The Great Flood of 2011

This week has been one for the record books. On Monday, the University closed at 3:30 due to flooding streets. This is my 13th year with the University and it's never closed for rain. Several area streets were closed due to high water. All of the rivers had overflowed their banks. My children were stuck at school. Their buses didn't run and my husband had to go pick them up. When we got home, we had water in our basement. Not bad but he had to get outside and redirect the flowing water that was coming down the hill behind our house. Many, many people had significant damage. Northwest Arkansas made the national news and we were on the Today show on Tuesday morning. It was quite dangerous; many rescues had to be made either due to flooded homes or cars that became stalled while trying to drive through water that was too high.

This is the field across the road from my house. I have never been able to see the river from my house. It is out of eye sight. However, on Monday night it looked like I lived across the road from a lake. Here are before and after pictures.






Tornadoes also tore through the south this week. Significant damage and several fatalities have resulted in Arkansas and Alabama. However, today is beautiful. The sun is shining and it's about 70 degrees right now. My son has a baseball game tonight. It's his first game; all of his games last week and earlier this week were cancelled because of the rain.

Tomorrow is my daughter's 14th birthday. I can't believe it; time goes by so fast. She wants our family to go to Fast Lanes in Rogers. They have laser tag, bowling, go carts, video games, etc. It should be a lot of fun.

Dominating the Governor's Cup - AGAIN

As you may remember, the Walton graduate teams swept (winning 1st, 2nd, and 3rd) the Donald W. Reynolds Small Business Plan Competition last year. We learned this year's results yesterday and once again, we did very well. Here is the governor.


cycleWood Solutions, LLC won the elevator pitch (they are undefeated in this category), won the agricultural award, and took first place. To learn more, read Nhiem's blog.



Our other team, TiFiber, LLC placed second.





Both teams will advance to the tri-state competition in Las Vegas in May. The top two finishers from Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Nevada will face off to determine the regional winner.

cycleWood Solutions, LLC and TiFiber, LLC competed earlier this week at the Rice University Business plan competition.

cycleWood Solutions won fourth place taking home $9,000 with prizes from Murphree Venture Partners, $2500 Best Sales and Marketing Award from ContentActive / Houston Business Journal and Austin Ventures best elevator pitch for $1000. cycleWood is developing a lignin-based plastic, XyloBag, which functions like a regular plastic bag but decomposes within 150 days of exposure to bacteria found in natural environments.

TiFiber took home sixth place overall for $18,500 with $3000 from Fulbright & Jaworski as well as the $15,000 Robert A. & Virginia Heinlein Trust Prize. TiFiber holds an exclusive license to prepare Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) into nano-fibers for use in filtration systems, aerospace, thermoplastics, textiles, and medical applications.

These two teams beat teams from Carnegie Mellon, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, BYU, University of Chicago, Georgia Institute of Technology, London Business School, and the list goes on. For more information, visit:
http://www.alliance.rice.edu/alliance/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=128.

The Walton College truly dominates the field of business plan competitions.

First Round MBA decisions

The MBA admissions committee met on Monday. Results are as follows:

MBA
55 applications were reviewed
24 were offered admission
average GMAT = 652
average GPA = 3.38
average age = 26

Letters are going out tomorrow. Final application deadline is September 15 and this class will be 35-40. Application requirements can be found at http://gsb.uark.edu/admissions.asp. ALL FUNDING HAS BEEN AWARDED FOR THE MBA CLASS THAT WILL BEGIN IN JANUARY 2012!

MMBA
42 applications were reviewed
31 were offered admission
average GMAT = 590
average GPA = 3.28
average age = 31

Applications will be received through July 1. This class will be 55-60.

Briefly Back in the Office

I was in the office on Monday, April 4. Then on the 5th I was in Arkadelphia for a career fair at Henderson State and OBU. On Wednesday I was off to Pine Bluff and then on Thursday, it was ATU. Today I am back in the office - briefly. I assisted most of the day with an Open House that was held by the UofA's Grad School. I have also been working on MBA files.

Monday is our MBA admissions committee meeting. The first round of MBA offers will go out, hopefully by Friday, April 15th. The first round of offers will also be made for the Walton Managerial MBA (MMBA). Applications are being accepted for MMBA through July. Class size will be 55-60. Final deadline for MBA is September 15. Those who are wondering what the results are on Monday can email me for the committee's decision. I will try to answer all emails that afternoon but it will depend on how long the committee meeting runs. It may be Tuesday before you receive an email from me.

My traveling is done for the year; well, at least until September when the fall career fairs will begin. This semester is nearly over. I cannot believe it.