Five University of Lethbridge management students have proven they have what it takes to advise a board of directors how to govern in an ethical and responsible manner, and earned a $10,000 prize for their efforts.
In March 2013, Faculty of Management students Britney Anderson, Sahib Chhatwal, Jaden Evanson, Tasneem Kapacee and Sean Maddocks took first place at the Certified Management Accountants (CMA) and Certified General Accountants (CGA) Alberta’s Board Governance Case Competition in Calgary. The students had six hours to analyse a case about board governance that was based on a fictitious, not-for-profit company and create a presentation with their recommendations. Those presentations were then evaluated by a judging panel of esteemed business leaders.
Case competitions further engage students in the learning process, says management professor
Dr. M. Gordon Hunter. Together with fellow Faculty of Management professors Glen Baker and Bruce Thurston (BASc ’78), as well as accounting student and former case competition participant Eric MacLeod, Hunter coached the U of L team to their win.
“The students learned how to apply their accounting knowledge at a high level within an organization. They took financial data and applied it to board management,” says Hunter.
From a student perspective, case competitions provide opportunities to apply theory and practice.
“We had to do a lot of research on best practices in board management. All of it is applicable in the real world,” says third-year accounting student Evanson, adding that preparing for the competition meant going beyond lessons learned in the classroom.
That opportunity to gain practical experience was also appreciated by Kapacee, a fourth-year accounting student. “I realized the importance of a cohesive team,” she says. “We had to recognize what people brought to the table and play to everyone’s strengths.”