Winter 2023

Christi Branscom: Called to Serve

Serving her fellow Tennesseeans comes naturally for Christi Branscom (HCB, ’87). She answered the call to public service first at the City of Knoxville and then in the executive branch of the state government, bringing a wealth of experience from her background in real estate and law.

Leading Accounting in Medicine

“My accounting degree from Haslam has opened doors of opportunity in healthcare, allowing me to gain experience in many areas, from internal auditing to financial reporting and investor relations, at both small and large companies.” — MIKE COGGIN

A Passion for Community

Community made a tremendous difference in Clarence Vaughn’s life. As director of the Office of Diversity and Community Relations at the Haslam College of Business, he wants to pass on that blessing to others. Starting off on a rocky path, he was expelled from high school but with a supportive community of family and friends around him, he enrolled in junior college. After transferring to Florida A&M, he ultimately graduated with honors.

In This Issue

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Full Magazine

13th Annual Gala Alumni Awards

‘Top Gun’ in Real Life: Meet the Vol Who Trained Tom Cruise in Fighter Jets

Driving Dollywood Forward

Windham Taylor: The Adventure of a Lifetime

Fully Engaged The Role of Diversity & Inclusion

Home Ownership and the Racial Wealth Gap

Building Toward The Future

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Thought Leadership

Supply Chain Brain

“Demand for industrial CO2 continues to increase, causing producers to seek better ways of recapturing and recycling the gas. But smaller entities, in particular the growing number of craft brewers, can’t easily afford the technology and equipment needed to do that. Supplies of CO2 will continue to be tight over the next two to three years, and manufacturers should consider diversifying their sourcing to keep pace with demand.”

John Bell - Daniel & Karen Myers Faculty Scholar; Nancy & David McKinney Faculty Research Fellow; John “Red” Dove Professor of Supply Chain Management

Wall Street Journal

"The first step in solving the problem is to appoint an executive responsible for the end-to-end returns process. And then a company needs to measure both customer satisfaction and the detailed cost of returns."

Alan Amling - Distinguished Fellow, Global Supply Chain Institute

Thomas Goldsby - Co-Executive Director, Global Supply Chain Institute; Dee & Jimmy Haslam Chair in Logistics

Salon

“While it is an unpopular strategy, it helps when retailers place purchase quantity limits on consumers at the store shelf. In the longer term, state and federal governments can choose to get involved, if they wish, by providing purchase commitments to manufacturers and distributors that would encourage suppliers to make the big investments required to up their capacity.”

Thomas Goldsby - Co-Executive Director, Global Supply Chain Institute; Dee & Jimmy Haslam Chair in Logistics

Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog

“Our findings suggest that director-specific attributes are important drivers of value, are related to good decision-making, and should be considered when establishing and assessing policy.”

Matthew Serfling - Clayton Homes Chair of Excellence in Finance, Associate Professor, and Finance Ph.D. Program Co-Director

Dipesh Bhattarai

Tracie Woidtke - David E. Sharp/Home Federal Bank Professor in Banking & Finance, Charlie & Carolyn Newcomer Faculty Research Fellow, and Department Head

Harvard Business Review

“To increase trust with your trading partners, start by looking at cultural fit and selecting the appropriate sourcing business model. And don’t underestimate the power of making a strategic choice to consciously build trust.”

Kate Vitasek - Distinguished Fellow, Global Supply Chain Institute

WalletHub

“Remember that credit cards are a package of several costs and benefits. The biggest is the convenience of making payments, but the fee structure and incentives can be important. Cards that have no late fees sound good, but if a cardholder usually pays on time, then he or she might prefer a card with bigger discounts…The important thing is to pick a card that matches your spending and paying patterns.”

Ramon DeGennaro - HCB Professor of Banking and Finance

The Hill

“There’s no excuse for demand variability, and yet there are shortages. There has been a significant increase in the demand for these feminine care products in the last several months.”

Wendy Tate - McCormick Endowed Professorship; William J. Taylor Professor; Haslam Family Faculty Research Fellow

The Tennessean

“The country’s aging and the population is not renewing itself in ways it has in the past, and we’ve largely shut down our immigration system,” said Marianne Wanamaker, executive director of University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. "The labor shortage we're experiencing doesn't have any obvious solution other than a recession."

Marianne Wanamaker - George A. Spiva Scholar, Kinney Family Faculty Research Fellow, Associate Professor, and Fellow, and Global Supply Chain Institute

New Faculty

The Haslam College of Business continues to bolster its strong roster of diverse, elite faculty, welcoming 30 new members who bring decades of experience in industry as well as in the classroom. The faculty growth joins Haslam’s efforts to keep pace with record-setting enrollment.

Sources of Funds

Growth is the story in Haslam College of Business. We welcomed almost 2,000 freshman to our college in Fall of 2023. The largest freshman class in the history of the college. At the same time, 27 new faculty call the college home. Our faculty continued to make positive impacts on our community by offering many of the traditional face-to-face courses in an hybrid / online classroom, as well as, ramping up our face to face delivery. Revenues continued to grow and be reinvested into the infrastructure and support of our student experience. Private philanthropy remains an important funding source allowing the college to implement new programming, expand current offerings and support our students in their time here at the Haslam College of Business. Increasing private philanthropy, launching successful new programs that attract additional students and controlling our costs are always important, and particularly so as we strive to protect access given the economic realities facing our students and their families.

— BETSY ADAMS, ASSISTANT DEAN OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION