INSID E THIS ISS UE:
June 21, 2013
FOCUS
Table of Contents:
Peter Senge Speaks at SBE-Sponsored Event
NEWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
Page
1
Staff Profile—Petitesa Mickle
2
Where In the World
2
Volume 4, Issue 24
A Message from Dean Bailey
2
Peter Senge Speaks at SBE-Sponsored Event
The School of Business and
Economics had the honor of
sponsoring an important event for
the business community of
Winston-Salem and Forsyth
County on June 18 at the “Big
House” Gaines Ballroom of the
Embassy Suites Hotel in WinstonSalem. Tomorrow’s Business
Today! featured world-renowned
education and business
philosopher, Peter Senge, who
spoke to attendees about the value
of systems thinking and raised
scholarship funding to support
local youngsters’ attendance at
Camp Snowball to be held on the
campus of Wake Forest University
on July 22-26, 2013. Dr. Senge is a
Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan
School of Management, was
recognized by the Journal of
Business Strategy for being one of
the 24 people who had the
greatest influence on business
strategy over the last 100 years,
and was rated by Business
Week as one of the top 10
management gurus.
The luncheon event was
sponsored by the SBE, in
association with Winston-Salem
Forsyth County Schools, and was
produced under the direction of
Mr. Dave van Pelt of Twin City
Alliance. Mr. van Pelt served as
moderator of the event which was
attended by noted business
dignitaries from the region.
Mayor Allen Joines welcomed
attendees to the event and was
followed by Dean Jessica Bailey,
who spoke on the value of systems
thinking to the students of WSSU as
our institution pursues its new
Dr. Peter Senge with Dean Bailey
General Education curriculum.
Because WSSU is encouraging
innovation, teamwork, and
collaboration as it seeks to develop
world-class thinkers, problemsolvers, and risk-takers, the SBE
was the perfect host for the event.
Dr. Donald Martin, outgoing
Superintendent of Winston-Salem
Forsyth County Public Schools,
spoke of his dedication to the
principles of Peter Senge and
provided information on Camp
Snowball, a week-long event
designed to listen to and learn from
the students of the K -12
educational system.
Mr. Don Flow, President of Flow
Auto Companies, introduced the speaker.
He emphasized the impactful work being
done by Peter Senge worldwide, but
spoke passionately about his personal
experience of having attended a seminar
conducted by Peter Senge nearly twenty
years ago. That seminar, he maintained,
changed the way that he approached his
businesses and had a great deal to do
with his subsequent success.
Peter Senge spoke engagingly about
schools. In particular, he mentioned that
schools do not need to be reformed, they
need to be inspired. When he turned his
attention to business, he drew an eyeopening analogy between oxygen and
profits. Just as a person needs oxygen to
survive, a business needs profits to
survive. Yet, if a person has as his or her
only reason for being, to breathe, then
something is wrong. Likewise, if a
business exists only to make profits,
again, something is wrong. That analogy
illustrates the reasons that creativity,
innovation, and reflection should be
essential parts of businesses. Successful
enterprises need healthy human systems
to flourish. Thinking, critically and
systematically, in an environment of
respect, is important if your educational
systems are going to be able to prepare
students for the challenges of tomorrow.
After a question-and-answer session,
all in attendance were invited to attend
one of the week-long array of events
planned during Camp Snowball.
FOCUS is published weekly by the School of Business and Economics at Winston-Salem State University. For information concerning the
newsletter, or to contribute an article, please contact Ben Greene at (336) 750-2330 or send an e-mail to greenebp@wssu.edu.
Page 2
FOCUS News
Temporary Staff Profile — Petitesa Mickle
Petitesa Mickle has a
passion for the care of her
people in her community. She
has served as a YMCA Program
Director leading business
women, teens, and
children’s
programs, was a
long-term
substitute high
school teacher, a
clinical counselor
for the
Department of
Mental Health, and worked for
Upward Bound. At Upward
Bound, a federally funded
educational program on the
WSSU campus, she participated
in grants writing, budgeting, the
supervision of temporary
employees and interdepartmental campus
exchanges.
In late May, Petitesa joined
the Department of Accounting
and Management Information
Systems (MIS) as its new
temporary Administrative
Support Associate. She
particularly enjoys the
opportunity to work directly
with students and to provide
support to the faculty in her
new position. She looks forward
to the chance to meet the
remaining faculty when they
return for the second summer
session or in August.
Petitesa earned a Bachelor
of Science in Airway Computer
Science from Florida Memorial
University in Miami and
certificates in Accounting and
Business from Trident Technical
College in Charleston, SC.
Shontadra S. Hill (’07), Social Security
Administration, Durham, NC
Debbie Slazyk (’11), Beaufort Memorial
Hospital, Beaufort, SC
Petitesa is an active
Attention SBE Graduates:
member of her church family
and enjoys the opportunity to
The students or alumni listed above have provided
spend free time on her bicycle,
updates on their employment status. We welcome the
opportunity to provide information about all of our
reading, home improvement
and traveling to visit with family students and alums in future issues. Please send updates,
including your name, title, company name, year of
and friends throughout the
graduation and location to greenebp@wssu.edu.
Eastern United States.
MBA Students Return from Shanghai
Dr. Craig Richardson and our MBA
students and have safely returned to the
United States with excellent memories of the
time they spent in Shanghai, China.
In keeping with the focus on education
and the economy, the students visited the
Shanghai Volkswagen plant after which the
group traveled to the Bund and Nanjing Road,
China’s premier shopping street. There they
Following last week’s Focus report on
had a group dinner at the New Heights
their travels (available at http://
Restaurant, a rooftop restaurant with
www.wssu.edu/sbe/focus/issues/focus-0614-2013.pdf ), our visitors had an opportunity gorgeous sunset views of the famous Bund
along the riverfront. Later,
to visit Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu
some went to the famous
province famed for its beautiful
Glamour Bar, an ostentatious
gardens and waterside
gathering place for food and
architecture. The 50 mile trip
drink.
from Shanghai to Suzhou was
followed by a farewell dinner and night cruise
on the Huang Pu River.
On Monday morning, the group readied
themselves for an afternoon departure for the
25-hour return trip to North Carolina, arriving
at midnight.
Dr. Richardson, speaking for the entire
group, commented “I am so proud of the
WSSU MBA students, who represented
themselves, WSSU, and the United States in a
highly distinguished way on every occasion.
They impressed our top-flight guest speakers
with their insightful questions, and interacted
accomplished in twenty
On Saturday, the
with the Chinese people in ways that left
minutes via bullet train at 180
group had the chance to attend highly positive impressions on both parties.
mph! While there, visits were
lectures on demographic shifts The students particularly enjoyed their
View of the Bund from the New
Heights Restaurant
taken to the Humble
in China and the participation
dinners with host families, where they felt
Ambassador Gardens, a silk
of Americans in China, led by
warmly welcomed into a home, with excellent
manufacturing plant, and the lovely canals. In Charles Mo, the former CEO of China Nike and cooking to boot! Our students have integrated
the evening, our WSSU Ambassadors had an
CFO of China Coca-Cola. In the afternoon they their experiences into a more expansive view
opportunity to explore and find restaurants
travelled to AGY manufacturing, which makes of the world and many have already spoken of
on their own before retiring for the night.
high quality glass based fiber from an
returning to China in the near future. My hope
enormous blast furnace.
In the morning (June 13), our travelers
is that this experience has triggered a life-long
interviewed two migrant workers at an
On Sunday, the group traveled to the
love for travel and eye-opening new
outlying factory and exchanged questions
famous Shanghai marriage market where
experiences.”
about each others’ countries as well as living
parents take to the streets to find their
circumstances.
children a potential spouse which was
A Message from Dean Jessica Bailey
The appearance of Peter
Senge in Winston-Salem at
an event sponsored by the
School of Business and
Economics was the highlight
of the week! It was a joy to
hear him explain how a fresh
and innovative approach to
education could pave the
way for future success for our students and
the businesses of the Piedmont region that
will be hiring them.
Though the term “systems thinking” carries
a negative connotation for some, Peter Senge
explained that systems thinking is just—
thinking. All educators should be able to
support the development of skills that enable
students, at whatever levels in their
educations, to be creative enough to propose
new ideas, weigh alternative solutions, and
take risks when the environment indicates
that doing so is appropriate.
It is this kind of approach to learning that
is supported and encouraged in the SBE. As
we offer more General Education courses, as
well as Liberal Learning Seminars, we are
sparking the interest of freshmen and
sophomores in learning and contributing to
the improvement of society.
Jessica Bailey