Written by Aerial Whiting
The College of Business Administration hosted its inaugural Faith and Business Symposium Nov. 5-6, which involved a series of lectures delivered by 13 alumni the first day and a COBA alumni reunion the second day.Among the symposium speakers were CEOs, managing directors, a retired partner from an equity investment firm who serves on the Pepperdine University board and others, and a senior clinical specialist from Genentech, a company considered to be the founder of the biotechnology industry. The alumni spoke on such topics as “Emerging Issues in Healthcare Reform,” “Christian Leadership in IT Project Management” and “Company Values: How Good Business Practices Relate to Value Creation.”COBA classes were canceled the day of the lecture series, but in their place business students were required to attend some of the presentations. However, many students attended more than the required number of lectures and all of the lectures were well attended, according to Dean of the College of Business Administration Bryan Burks, who also said he thought the Faith and Business Symposium was a success.”For the first time to pull off this event, it went extremely well,” Burks said. “The students seemed to be excited about it ahead of time, and I have received a lot of positive feedback from [our students]. The speakers were excited coming in, and as they left just kept telling us … how much they enjoyed it, how much they enjoyed getting in front of our students and meeting them … and helping them out. And our students loved that.”Burks said the symposium achieved two goals. One goal was to allow the alumni to engage with students. The other was to show students examples of people who combine faith and business in their lives.”The goal of this day was to bring in … someone who does live a Christian business life, someone who truly integrates their faith with their business, and let them be an example for our students to follow,” Burks said.
