Students excel in CASE competition
12/7/2011 3:47:16 PM
The 2011 Business Case competition winners are Accounting student Jacinta Fitzgerald of South River (seated), Marketing student Trevor Rideout of Grand Falls-Windsor, and Human Resources student Rebecca Anderson of St. John's. All three team members are enrolled in Business programs through the college’s Office of Distributed Learning
Seven teams participated in the ninth annual Business Case competition, held at College of the North Atlantic’s (CNA) Grand-Falls Windsor campus Dec. 2-3. R.J.T. Consulting took top honors and will represent CNA at the International Business Case Competition at CNA’s campus in the Middle East State of Qatar in March 2012.
Business Case competitions provide CNA’s learners with the unique opportunity to showcase their technical knowledge and provide analysis of a business problem in a team-based approach. Teams spent the two days analyzing business cases and making presentations to panels of judges from the business community.
Mary Vaughan, dean of Business and Information Technology, says the students participating in the Business Case competition pushed themselves to new limits in their learning.
“The calibre of the students was outstanding and the support and coaching from the faculty was always present. The students rose to the challenge and we are all so very proud of them. They should all be commended for their high level of knowledge, critical thinking and innovative ideas, team skills in a stressful situation and the confidence and knowledge that they all demonstrated when responding to the judges’ questioning.”
The student Business Case competitions are an annual highlight for the School of Business and Information Technology.
“We have some extremely talented students who use this as an opportunity to showcase their skills and talents,” continues Vaughan. “A critical component to the two-day event is having leaders from our provincial business community participate as judges and guest speakers. Seeing first-hand the exceptional talents of CNA students by creating an environment where students and industry leaders can interact provides a unique learning experience benefiting not only our students but the business community and the province.”
Winning team members of R.J.T. Consulting are all enrolled in business programs offered via the college's Office of Distributed Learning. They prepared for the competition by practicing online and had not met each other face-to-face until the night before they were scheduled to present. Members of the team are Accounting student Jacinta Fitzgerald of South River (seated), Marketing student Trevor Rideout of Grand Falls-Windsor, and Human Resources student Rebecca Anderson of St. John's.
Second place was awarded to team Excelsior from the Prince Philip Drive campus. They will represent CNA at the Vanier College BDC Business Case Challenge in Montreal in February. Third place went to team Confucius from the Grand Falls-Windsor campus.
“The students and faculty participating in the Business Case competitions should be commended for being involved in an event that pushed them out of their comfort zone and the level of growth seen in all teams from Friday night to Saturday morning is absolutely amazing,” says Vaughan. “All the students performed to an extremely high level and were innovative and confident with their business solutions when presenting to a panel of industry judges. “
The judges, represented by Fred Penney Jr. of Penney Paving in Grand Falls-Windsor, praised all the participants for their dedication and hard work, and expressed how impressed they were with the quality of the presentations.
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Media Contact:
Glenda McCarthy
Public Relations Assistant
College of the North Atlantic
709.643.6408
glenda.mccarthy@cna.nl.ca