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General

STUDENT-ATHLETE SOARS WITH GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS ELLUMEN AND BOEING

Senior student-athlete Jaida West, and a cohort of her Morgan State University peers, participated in a business case study that will change lives. During the first semester of the 2020 school year, Jaida and fifteen other Graves School of Business undergraduate and graduate students were commissioned to develop best-case recommendations for Maryland-based government contractor, Ellumen, Inc. 

 "One of the biggest challenges in the marketplace is identifying and securing smart creatives," 
says Mary Vogel, President at Ellumen. "We are heavily invested in ensuring the success of the VA's (Veteran Affairs) medical logistics redesign, and the DoD's (Department of Defense) modernization of its medical logistics supply chain system. We reached out to Morgan State to assist us with thinking forward on innovative ways to help with user (employee) adoption and modernization."

Although she's a finance major, Jaida worked primarily with the student group that developed the project's human resources (HR) research and recommendations. 

"It gives me a different lens," Jaida says regarding her decision to work with the HR team over the Marketing team. 

A CASE FOR BUSINESS
Jaida is no stranger to case studies. She has participated in business case competitions with Morgan State before. She has competed with the school of business and with the school of engineering for the Hewlett Packard and AT&T case study competitions, and she impressed multinational company Boeing. She earned an internship with the government contractor, and has been accepted into the company's premiere business rotation program. 

"Jaida was bright and hardworking; involved in a lot, in addition to her sport," says Boeing Senior Manager and 2009 Morgan State graduate, Andrue Abernathy. "We come to college campuses to recruit students at these business case studies—we urge them to apply for internships." Jaida went through her internship with Boeing and earned a Thurgood Marshall Scholarship—which guarantees employment and a two year business rotational position, where every four months she and other junior executives will be rotated to a different location or business unit for growth and exposure.
                                                                    
REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS
The business case study for Ellumen was different in that it was not for competition. Senior management within Ellumen plan to implement the student recommendations into the rollout of their new software solutions. 

"The students researched best practices, as well as offered new, creative solutions on how to encourage individuals and workforces to accept and adapt to change in the workplace," says Dr. Samuel Deal, Program Director for Morgan's Business School's Honors Program. "The result was a presentation to Ellumen personnel that highlighted Human Resource considerations of change management and training, as well as marketing strategies to facilitate the desired change." Jaida was one of the leaders for the HR side of the presentation for the final recommendations to Ellumen executives. 

"Athletics has caused me to become a leader, to work to gel and make things happen regardless of my title," Jaida concluded. Boeing Senior Manager, Andrue Abernathy, also a former Morgan State track & field student-athlete adds, "Being a student-athlete instills discipline. It helped me to focus on education, goals and time management. Those long hours spent in the library and at two-a-day practices prepared me to give 100% to everything."  
                             
VICTORY DESPITE COVID-19 CHALLENGES
Because of the pandemic, everything surrounding the Ellumen project needed to happen remotely.

The students got together via Zoom calls in the evenings after their virtual school classes were complete. They divvied up the work evenly, and met with their respective (Marketing or HR) teams. They then got together as a large group to analyze, discuss, debate and put together their ideas for presentations to Ellumen.  

"Some of the challenges with this project included everything from identifying and assembling available students with appropriate subject matter backgrounds and interests, to working remotely during the pandemic; to coordinating meeting schedules for working graduate students and engaged undergraduate students. They needed to accomplish this all while working through class assignments and Midterm Exams," Dr. Deal concluded. But the final presentation was a success and well received by Ellumen.

"In addition to being innovative, the students brought us ideas that were affordable and practical. 

Motivating trainees to push forward in learning modules with their ideas of introducing gamification into our training was exciting. And the idea of the use of focus groups was also a good proposal," Ellumen executive, Mary Vogel concluded. "This project was important to Ellumen because it gave us an opportunity to partner with a community of people who are fresh thinkers and excited about jumping in and helping. We are looking forward to future opportunities to engage our new Morgan State partners."

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ABOUT MORGAN
Morgan State University, founded in 1867, is a Carnegie-classified doctoral research institution offering more than 126 academic programs leading to degrees from the baccalaureate to the doctorate. As Maryland's Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan serves a multiethnic and multiracial student body and seeks to ensure that the doors of higher education are opened as wide as possible to as many as possible. For more information about Morgan State University, visit www.morgan.edu.





 
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