We’re happy to announce that AEM's Undergraduate Business Program moved up one slot to #11 in the 2007 U.S. News and World Report rankings of undergraduate business programs.

Equally exciting news is that our peer ranking (5.0 = highest), which is based on an annual survey of business school deans and senior faculty at the 483 accredited undergraduate business programs in the U.S., increased to 4.0 from last year’s 3.9—a very important move where every 0.1 counts!

BusinessWeek, in addition to the release of its first-ever rankings of undergraduate business programs last spring, has created a web site aimed at helping undergraduate students sort through their b-school choices. Drawing attention to AEM's Undergraduate Business Program are recent stories featuring students Mark Zimmerman ’08 and Alex Zahn ’07. Mark’s unusual marketing assignment during his summer internship at Sinek Partners—to help a homeless person in New York City increase her revenue by creating more effective signage—was showcased in “Selling Sympathy." And Cornell’s new student-run radio station, SlopeRadio, co-founded by Alex and two other Cornell students, was featured in “Good Morning, Ithaca." (Be sure to tune in to this innovative new Internet radio station!)

Faculty and staff features on BusinessWeek online include a profile of Rich Curtis, senior lecturer of AEM 324: Finance, in the “My Favorite Prof" section. Curtis earned this distinction based on our students' responses to last year’s BusinessWeek rankings survey. Interviews with Amy Benedict-Augustine, director of CALS Career Development, and Ann LaFave, director of CALS Admissions, are featured in “Cornell’s Fresh Take on Career Counseling" and “Cornell’s Deep Roots."

AEM also got a nod in Forbes when it featured Seth Flowerman’s company, Career Explorations, in “The New Business of College: Dorm Room Titans." Seth, a junior in AEM, founded his company when he was only 16. Career Explorations operates a summer program for high school students that brings them to Manhattan or Boston for an internship.

This fall’s Women’s Leadership Forum featured Alisa Cohn, one of Boston’s top 10 executive coaches and a Johnson School alumna, who shared with AEM students how to effectively sell their ideas to their boss (and above!) when they are new on the job. This annual event, sponsored by AEM’s Diversity and Leadership Program and organized by the Society for Women in Business (SWIB), focused on influence—what is influence, who do we influence, and when do you start influencing—and its role in career success, especially when you are not at the top of the power structure.

Professor Deborah Streeter, SWIB’s faculty advisor, noted, “Leadership development is often focused on rising through the ranks to get to a powerful position. But this forum was designed to help the participants think about how to start influencing the organization during the early years of their career."

The 2006-07 recruiting season got off to a fast start, with the first company presentation taking place less than two weeks after the start of the fall semester. Top employers from all sectors continue to vie for AEM seniors, and the internship recruiting season already looks promising for AEM sophomores and juniors. The employers recruiting this fall and spring at the CALS Career Development Office in Roberts Hall, combined with the companies and organizations coordinating their recruitment through the central Cornell Career Services office, are offering AEM students a wealth of job opportunities—not to mention turning the interview process itself into a full-time job for our already very busy students!

To attract a diverse pool of top students, companies are increasingly going beyond the traditional on-campus corporate presentation, sponsoring trips to their headquarters and coordinating events with student organizations. Recent examples include the following:

To learn more about recruiting at Cornell for internships or full-time positions, or for ideas on innovative recruiting methods, please feel free to contact Cornell Career Services.

Todd Schmit joined the AEM faculty this summer as an assistant professor of agribusiness management and agricultural marketing. Professor Schmit’s applied research efforts integrate extension and outreach activities to identify and address relevant issues in the agribusiness industry, including agribusiness globalization, structural change, production economics, and risk analysis. His recent research has focused on the economic impacts and marketing strategies of commodity promotion and branded merchandising at both the household and aggregate market levels, with particular emphasis on the dairy industry. Professor Schmit earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University and his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Eswar Prasad will join the AEM faculty in January as the first Nandlal P. Tolani Senior Professor of International Trade Policy. Prasad is chief of the Financial Studies Division of the International Monetary Fund and formerly headed the IMF’s China Division. He studies macroeconomic issues of globalization, growth, and volatility in developing and industrialized countries, and has an extensive research program on the Chinese and Indian economies. He is a graduate of the University of Madras and earned his M.A. from Brown University and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, both degrees in economics. The Tolani chair was established in 2005 by the Tolani Shipping Co. Ltd. of Mumbai, India, to honor the company’s founder, Cornell alumnus Nandlal P. Tolani, M.S. ’47, Ph.D. ’64.

AEM’s faculty are not only top teachers, but also leading research scholars who explore business and economic issues from around the globe. One-third of the professorial faculty in AEM have refereed journal publication rates that place them in the top 5 percent of the broader economics profession and are frequent contributors to the highest-ranked journals in their academic fields. The faculty also have well-above-average citation rates, an enviable record of editorships, and they receive more than $2 million in research grants and contracts each year.

Department-published research papers and bulletins, most of which are available in PDF format in the Research section of the AEM web site, showcase the diversity and international reach of our faculty’s research. For titles of books and articles published in refereed academic journals, please visit the faculty’s profiles on the AEM site. Also keep an eye out in your nearby book store for Professor Brian Wansink's new book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Bantam, October 2006), which has recently been featured on numerous national TV and radio shows.

Howard E. Conklin, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at Cornell University, died on November 2, 2006.

Professor Conklin was born on January 23, 1917, in Cuba, New York, on a small dairy farm that he would later characterize as “hard scrabble.” He received a B.S. from Cornell University in 1937 and an M.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1939. Following two years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in California, Professor Conklin returned to Cornell to work on his Ph.D. His studies were interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1942, serving as an instructor in radio and long-line telephone communication until 1946.

Professor Conklin completed work on his Ph.D. in 1948 under the direction of Professor F. F. Hill, focusing on land classification and the “rural-urban” fringe. He took leadership for the department’s work in land economics when he joined the faculty. Recognizing the pulls of urban influences on agricultural lands, he developed the concept of “agricultural districts” that has been widely adopted in many northeastern states, including New York. He also introduced area-sampling methodology to the department in collecting primary data for farm management and other studies in the field, and he worked effectively with legislators on the conservation of natural resources and preserving lands well adapted to commercial agriculture.

Internationally, Professor Conklin worked in Central and South America in attempts to help individual governments develop more constructive land-use policies and evaluate alternative agricultural enterprises. As a result of his work in Latin America, he concluded that socio-economic culture, not lack of technology, imposed the real limitation on the area’s productivity.

Professor Conklin retired in 1982 after 35 years as a member of the department's faculty.

The Undergraduate Business Program’s Advisory Council recently welcomed 14 new members. Their diverse career paths and successes reflect the broad, flexible curriculum and practical education that continue to be AEM’s hallmark. The complete list of Advisory Council members, who meet on campus in the fall and in New York City in the spring, is available on the Undergraduate Business Program’s web site.

The AEM Alumni Network continues to create opportunities for alums in the New York City metro area to reconnect with their fellow Cornell business peers and to help current AEMers learn more about career paths and job and internship opportunities.

This summer’s networking event at the Terrace Club in the Rockefeller Center Hotel attracted over 175 AEM alumni representing 75 companies, who enjoyed an evening of refreshments and catching up on career and personal news.

This fall, Network members launched the new AEM Alumni Mentorship Connection, a program that makes it possible for AEM’s freshmen to get advice on their academic and career-related questions from those who were in their shoes not that long ago. This activity is coordinated through AEM’s intro course for new majors, AEM 101, led by Dale Grossman and Andrew Novakovic. The students sent their alumni 3 to 5 questions (e.g., what was your favorite class, which student organizations did you join, did you have a summer internship), who then answered via e-mail or a phone call. AEM’s alumni responded enthusiastically to this new mentorship program, with 140 alumni signing up to be paired with AEM’s 88 new freshmen.

To join the AEM Alumni Network and receive announcements of upcoming events, please submit the online address update form. For more information on the New York City chapter, feel free to contact a member of the Steering Committee.

Our congratulations to AEM alum Frank O'Connell '65, MBA '66, who received the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences 2006 Outstanding Alumni Award. Frank is a senior partner with the Parthenon Group where he specializes in serving as a strategic adviser in branding and acquisitions for consumer products companies. He is a member of the Undergraduate Business Program Advisory Council, past member of the Cornell University Council, lifetime member of the ALS Alumni Association, member of the Johnson Graduate School of Management Dean’s Society, and emeritus member of the JGSM Advisory Board. Frank's son, Mack, is a freshman in AEM.

Thanks also to the following alumni for sharing their news. We’d love to hear from all of you. Please take a few minutes to update your contact information and tell us what is new in your life and career, including new positions, promotions, new business ventures, special assignments, degrees received, special honors and awards, retirements, marriages, and births.

Heather Abbott ’98, Manager, Gift Cards, Barnes & Noble : I started a new position in late February 2006. I manage the Corporate and 3rd Party Gift Card programs at Barnes & Noble. I am also an active board member for both the Cornell Club of Long Island and the CALS Alumni Association of Long Island.

David Brooks ’02, Medical Student, University of Buffalo: David is working on earning his MD, MBA, and MPH degrees from the University of Buffalo in 2008. He is completing his term as the elected student representative on the 10-member University of Buffalo Council, which serves as the primary oversight and advisory board to the university and its president and senior officers. He was the first medical student ever elected to the Council seat.

Catherine Carswell ’03, Lawyer, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: I am really excited to have just graduated from law school. Once I finish studying for the Bar Exam, I will be moving to Washington, DC, and starting my first job with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Stephen Church ’95, Program Manager, Habitat Conservation, Peace Corps: I have been working as the associate Peace Corps director (aka program manager) for the Habitat Conservation program of Peace Corps -Ecuador for a year now. I am responsible for 41 Peace Corps volunteers throughout the country and am enjoying getting to know Ecuador—one of the planet’s most biologically diverse countries—and its people while working toward the conservation of its natural resources.

Gina Davidson ’97, Marketing Manager, Sprint Nextel: Recently promoted to National Indirect Channel Marketing Manager. I help create, define, and execute marketing programs that will increase business activations through our third-party dealers on a national level.

Matthew Faso ’00, Market Development Specialist, Ingram Micro, Inc.: After 3 years as a marketing coordinator at The Talking Phone Book, I have moved on to market development at Ingram Micro. I married Adrienne Long in September 2004.

Stephen Liu ’94, Director, Asia, Carrier Business, IDT Telecom Asia Pacific: After working with IDT for 3 years, I have built the company’s regional Carrier Business from zero to an over 100M-minutes-per-month business.

Danielle Quinn ’06, First-Year Law Student, Vanderbilt Law School : I interned with the Life Finance Group of the Legal and Compliance Division at Credit Suisse for the summer. I also started at Vanderbilt Law School in August.

Adriano Sabatelli ’95, Senior Consultant, Thomson Medstat: I am currently working as a senior consultant at Thomson Medstat. We provide integrated data warehouse and consulting solutions to large employers, health plans, hospitals, and providers. I’m working in the employer group servicing a number of Fortune 500 employers. On a personal note, my wife and I had our first child, Giovanni Arcangelo, on October 26, 2005.

Ariel Schaffer ’03, Associate Marketing Manager, Rich Products Corp.: I have been with Rich Products Corporation for 3 years and am currently working on our Cake and Pie categories.

Michael Sonnenstein ’90, Director, Advisory Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers: My wife and I recently relocated to London for 2 years.

Brad Unger ’02, Analyst, Partner Reinsurance of the US: Leaving my job at PartnerRe and returning to the Johnson School in fall 2006 for a master’s (MBA ’08).