March 2025 Desk of the Dean

Springtime in Atkinson Hall is one of the busiest times of the year. Our student organizations, honor societies, and clubs are busy hosting events, and making a difference both on and off campus. We held our much anticipated open house for the new Bobcat Trading Room and Bobcat Board Room. We invite you to stop by and take a look in Atkinson, you might think you're on Wall Street!

We also have many student competitions in the spring, including the Venture Capital Challenge, where students compete with 5-minute business pitches for cash. The Promptathon, also a cash competition organized by our AI Club, is hosting an event with the AI Chat Bot for students to come up with the funniest storylines.

Homecoming week was especially exciting, where we celebrated the contributions of Virgil Miller, the President of Aflac, and GCSU alum from the class of '92 as he earned the College of Business & Technology Alumni Advancement Award. We also celebrated Jeff Wansley ’87 who earned the Alumni Service Award, Alex Gregory ’78, '79 who earned the GCSU Heritage Award, and Pierre Clements ’86, who earned the Trailblazer Dove Award. Read more about the alumni awards in FrontPage.

Many alums stopped by campus to join us for the fun events and activities. We hope you will come to visit during Homecoming next year!

Please join us in congratulating Professor Jehan El-Jourbagy as the recipient of the 2025 Felton Jenkins Jr Hall of Fame Award for excellence in teaching in the State University category! This is a prestigious award from the University System of Georgia.

Professor El-Jourbagy's dedication to student development shines in her innovative teaching methods, which blend community service, professional networking, and hands-on learning into the business ethics and legal curriculum. Her creative approaches, like a Legal Scavenger Hunt linking theory to real-world practice and service-learning projects contributing over 1,700 hours of community service, make her courses practical and impactful. Through study abroad programs, leadership tours, and guest speakers, she creates transformative experiences that prepare students for professional success and nurture them as ethical, community-minded leaders.

The College of Business & Technology has been the home to many of the recent award winners, winning in 2023 (Dr. Joanna Schwartz), 2022 (Dr. Brooke Conaway), and 2019 (Dr. Chris Clark).

If you know someone with a master 's degree in finance, economics, information systems, management, or statistics, please have them apply for a lecturer position on our campus. We are hiring assistant professors in accounting and marketing as well. A terminal degree or ABD is required. Please consider sharing these positions with your network. You can see all positions available at GCSU on the human resources website.

This past month, we hosted many businesses and individuals on our campus and made visits across the state. We appreciate these visits as they provide invaluable real-life learning opportunities for our students. Some who we have worked with this past month include:

• Savannah Cole, from SAP, spoke with our MIS students
• Grant Thornton
• Carr Riggs & Ingram
• Accountants Abigail Hardt, Amelia Bruger, Natalie Waller, Mary Brigid Harding, and Triston Minton
• Derek and Kari Beth Chitwood of Peach State Pride
• Dalton State College
• Dr. Mike Martino, Co-Owner of Bodyplex Milledgeville and entrepreneur who has coached Olympic athletes.

This month, we celebrate the Department of Economics & Finance. I invite you to join me in celebrating our college's recent successes. Please support us in our Alumni Giving Challenge, which takes place April 2-4.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tanya Goette

Interim Dean, Professor of Management Information Systems

The Department of Economics & Finance offers a range of programs designed to prepare students for exciting careers in very high-demand fields.

We offer two majors: a B.S. in Economics and a B.S. in Finance, and three minors in Economics, Finance, and Business Administration. Our degree programs focus on developing analytical reasoning, quantitative skills, and communication skills.

Six CoBT students presented their undergraduate research at the 62nd Conference of the Academy of Economics and Finance in Pensacola, FL. The students' interview appeared in FrontPage, where you can learn more about the experience. A number of faculty members also presented their research.

The faculty topics included:

• Using Simulations to Assess the Effectiveness of Emergency Funds, Brent Evans
• Cakeonomics: Let Them Eat Cake, Chris Clark & Jessie Folk
• Recruiting via the Core: A Nontraditional Introduction to Economic Thinking, Brooke Conaway, John Swinton & Christopher Clark
• Balancing the Books: How Competence Shapes Objectivity and Independence of Thought, Thomas Frye & Eddie Thomas
• Property Values and Property Appraiser Elections, Cullen Wallace
  
  

The students presented on:

• Does the STOCK Act Affect Corruption? Michaeline Schmeelk
• Do Quantitative Easing Policies Affect Sectoral Abnormal Returns, Joe Dubsky
• Waiting Game: Economic Impact of Divorce Delays, Samuel Kinney & Brooke Conaway
• Does the Use of Hormonal Contraceptives Affect Risky Behavior? Isabel DeFelice
• Does Having Multiple Sexual Partners Affect Happiness? Solomon Ashu
• Does Military Service Affect Income in Artistic Careers? Steven Hershberger

• Dr. Brent Evans was featured in a recent WABE article and radio story on a proposal to eliminate state taxes on Name, Image, and Likness (NIL) contracts.
• Dr. Brent Evans hosted the event, "Investing is Easy" with the GCSU Honors College.
• Dr. Leng Ling presented a paper titled "Female Leadership, Attractiveness, and Corporate Philanthropy" at the 2025 Southwestern Finance Association conference in San Antonio, TX.

My GCSU journey began in 2011, when I enrolled as a freshman. I graduated in May 2015 with a B.S. in Economics and a minor in Finance. I attended Florida State University, graduating with a PhD in 2020, and then joined GCSU as a faculty member in the fall of 2020. I teach Principles of Microeconomics as well as upper-level economics courses covering the intersection of economics and government. In 2023, I was awarded the Laurie Hendricks McMillan Faculty Award for excellence in teaching, research, and service.

I truly enjoy working with our superb economics majors and faculty. Our students are very talented and ambitious, which makes teaching them even more rewarding, and our department faculty foster and maintain a high standard of excellence in the classroom. One of the most rewarding elements of my time at GCSU has been the creation of a study-abroad program, discussing capitalism and communism in Germany, the perfect setting for such a course. Dr. Alex Scarcioffolo (Denison University) and I initially led the program in 2023, and Dr. Brent Evans and I are leading a second iteration this summer. Outside of the classroom, I have seven peer-reviewed publications, many focusing on child welfare and adoption.

Mackenzie Yaeger's career journey is a masterclass in bold pivots and calculated risks, taking her from the charming streets of Milledgeville to the complex world of global privacy law.

Can you tell me a little bit about your career path?

I graduated from Georgia College with a B.A. in economics in 2014 and continued my educational journey at the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 2017. After finishing law school, I moved back to Georgia to start my career at the law firm King & Spalding. After nearly four years of practicing corporate finance law, I realized this was not an area of law I could see myself specializing in long term. Despite my fear of starting over in a new practice area, I pushed myself to take the risk. I joined EY’s U.S. firm as in-house commercial and privacy counsel and quickly realized it was the right move for me. After discovering my passion for privacy, I made this my full time focus at EY and was able to quickly advance to become Deputy Chief Privacy Counsel for the U.S. However, I decided I wanted to transition into a more global role, which is how I ended up at Vialto Partners, my current company where I now work as a global privacy counsel.

How did studying economics prepare you for corporate law?

Although economics may not seem like the obvious choice for someone interested in pursuing law, I’ve always felt it was the perfect foundation for my career. Economics challenges you to look beyond the surface. The analytical mindset that comes with an economics degree is very helpful, and I think this is why economics majors actually tend to do quite well on the LSAT.

What are some of the highlights you have from studying at Georgia College?

I look back on my time at Georgia College fondly. Although I devoted a lot of time to my education, I was also intentional in making sure I took advantage of the many other benefits that Georgia College has to offer. I was a member of Gamma Sigma Sigma, a national service sorority, which allowed me to give back to the community while also allowing me to make incredible friendships I still maintain today – in fact, my “little” from Gamma Sigma Sigma was actually a bridesmaid in my wedding!

What advice do you have for undergraduate students?

Don’t be afraid to take risks. It would have been easy for me to continue on with my corporate finance legal career, but had I not taken that chance, I would have never discovered my interest in privacy law. It can be daunting to feel like you’re starting from scratch, but it can also end up leading you on an extremely fulfilling and rewarding journey that makes the risk worth it. Don’t get so comfortable that you’re afraid to be uncomfortable.

Anything else you'd like to mention about your time at GCSU?

Take advantage of being in a class of thirty instead of three hundred. Also, if you get to know your professors, they will help you. I still remember the assignments from Dr. Conaway's Controversial Economics class. Dr. Clark actually wrote one of my letters of recommendation for law school. Many of my professors – including Dr. Clark, Dr. Arias, and Dr. Conaway – really shaped my experience at GCSU and made me feel confident that majoring in economics was the right choice.

• Beta Alpha Psi visited the several firms in Atlanta as well as the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts (DoAA). At the DoAA and spent time with Kristina Turner, GCSU Alum and our Business Executive in Residence in September. She'll also be speaking at our Executive Forum.
• Beta Alpha Psi visited Georgia Military College, Peachtree Ridge High School, and Sugar Hill Elementary to share more about the accounting profession with elementary and secondary school students. These students' efforts have put us on the path to achieve the goal of Silver Status with Beta Alpha Psi this May.
• Beta Alpha Psi also initiated 24 new members. This brings our membership to over 50 members - the largest the organization has been in our chapter's history.
• Beta Alpha Psi is hosting a business writing skills event on March 25 with a focus on common writing mistakes made in the field of accounting.

• Dr. Juan Ling is featured in "Professor Spotlight", a new segment in the GC student newspaper The Colonnade.

• The annual IS/CS Professionalism Etiquette dinner, sponsored by the IT Advisory Board, is Thursday, March 13.

• Our students from the 2024 and 2025 study abroad in Germany presented at the Halle Foundation on Design Thinking. The students presented on the project from last summer as well as the project they will be doing this summer. The Halle Foundation grant supports our students in their travel to work with the students at the University of Muenster.

The MBA at Georgia College & State University offers professionals the opportunity to earn an AACSB accredited online MBA degree without interruption to their work and personal lives. The affordable program ($23,000 total) has been established since 2001. The accelerated format allows you to finish in 20 months. Apply today!