As part of the Mobile Learning Initiative, faculty and students will once again have an opportunity to experiment with groundbreaking uses of mobile technology as participants in the 2011-12 cohorts of mLearning Scholars. Faculty across campus submitted proposals describing specific plans to integrate mobile technology into their particular disciplines, with 13 proposals ultimately being accepted. Those accepted will experiment with integrating mobile technology into their teaching in one section of a course taught during Spring 2012.

From experimenting with how mobile devices can augment the interactions that take place in the classroom to using these devices to record and share videos, photos or other information from remote locations, the projects represent a wide variety of approaches to integrating mobile devices into the curriculum. Participants will document their experiences, which will not only build a growing community of innovators, but also directly inform decision-making and strategic planning efforts on campus.

As a part of Dr. Lincoln’s Marketing 301 Principles of Marketing  course, all students will use iPads. Dr Lincoln conducted a survey with his students during the first week of class, will do one a mid-semester and another at the end to track students’ experiences and feelings about using the iPads in the course. More details about Dr. Lincoln’s research questions are here: mLearning Scholars.

For more information, visit the Mobile Learning Initiative website at mobilelearning.boisestate.edu/mlearningscholars.

Cobourn also gave an invited oral presentation at the American Geophysical Union meetings in San Francisco on Dec. 7, 2011. The presentation, titled “Ecological vs. Economic Sustainability: An Integrated Analysis of Thresholds in Semi-Arid Western Rangelands,” was included as part of the session “Identifying and Quantifying Change in Ecological Systems.”

Pending approval from the State Board of Education, the newly designed programs will begin in fall 2012 when the new Micron Business and Economics Building opens. The fourth floor will be devoted exclusively to graduate business programs and includes new state-of-the-art classrooms, technology-enhanced team rooms and the Petersen-Hales Imagination Laboratory. Students may apply online now at http://cobe.boisestate.edu/graduate.

“A team of COBE faculty gathered information from the business community and prospective students and designed these new MBA programs,” said COBE Dean Patrick Shannon. “They will meet the needs of both employees in the local business community who want to complete an MBA by going part-time, and also recent, high-potential graduates from non-business undergraduate programs in the West who want to add an MBA to their resume by going full-time to Boise State University.”

“The updates to our program reflect the changing needs of the business community,” said Kirk Smith, associate dean for graduate business studies. “One MBA program cannot meet the needs of everyone looking for a business education today.”

Most traditional MBA programs require work experience for admission. However, the full-time Career Start MBA program is designed for recent graduates who may not have begun their careers. Classes will take place during the day and students will complete their degree in two years. Internships and real projects make it ideal for recent graduates who need business knowledge and experience in order to enter their desired career field.

All students accepted into the Career Start program will receive financial assistance. For more information about the program, contact Trisha Lamb at 426-1120, or trishastevenslamb@boisestate.edu.

The MBA track for working professionals is a sensibly paced evening program built around the theme of commercializing intellectual property. By attending night school over the course of 32 months, participants will gain the managerial skills needed to take their careers in a new direction.

The existing Executive MBA program rounds out the three offerings. Middle- to senior-level professionals gain the leadership, business, and innovation skills their organizations need on a schedule that minimizes work and personal life disruption. Boise State’s Executive MBA was launched in 2006 and focuses on creativity in the evaluation of business problems, an immediate link between class projects and work tasks, an integrated curriculum that takes into account a wide range of business units and a trade mission-style international experience in Vietnam.

Listeners can access the website featuring a series of faculty podcasts at BeyondtheBlue.BoiseState.edu or go directly to Napier’s presentation. Visitors can listen/watch podcasts directly on the site or link to iTunesU, where they can download all podcasts and subscribe to receive automatic downloads of new content whenever they open iTunes.

Napier’s book, “The Creative Discipline”(2008), examines diverse organizations — from theater to software to football — to identify common creative characteristics, while “Insight” (2010) shows how to encourage ‘aha’ moments, which help speed learning and problem solving. The high performing, highly creative organizations studied in this research are called “The Gang.” Members range from the Boise State football program and Trey McIntyre dance group to health information provider Healthwise and the Ada County (Idaho) Sheriff’s Office.

This podcast covers six important “Gang” rules that are crucial elements for organizations looking to incorporate creativity and innovation in their operations. The rules also will appear in a book that Napier is currently writing in conjunction with other members of the group.

The Beyond the Blue website has been developed to showcase the expertise and innovative spirit that exists in many fields at Boise State. Known for its unique blue turf and nationally ranked football program, Boise State is demonstrating creativity beyond the blue in faculty podcasts intended to introduce a variety of topics to casual listeners.

New faculty podcasts are being added on a regular basis, including:

• Scott Yenor, Marriage and Modern Thought
• Heidi Reeder, Attraction in Male-Female Friendship
• Michelle Sabick, Joint Replacement
• Jonathan Brendefur, Mathematical Minds
• Troy Rohn, Alzheimer’s Disease
• Gary Moncrief, Congressional Redistricting
• Evelyn Johnson, Learning Disabilities
• Will Hughes, DNA Nanotechnology
• John Gardner, Energy Efficiency
• Cheryl Jorcyk, Breast Cancer
• Mitch Wieland, Creative Writing
• Cindy Clark, Civility in Nursing
• John Freemuth, Public Lands
• Greg Hampikian, DNA Forensics
• Shelton Woods, Rise of China
• Jill Gill, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Brian Greber, America’s Economic Policy

The website contains bonus video and editorial content about the university, including its growth, research initiatives and student life. A related collection of faculty interviews also is accessible from the Reader’s Corner radio show hosted by Boise State President Bob Kustra on Boise State Public Radio.

College of Business and Economics professor Michael Bixby will retire in January after teaching at Boise State for 30 years. COBE will host a celebration honoring his dedication and service to the college from 3-5 p.m. Dec. 12 in the Student Union Lookout Room. The campus community is invited to attend.

Bixby has been a full-time faculty member at Boise State since 1981, teaching classes dealing with legal, regulatory and ethical issues. His undergraduate and law degrees are from the University of Michigan. Bixby practiced law as an attorney for 11 years in Michigan before becoming a faculty member at Boise State.

Since joining the university, he has had 16 articles published in professional journals, has presented more than 80 academic papers at conferences and has given several invited lectures at universities. He has been chosen four times to teach internationally in the USAC program, spending a semester each in Spain, Chile, Italy and China.

Bixby also has authored or co-authored two textbooks, currently in use by many business schools. He is an active member of the national Academy of Legal Studies in Business, and has served as president of the Northwest regional division of this organization. He is a member of the State Bar of Michigan and has been a member of the Governing Council of the Corporate and Business Law Section of the State Bar of Idaho.

In 2006, Bixby was chosen as the winner of the Foundation Scholars Award for Teaching, the highest honor accorded to a faculty member at Boise State. He had been nominated four previous times, and was the first College of Business faculty member ever to win the award. He also has twice been recognized as the faculty member of the year in the College of Business by the ASBSU student organization, and was the winner of the Teaching Award in the Management Department in 2008. He is the club advisor for Net Impact, a group of mostly COBE graduate students focused on ethical, social responsibility and sustainability issues in business, which won the Best New Student Organization of the Year award from ASBSU in 2011.

College of Business and Economics professor Nancy Napier has been awarded Vietnam’s highest award for contributions to education in the Southeast Asian country.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training conferred the Medal of Honor on Napier during a special ceremony Nov. 18 in Hanoi, Vietnam, honoring her long-time work there, particularly at the National Economics University (NEU).

From 1994-2003, Napier led Boise State’s $8.5 million capacity building project at NEU, which involved delivering Boise State’s MBA to 84 participants, supporting more than 20 Vietnamese faculty members in other master’s and doctoral programs around the world, and helping to establish Vietnam’s first international standard business school in 1997.

“Many years ago, Nancy Napier had the inspiration to form a partnership between the College of Business and Economics and the country of Vietnam that would help that country begin to reshape its economy,” said Patrick Shannon, dean of Boise State’s College of Business and Economics. “What started out as an MBA opportunity for Vietnamese students has turned into a 20-year relationship with the country’s leaders. We are very proud of Nancy for her leadership and are thrilled that Vietnam has chosen to recognize her with this wonderful honor.”

Many Boise State Vietnam MBA graduates have become leaders in Vietnam’s business and government organizations, as well as within education. With Boise State’s support, the NEU started its own MBA programs in English and Vietnamese, and increased its other academic and outreach offerings. To date, the NEU Business School has trained more than 1,500 managers in its graduate and training programs that focus on doing business in a global economy.

The nine-year project involved more than 25 Boise State faculty members and administrators, more than 50 other faculty members from various countries around the world, and brought more than 100 Vietnamese to Boise to learn about education and doing business in a market economy. Many of them did internships at Boise organizations, including Boise Cascade, Hewlett-Packard, Nelson Construction, ECCO, the YMCA and the Idaho Statesman.

Boise State began the project before the United States and Vietnam re-established diplomatic relations in 1995 and continued long after. The project, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (1993-2000) and USAID (2000-2003), represented USAID’s largest aid project in Vietnam at the time. It was featured on the front page of the Asian Wall Street Journal, in The New York Times and on NPR radio.

Since the project’s ending, when the NEU Business School was fully functional, Napier has continued to return periodically to Hanoi, where she teaches at the NEU, works with several business organizations started by Boise State MBAs and conducts research. The College of Business and Economics Executive MBA program does its international residency in Hanoi, which is organized by former Boise State MBAs who are now business leaders in Vietnam. In addition, several other Boise State College of Business and Economics professors continue their links with the National Economics University through teaching and research.

Napier has published several articles, many with colleagues who were Boise MBA graduates, and a book (“Managing in Transition Economies,” 2005) that draw from her experiences in Vietnam. Her most recent book, “Insight: Encouraging Aha Moments for Organizational Success,” has been translated into Vietnamese.

More at: http://www.vietnamica.net/vietnam-moet-honored-american-professors-for-significant-contribution/