We’ve had an exciting fall and winter at the Bard MBA in Sustainability and are happy to bring you our latest updates in our quarterly newsletter. Enclosed you’ll find lots of great news on the activities of our students, alumni and faculty—who are leading the change towards a sustainable future. We’ll also update you on our upcoming events and bimonthly podcasts.
Bard’s MBA program, in the heart of NYC, is one of a select few programs globally that fully integrates sustainability into a core business curriculum. Please let qualified applicants know about our:
- 2016 admissions deadlines: 3/15 (for scholarship priority) and 5/15 (final deadline)
- Spring NYC Open House—Wednesday April 27th, from 6:00-8:00 p.m.
- Upcoming weekend residency visits—these are a great chance to experience our classes and meet students and faculty
- New option to enable international student enrollment
Students, Faculty, Alumni Leading the Change
Bard MBAs Participate in Case Competitions
Two student teams have recently tested their skills in case competitions:
Nour Shaikh ‘16, Brooke Forde ‘16, Gwen Jones, and Jen Shelbo ’17 are submitting their proposal in the third annual Nespresso Sustainability MBA Challenge at the end of this month. Their charge is to come up with fresh, creative ideas for Nespresso’s Creating Shared Value Strategy. The team is coached by Lily Russell, Leading Change professor.
Bard MBAs in the Press
Amy Kalafa ’16 blogged for LinkedIn Pulse about how promoting employee engagement can help turn around Connecticut’s slow economic growth.
Miles Crettien’s ’15 Brooklyn-based aquaponics startup was featured in Foragers.
Tony Nogales ’16, a professor at the Culinary Institute of America, has an article coming out in the next issue of Nutrition and Foodservice Edge Magazine.
Bard MBAs Speak Out
Mariana Souza ’16, was invited to the White House in November for a roundtable discussion on climate change. As a 2015 EDF Climate Corps Fellow at Baxter International, she was invited to represent Environmental Defense Fund, Climate Corps Fellowship, and Defend Our Future. She was able to share practical tools and resources with undergraduate sustainability and climate student leaders as well as the university presidents in attendance.
Cindy Wasser ’18 will present at the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) Building Performance conference at the end of February, and Tony Nogales ’16 will speak at the “Menus of Change: The Business of Healthy, Sustainable, Delicious Food Choices” leadership summit this June.
Bard MBAs on the Move
Gwen Jones, current MBA student, travelled to Oaxaca, Mexico with Bard CEP’s January-term class. She joined CEP Environmental Policy Monique Segarra and a team of eight CEP students to evaluate the process of water reform in the Central Valleys region of Southern Mexico.
Libby Murphy Zemaitis, MS/MBA ’14, closed a $50K pre-seed investment for the company she started while at Bard, Up Homes, and is currently fundraising to manufacture a model home in the Hudson Valley. Libby’s Bard MBA classmate, Robert Ransick ‘14, leads branding and development for the company.
pictured: Uphomes prototype
Justine Porter ’16 is organizing a conference in Poughkeepsie, New York on April 22, 2016 focusing on building community wealth. The event, produced for her Bard MBA Capstone Project, will bring together community stakeholders to discuss and create a shared vision of economic development for the city.
Congratulations! to our students and alums who’ve taken new mission-driven jobs: Martín Lemos ’16 as an Associate in Advisory Services at BSR, Cindy Wasser ’18 as an Outreach and Marketing Specialist at ICF International, Bernell Grier ’15 as Vice President and Director of Affordable Housing Program Operations at FHLBNY, Whitney Files ’15 as Chief Operating Officer at Harlem Grows, Jessica Ridgeway ’15 as a Planner at the Orange County, NY, Planning Department, and Sarah Bodley ’15 as Operations Manager at Empowered Women International.
Bard MBA Faculty in Action
Lily Russell, Bard MBA Leading Change professor, teamed up with Mariana Souza ’16 to take her “Explain the Chain” website live. Lily’s Explain the Chain movement ignites curiosity in kids about where things come from and go.
Bard MBA Career Coach Shannon Houde delivered the keynote at Hitachi Europe’s Women’s Interactive Network Summit this past November, and she recently published several articles on sustainability and career development, including “Beyond the Big Four: 12 Sustainability Consultancies to Watch in 2016” in Triple Pundit.
In partnership with Central Hudson and Energize NY, a local NGO, Gautam Sethi, Bard MBA Economics professor, will launch a new project on the drivers of household participation in energy efficiency programs. His work is funded by NYSERDA and began at the end of February.
The second edition of Bard MBA Employees and Organizations professor Jeana Wirtenberg’s edited volume, The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When It All Comes Together, is now available for pre-order. In other news, Jeana will moderate a panel discussion on “Business Risk & Human Rights Risk” at the Skytop Strategies Symposium on Labor, Human Rights and Sustained Company Performance hosted by Bard MBA in June 2016.
Kathy Hipple, Bard MBA Sustainable Finance professor, has recently joined the Innovation Hub for Resilient Design, an initiative that will fuel economic development around green building systems in VT, MA and NH by creating high-value jobs.
Public Programming
Our Sustainable Business Fridays live noon-time podcast series is in full swing, with exciting discussions in the pipeline. The next podcast, on March 18th, will feature MBA student Alexandra Santiago ‘16 interviewing Talya Bosch of Western Union. Later this semester, we will be joined by Michelle Wiseman, Silda Wall Spitzer and Latrice Ross. We convene on the first and fourth Fridays of the month, so check out our events calendar and dial in to be part of the conversation!
Bard MBA and Impact Hub, our NYC home, continue to partner to produce a monthly Friday night Sustainable Business Series. These talks and networking events are open to the public. Join us for our final talk of the semester on March 11th at 6 p.m. with Ron Meissen of Baxter International.
Help Us Find Future Leaders
As we recruit our next group of students to rewire the world with clean energy, reimagine the global food system and reinvent finance, we invite you to be part of the process. Please let folks who want to be part of this work know how to applyto join us.
Working Together + Staying in Touch
Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you want to learn more about our MBA program, partner on a project, or hire our students. We would love to hear from you.