working with Dr. Charles Parrish and Dr. Brian McCullough from Seattle University on research for potential publications. I am pleased to announce that in May of 2019, my first paper as lead author was published. This publication turned my experience of working with WCU’s sustainability and athletic department in conjunction with the College of Business into a functional case study that teachers can use in the classroom to help promote critical thinking to implement sustainable initiatives on a college campus. I also have 2-3 other research projects that were started during this time that are in various stages of the publication process.
One of the highlights of the was being able to present at the 15th Annual International Sustainability Conference in Vancouver, Canada. I was asked to join the research and present with lead, Madeline Orr. It was at this conference that I developed an immediate report and mutual respect with Madeline and was honored and privileged to be asked to be part of a new project she was working on. I am happy to announce that I am an original member of the Sport Ecology Group. This group and website were officially launched on Earth Day and has received tremendous feedback and press for the mission of the group.
My final conference that I will be attending is the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) in New Orleans in June 2019. I will be presenting a poster and talking at the Teaching & Learning Fair. This is a huge honor to have research accepted at this event. This is one of the largest and most prestigious conferences for sport management. A total of 589 abstracts were submitted with 379 accepted for presentation at the conference (64.3%). All abstracts were subjected to a triple blind review.
Pelcher, J. A., & McCullough, B. P. (2019, June). Getting athletics into the sustainability game: A self-ethnographic reflection of the fruits and experience of experiential learning. Poster presentation at North American Society for Sport Management conference, New Orleans, LA.
Last but not least, the main purpose of the Fellowship is to prepare for a doctoral program. I applied to both the University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. I was accepted to both programs with fully funded offers. I ultimately chose to accept the offer from University of Tennessee and will begin the doctoral program in August 2019.
I would like to say a huge “Thank You” to Dr. Lopez and all members and staff of CSFE. Without the support of this program I would not be were I am today!
Jamee Pelcher, CSFE Pre Doctoral recipient 2018-2019
Jamee Pelcher is a WCU Graduate and a Post-Baccalaureate (now called the Pre-Doctoral) Fellow with the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at WCU. She was recently accepted into the PhD Kinesiology with an emphasis in Sport Managment program at University of Tennessee.
A Great Source of Knowledge and Inspiration
During my final semester of WCU’s MBA program, I worked with Dr. Yue Hillon and Dr. Steve Ha on meaningful projects that helped both individual businesses in WNC and the community as a whole. Although I had always had an inclination toward research, these projects and faculty members gave me the encouragement and information I needed to move out of my comfort zone in industry and into the world of academia. Unfortunately, I had very little recent experience in research and publishing and was behind the curve as far as applying to top tier management-strategy PhD programs.
Dr. Hillon first introduced me to the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) in the MBA capstone class and during our discussions on future research and PhD program applications she invited me to work with her on her current research. The presentation of this research was to occur about six months later in Lyon, France where I would also attend the first portion of the training for SEAM. It was during this process that she proposed I apply for the post-baccalaureate fellowship through CSFE in order to make myself the best possible PhD candidate, not only for the application process, but also for the duration of the PhD program.
The SEAM training and conference in Lyon was a significant first step in my journey to a management-strategy PhD, and without the Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship from CSFE, I do not believe I would have been a successful candidate for admissions. The paper received the 2018 Best Paper Award from the Academy of Management’s (AOM) Management Consulting Division (MCD) and then later the Benedictine University Scholar-Practitioner Collaboration Research Award at the AOM Annual Conference in Chicago in the fall of 2018. We were then able to further our research topics and present at the Quantum Storytelling Conference in Las Cruces, New Mexico which gave us much greater exposure to the types of research that exist and the ways in which qualitative research has evolved both positively and negatively. These conferences also allowed me to extend my network and work on presenting skills and other soft skills that have been of huge value to my professional relationships.
Since that time, Dr. Hillon has been a great source of knowledge and inspiration in finding new ways to approach research topics, qualitative research methods, and in finding my own voice in my research. We continue to work on fine-tuning our papers for resubmission to journals, as well as new papers.
Most importantly, I have been accepted into the management-strategy PhD program at Florida State University and will start in the fall. Because of this program through CSFE, I found a great ideological match at FSU, which has committed to giving me the best possible foundations in order to pursue a career in research. I am sincerely grateful for these opportunities and the close mentorship from Dr. Hillon, all afforded to me by this CSFE program.
Christine Madonna is a WCU Graduate and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at WCU. She was recently accepted into the PhD Management-Strategy program at Florida State University.
My CSFE Story – A Once in a Lifetime Experience
My CSFE story actually started in 2017 when the Center was just getting off the ground. I had established a relationship with my Business Strategy professor, Dr. Yue Hillon, and we wanted to do some research together so I could start exploring what it would mean to be in a doctoral program. The Center’s director, Dr. Lopez, had just started looking for projects like this and so Dr. Hillon and I applied for research support for the 2017-2018 year. This funding provided the support to do innovative research with the NC SBTDC (Small Business & Technology Development Center) about how perceptions of challenges that businesses face differ between counselors and the business owners. The support also allowed us to present our research at an organizational development conference in France later that year. Additionally, we presented this research at the preeminent Academy of Management Conference and won the Benedictine University Scholar-Practitioner Collaboration Research Award that year.
Post-Bacc fellowship recipient, Alana Pierce speaking with faculty advisor Dr. Yue Hillon
Dr. Lopez and the board of the Center were gracious enough to continue support for 2018-2019 through a formal fellowship program, the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. This program provided me with a formal mentor relationship with Dr. Hillon and support to conduct more research, attend trainings and conferences, and prepare for and apply for doctoral programs, all to help me get into the best program I could and supporting my success once I get there. In March, I was accepted into the school of my choice, HEC Montréal, in the Management, Strategy and Organization program.
I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to be part of this program. It has really allowed me the space to explore what it means to be an academic, and, I have come to find out, this is really important. The PhD track rules, priorities and norms are so different from any other experience I’ve had. You really need help not just navigating through it, as your PhD supervisor would do, but also navigating to it. Also, this program can help you get ahead of the game by starting your professional network, getting research under your belt and just having a greater understanding of what you are getting into. It’s also important to be self-motivated in this program because this is something extra the professors are taking on. They don’t have time to be walking you through each step and taking on accountability for you. Instead they are a mentor and support when you need it and a guide on what will be helpful in understanding the academic landscape and getting you accepted into the school of your choice.
All in all, I have nothing but great things to say about the program and I’m honored to be one of the first participants. Thank you to CSFE!
Alana Pierce is a WCU Graduate and a Post-Baccalaureate (now called the Pre-Doctoral) Fellow with the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise at WCU. She was recently accepted into the PhD in Administration: Management, Strategy and Organizations program at HEC Montreal. She received the Scholar-Practitioner Award from the management consulting division of the Academy of Management, a distinguished international association devoted to management and organization research.
Congratulations to Lindsey Elias!
Here recently, the students of Future Business Leaders of American-Phi Beta Lambda have been sharing a lot of their successes—and rightly so. These students are outstanding in more ways than I can enumerate here. But during a recent chat with her, I learned that Lindsey Elias, the current President of the WCU chapter of PBL, would be running for State President. Ever humble, Lindsey almost blushed when she told us.
Humility aside, Lindsey is deserving of the honor of being the State President. Behind that somewhat shy façade is as hardworking, smart, and motivated of a student as I have ever seen. Which is why, when I found out this week, that Lindsey had won the race, I told my team we needed to “Shout it from the rooftops!”
Not only are we incredibly proud of her and all that she’s accomplished, but we’re honored to be able to support her and the rest of the PBL students here at WCU. A great group of hardworking, humble, and dedicated professionals who will, no doubt, go on to be outstanding leaders in their communities.
Our latest support helped 11 FBLA-PBL students to travel to Charlotte, NC for their state leadership conference where Lindsey was voted into her new office, and where they were able to compete in business related competitions, many of whom did well enough to qualify for the national competition to be held in San Antonio, TX this summer.
Below is a list of all the competitors, with those going on to the national level listed in bold.
Accounting Analysis & Decision Making – 3rd Place – Kiley Brown & Ben Wilson
Business Law – 5th Place – Brianna Weaver
Economic Analysis & Decision Making – 2nd Place – Lindsey Elias & Jonathan Holden
Financial Analysis & Decision Making – 2nd Place – Nick Clay
Future Business Educator – 1st Place – Abi Fairbrother
Integrated Marketing Campaign – 2nd Place – Townsend Lenihan
Job Interview – 3rd Place – Jeremy Ang
Marketing Analysis & Decision Making – 1st Place – Townsend Lenihan
Sales Presentation – 2nd Place – Brianna Weaver
Accounting Principles – 2nd Place – Abi Fairbrother
Computer Concepts – 8th Place – Michael Pilotos
Cyber Security – 5th Place – Michael Pilotos
Financial Concepts – 2nd Place – Nick Clay
Macroeconomics – 2nd Place – Jonathan Holden
Marketing Concepts – 4th Place – Kiley Brown
Personal Finance – 1st Place – Justina Owens
Statistical Analysis – 1st Place – Ben Wilson
For more information about PBL, visit their website or Facebook page.
Improving Lives, Step-by-step
This week has been exciting for us at the Center for many reasons, but I am most excited about the launch of our Issue Brief Series.
Since we launched CSFE, our mission has always been focused on students, faculty, and community. Our Issue Brief series, I hope, will hit all three areas. Not only will it give students and our community, a chance to engage in the issues that are most important to improving our region and state, but also, I hope it will give faculty members at WCU an outlet to broadcast—and amplify—the good work they do on a daily basis.
For the launch of the series, it seemed fitting to invite my friend Craig Richardson to write the inaugural brief, “Why is Economic Mobility So (Surprisingly) Low in North Carolina?” Dr. Richardson is a BB&T Distinguished Professor of Economics at Winston-Salem State and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM).
Working with Dr. Richardson has improved the reach of both centers. Last semester, he presented his film, “Bus Stop Jobs” to an eager group of students during one of our Free Enterprise Speaker Series, and this April I will be traveling to Winston-Salem to present on another important issue to this state, affordable housing, during their Economic Mobility Summit.
Craig has a long-standing interest in improving the lives of the underserved in North Carolina—a goal that I (and the rest of the staff at the Center) also share—and my hope is that our continued collaboration, lately exemplified though the release of this first Issue Brief, continues to help us be fierce advocates for helping the people of this state to improve their lives step-by-step.
A Special Congratulations to Jonathan Holden
The Center for the Study of Free Enterprise is excited to extend our congratulations to Jonathan Holden on his completion of the President Level of the Career and Membership Achievement Program (CMAP) in Phi Beta Lambda. CMAP is a comprehensive individual membership recognition program encompassing PBL projects, goals, and programs with a special emphasis on career development and preparation for the world of work.
At CSFE we support the Western Carolina University Chapter of Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda because we believe in the work that their organization does; but perhaps more importantly, because of the students that are involved with it. Students who, like Mr. Holden, believe that learning doesn’t just happen in a classroom and that success tends to come from long hours of dedication, perseverance, and hard work.
Mr. Holden will be recognized in July at the National Leadership Conference.
In April, members of FBLA-PBL will travel to the state leadership conference where they will compete in a number of different business decision-making competitions. In 2018, WCU teams did very well at both the state and national competitions.
For more information on PBL, click here and join them on Facebook as well.
Guest Blog: Welcoming Jeff Percival
As President of Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda, I’m excited to both welcome Mr. Jeff Percival to WCU, and to partner with the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise. This semester, FBLA-PBL has devoted this semester to professional and personal development which is where Mr. Percival comes in. With his experience, we hope to learn the key to building our professional and personal development based on oneself. He makes you ask the questions you normally wouldn’t, and focus on the smaller details in order to see the bigger picture. Mr. Percival’s philosophy is that “Ideas are wonderful but worthless unless you use them,” so not only will we get the chance to hear from Mr. Percival, but he will give us the opportunity to put what he teaches to use.
We are excited and thankful for the opportunity to partner with the CSFE for the Building Success event with Mr. Jeff Percival. We are grateful for Mr. Percival’s time he is taking out of his busy day to come speak and share his knowledge with our peers and future and aspiring business leaders.
If you’re a student or someone in the professional workplace and you’re interested in joining PBL, please contact phibetalambda@email.wcu.edufor more information.
Lindsay Elias is a sophomore at Western Carolina University where she double majors in Accounting and Finance with a concentration in Financial Planning. After graduation, Lindsay plans on taking the Certified Financial Planner exam and pursuing a masters of Accountancy, with intentions of one day owning her own business. She is the current President of the WCU Chapter of FBLA-PBL.
Catching up with Austin Brown
We’ll occasionally use this blog to catch up with folks who have worked on past Center-supported projects. In this post, we catch up with Austin Brown.
Austin graduated from WCU in 2016 with a degree in Special Studies, an option that lets WCU students set their own course of study. Austin crafted his degree plan to cover his interests in chemistry & biology (he is a winemaker), philosophy (he is a curious, deep thinker), and economics (he is pragmatic!). After graduating, he spent a year as vineyard manager at a large winery downstate. Then, one Sunday during the summer of 2017, Austin came back for a visit. Over lunch in West Asheville, he explained that he never could shake his interests in pursuing a Ph.D. “Well Austin,” I said. “That’s great but you’re not ready.”
So, long story short, Austin spent the following academic year as CSFE’s inaugural participant in our Post-Baccalaureate Fellows Program. This program bridges recent WCU grads to doctoral studies.* Starting in Fall 2017, Austin worked under WCU economics faculty developing research skills while taking a couple of extra math courses, researching doctoral programs, and writing applications. In Spring 2018 he presented research at a professional conference and made site visits to select graduate programs. By the end of the year, Austin was fielding competing offers from graduate programs and chose the Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship program at Baylor. Check out our podcast together for more about his year as a post-bacc fellow.
Here’s Austin presenting (with gusto!) at the 2018 annual meetings of the Association of Private Enterprise Education.
Now that Austin has completed his first semester of doctoral studies, we wanted to catch up with him.
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Q1: Welcome back, Austin. So what’s been going on since you wrapped the Post-Baccalaureate Fellows Program last May?
Thanks for having me back, Dr. Lopez. After wrapping up the Post-Baccalaureate Fellows Program in May, I spent the summer hopping around research workshops and seminars before taking off for the flatlands of Waco, Texas. I started coursework at Baylor in mid-August. In addition, I’ve been independently researching topics of interest, and participating in Present Your Ph.D., a community outreach program that has allowed me to visit schools and talk to K-12 students about entrepreneurship. My second semester is now underway, which with it bring courses in strategic management, causal inference, and teaching in higher education.
Q2: Why a Ph.D.? What do you want to do when you “grow up”?
A Ph.D. interested me because of the doors it opens. First off, it’s the only surefire way to land a job as a professor. I love teaching and provoking someone’s curiosity, and getting a Ph.D. opens that door for me. On top of that, a Ph.D. in any discipline is a research degree. You learn to seek out the information surrounding a question you have, and subsequently produce an articulate answer to it. Learning to do this equips you with tools to apply in any setting with a problem to solve.
Q3: Tell us a little more about your first semester as a Ph.D. student. How would you describe it?
You get exactly what you put into it. I mean, if someone just wants to jump hurdles for 4 years and get the degree, they can do that. Seems pretty unfulfilling, but it’s an option. But if you have ambition to practice your craft and refine your ideas, a Ph.D. offers you the chance to do that; to create additional hurdles on your own. The time and effort you choose to allocate to the exploration of ideas determines your development as a thinker, and you have full autonomy in that decision. It’s a lot like exercise. No one keeps you from taking shortcuts, and if you choose to take them, shrug off the extra effort, and fail to challenge yourself, you hinder your outcomes.
Q4: You left WCU with an interest in studying the wine industry. Has your first semester of Ph.D. work broadened and/or deepened your research interests?
I would say my research interests have broadened pretty considerably. My interests in wine production haven’t dropped off, and I have every intention to involve myself in production again when I have the means to do so by my own standards. I want to make natural wines, and I’d like it if other producers did the same. But academic publications aren’t the place to push that agenda. Those ideas are better suited for a book or consulting work. And I’m content with this. Also, I feel that I can do impactful and fulfilling academic research beyond wine. For instance, I’m currently working on a project investigating the transfer of university discoveries to entrepreneurs. And longer term, I’m developing an interest in studying entrepreneurship under conditions of poverty.
Q5. Very cool. Last question. What advice do you have for a third-year undergrad who wants to pursue doctoral studies?
I’d offer three pieces of advice here. First, make a point to sit down with at least three professors in the areas of study you want to pursue and talk to them about your interest. They can connect you with a broader network of academics, help you identify programs that satisfy your interests, and perhaps most importantly, write you a letter of recommendation. Make sure you develop relationships and maintain them, because these professors can help you get in to grad school, find a job later on, or become a research coauthor.
Second, do not count on these professors for everything! No matter what you think, they are busier than you. They also don’t have the answers to all of your questions, nor should they. This is your decision, and thus it is your responsibility to seek out information. You should expect to figure out who to get in touch with at respective programs on your own. You should also try to learn more about your field of interest; find out what the top journals are, look at the work that has been published in the past few years, and make sure the topics interest you. Ask your professor if they know a current PhD student you can bother instead of them. Aspirational as you may be, you will not rewrite the agenda of a field of study in your dissertation. Allocate a few hours a week to investigating your interests thoroughly, because you are only doing yourself a favor.
Build a routine of reading and writing. Your studies will demand that you become an efficient reader and effective writer. You will benefit if you start practicing now. You don’t have to show up with a published article or brainstormed dissertation. But expect to need to be able to read (and process) at least 100 pages a week. Even if you’re practicing on non-academic writing, reading daily will make you improve. And as for writing, you have to communicate your thoughts concisely and logically. I was the student that started writing papers the day (or perhaps sometime night) before they were due. This simply won’t fly if you want to put out quality work. When you write, make sure you know your first attempt is a draft. Let it sit for a day, don’t touch it at all, then come back and edit it. As a Ph.D. student, writing is mostly a process of revising and editing. You have an initial idea, you put it on paper, and then you spend the next weeks, months, or years (depending on the idea) refining it. Get used to it now, that way when you start your PhD, you are ahead of the curve. You (and your advisor) will thank you.
——————————————————————————————————————– So there you have it folks. We’re caught up with Austin Brown. Until the next time…
* By the way, we have extended the Post-Baccalaureate Program to fourth-year students too, and we’ve renamed it the Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program.
Is Democracy in Decline? Free Enterprise Speaker Series Welcomes Philosopher Loren Lomasky
In the next installment of WCU’s Free Enterprise Speaker Series, philosopher Loren Lomasky, a self-described Churchillian democrat, will dissect how political mis-information and a polarized populace can adversely affect election outcomes, and what to do about it.
People think of voting as a right, even a duty, but it is also a low-cost mode of expressing one’s point of view, however radical or incorrect it is. This latter point shouldn’t be ignored — not if we want to understand democracy. Fringe viewpoints have used recent democratic elections as giant megaphones, blowing dark clouds over freedom. A glance around the world turns up this dynamic in Turkey, the Philippines, Hungary, Sweden (although overblown), and arguably in the United States. “Is there any call for Churchillians to be worried?”, Loren writes. “In a word, yes.”
The ballot booth can be a place for expressing lofty morals, but it’s also a place for venting animosities. Political candidates and party leaders, experts in their alertness to this feature (ahem, bug?), will maneuver to win votes by appealing to the emotions that bubble to the top during campaign season. Power and policies ensue.
Loren’s concerns accentuate the importance of imposing republican structures upon democracy as an antidote to demagogue disease. Good old fashioned checks and balances, multiple layers/nodes of elected office, and other mechanisms of limited government, please answer the white telephone. Winston Churchill is calling.
About Loren Lomasky: Loren Lomasky is Cory Professor of Political Philosophy, Politics, and Law and the University of Virginia. Professor Lomasky is best known for his work in moral and political philosophy. His book Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community (Oxford University Press, 1987) established his reputation as a leading advocate of a rights-based approach to moral and social issues. He is also co-author of Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference (Cambridge University Press, 1993), a landmark work about the effects of voting in democracies. In his 2016 article, “Fleecing the Young,” Lomasky makes the case for more intergenerational fairness in U.S. budget policies that currently enrich older generations while handing young people the bill. For more than four decades, Lomasky has taught undergraduate and graduate classes in the philosophy of religion, medieval philosophy and other episodes in the history of philosophy as well as many topics in moral and political philosophy. He has held research appointments sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for the Study of Public Choice, the Australian National University, and the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. He has been the recipient of many awards including the American Philosophical Association’s Matchette Prize for the best book in philosophy.
Top 5 Reasons to Attend the Fireside Chat with Ken Langone
Business icon, philanthropist, and Cashiers resident Ken Langone is coming to WCU for a fireside chat on Monday October 22 from 5:00-6:15 p.m. Here are five reasons to check it out.
1. A great story. Ken grew up poor in Long Island and rose to business success with a lot of hard work, good luck, and help from his friends. Along the way he co-founded The Home Depot, built a top Wall Street investment firm, and became one of America’s major philanthropists. There’s more to Ken’s story here.
2. A local voice. Ken and Elaine Langone have a home in Cashiers, and this is their first time visiting WCU. So this is a great chance to hear from a local voice, and to see more of what WCU is all about.
3. Networking. Mingle with others from WNC’s business, government, and non-profit sectors. Tell your story too!
4. Funny, warm, and entertaining. Ken’s story is full of F words. And not just that F word, either. His new book is all about Family, Faith, Friends, and Freedom. This fireside chat promises to be funny, warm, and entertaining all around.
5. Free. This event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 4:30. Registration is recommended, just visit langone.wcu.edu.