This past May, a committee of four MBA alumni, two MBA students, and two MBA staff representatives came together to review funding proposals for student projects set for the 2021-22 school year. The funds come from an endowment established by MBA alumni in 2005—the MBA Alumni Endowed Excellence Fund (MAEEF). This yearly awarding process is the most direct way that alumni invest in students and the legacy of the MBA program.

This year the committee awarded $35,000 to support a wide variety of projects:

MBA Africa Connect is a team of four McCombs MBAs on a mission to cultivate a sense of pride and belonging in the African American community. The group plans to accomplish this through business and culture-focused observation tours to Africa to help bridge the economic and professional divide between Africa and its diaspora. They have established partnerships with firms in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. The firms have identified business challenges and MAC has created cohorts of MBAs to ideate and collaboratively work to solve these business cases. The cohorts will present their final recommendations on these solutions to partner firms’ C-Suite executives. The objective of these multi-national working groups is to demystify doing business in Africa.

The Health Innovation Fellows and the MBA Healthcare Association will use the funds to continue the Texas MBA branded healthcare case competition in tandem with the Dell Medical School. Hosting this competition on for a third year will continue to elevate the prominence of the McCombs School of Business as a healthcare destination for students and companies alike as well as further enable our partnership with Dell Medical School. Furthermore, this case competition provides valuable experience to students who are looking for healthcare focused internships, while also allowing them greater access to networking opportunities. This case competition requires continued funding to get it off the ground and elevate its stature in the local healthcare community as we continue to grow the competition to eventually be self-sustaining with corporate sponsors in future years.

The Plug N Chug plan aims to host a happy hour for first years, second years, partners, faculty, and administration each Thursday in the lobby of Rowling Hall to increase engagement between cohorts and classes. This name was inspired by the group’s 1Y Intro to Finance professor, Dean Hahn, who often describe our homework solutions as “plug and chug.” Funding will help them to create a family-friendly event that is accessible to all and does not take place at a bar – currently, nothing like this exists on campus (even prior to COVID-19 restrictions).

The Graduate Entrepreneurship Society has been revived to become The Graduate Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club (‘The Club’) in 2019-20 and the leadership team for 2021-22 wants to expand and sharpen this vision by fostering a community for all types of entrepreneurs including those who have or intend to have their own company, those who want to share ideas and brainstorm with others, and those who want to join an early-stage start-up, a venture capital firm, and/or something in a related field. They strive to help build founders and innovators at Texas McCombs.

The First-Generation MBA Mentorship Program will match current MBA candidates with first-generation, undergraduate students at UT Austin who have an interest in pursuing an MBA in the future. The students will receive academic and career advice from their mentor, engage in team-building programming with other mentees, and be encouraged to observe MBA classes.

The McCombs Sports, Entertainment, Media Association (SEMA)experienced a decline in overall campus presence during the 2020-21 academic year, with a drop in active members and in-person events. Our goal is to reverse this trend by hosting the largest ever SEMA Symposium on Friday, September 24, 2021 at Rowling Hall. Hosting a marquee event like this will revitalize the organization and create networking opportunities for students interested in pursuing careers in sports and entertainment.