University of Houston-Victoria students Angela Buttacavoli, Timothy Minor and Mandy Gerik received top honors at the fall 2006 MBA Conference, held Saturday, December 2, at the University of Houston System at Cinco Ranch in Katy, Texas. Seventy-three UHV students participated in the conference, in which Hannu Rouhaininen, Mark Voss and Julio Idrovo placed second and Vicki Le, Kristy Hennessey, Kraig Warren and Sam Shah placed third. Held for the first time in December 2003, the MBA Conference is the culmination of the MBA program. Students enrolled in Seminar in Strategic Management, the capstone course of the program, attend the event, which includes a social in their honor. “Participation in this conference has increased each year we’ve hosted it,” noted SoBA Dean Charles Bullock. “That’s partly due to record enrollment in academic programs at UHV, but it’s also reflective of our efforts to provide integrated and comprehensive curricula to our students.” Central to the MBA Conference is the case competition, which provides MBA students with the opportunity to apply what they have learned in the MBA program to real-world business situations. Teams participating in the competition this fall prepared original business case analyses on Nucor, the largest steel producer in the United States. The teams are evaluated on several criteria, including organization, subject knowledge, quality and use of visual aids, audience interaction, elocution and teamwork. Because such a large proportion of UHV’s MBA enrollment is now online, students often work in virtual teams, and the MBA Conference represents their first opportunity to meet their classmates. Participants report that the case preparation, presentation experience and the chance to interact with faculty and fellow students make this event worthwhile. “These students are to be commended for their hard work and the resulting impressive presentations,” said UHV President Tim Hudson. “Their achievements and the success of this event exemplify the School of Business Administration’s commitment to preparing students for careers in the domestic and international marketplace.” Many UHV School of Business Administration faculty and MBA program alumni served as panelists for the case competition. Participants in the event included students from Austin, Columbus, Crosby, Cypress, El Campo, Ganado, Houston, Katy, Kenedy, Missouri City, Pearland, Portland, Richmond, Round Rock, Spring, Stafford, Sugar Land, and Victoria, as well as Bogotá, Colombia and Toronto, Ontario. Members of the top three teams received individual certificates, and names of the members of the winning team will appear on a perpetual plaque hung in the UHV School of Business Administration. They will also be invited to serve as panelists at future case competitions. Case conference winners and all MBA and BBA graduates were honored at a reception following fall commencement ceremonies on December 9 at the Katy ISD Merrell Center in Katy. The UH System at Cinco Ranch offers upper division and graduate courses from the four UH System universities: University of Houston, UH-Clear Lake, UH-Downtown and UH-Victoria. Students apply to the university that offers the degree they are seeking and then take courses at the UH System at Cinco Ranch location in Katy. For more information, visit www.cincoranch.uh.edu.