“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always be where you’ve always been.” —T.D. Jakes

Over the course of the last seven months, we have all been stretched to learn and adapt to our new COVID environment. During these extraordinary times, we have had to learn to be agile and more technology savvy, and to operate in a world of unknowns while attempting to keep all of our personal and professional “trains on the tracks.”

While at times it is challenging and even painful, we have had to keep our heads up and continue to forge through for the sake of our students, one another, the College and our Lady on the Dome. And if I may say so myself, we have done a damn good job at all of it … but I challenge you to do more!

Much like a good fitness plan, our growth and development is never “done.” It’s not a box that can ever be fully checked. Instead, we continue to build skills, grow stronger and find new opportunities to develop further. So while there has been a great peak in our professional and personal learning this year, as Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” We have to be creative in our roadmaps and seek new kinds of learning opportunities, especially during these unusual times of remote work and minimal budget availability.

As you are working on your annual plans, goals, and objectives and key results (OKRs), I want to encourage to you to be selfish and intentionally consider your own professional growth and development during this time. I invite you to consider some of the many options available to you at no cost as a Mendoza and University employee:

Winter Term Development Program
While there is never truly any quiet time (though many of our friends/family often assume we all have our summers “off”), the halls of Mendoza and our undergraduate students’ needs should be a bit quieter in December and January this year. In an effort to create an opportunity for community building, engagement and professional development, I am currently formulating a plan to create a Winter Term Development Program to be executed in mid-late January.

The program will consist of the following opportunities:

In an effort to ensure our content is most meaningful, I am seeking your input in advance. Please complete the Winter Term Professional Development survey by Friday, October 23.

Non-Degree Online Courses
Earlier this year, we communicated that Mendoza faculty and staff would have the exclusive opportunity to utilize our online non-degree certificate programs at no cost through Bisk, our third-party learning provider, which markets and administers a host of online learning certificates on our behalf. While we have recently determined that we will not be renewing our current contract with Bisk beyond September of 2021, there are still some courses that will remain available to faculty and staff in the coming months.

You will find a listing of all of the available non-degree online courses for the remainder of the Bisk relationship here. If you are interested in applying for an online course, please complete this form. All applications will be reviewed by Executive Education and the Dean’s Office based on the criteria identified and timing of submitted application.

Think ND
ThinkND is designed to help easily access free online learning opportunities from across the University. They have partnered with distinguished faculty at Mendoza along with others from Arts and Letters, The College the Science, College of Engineering, School of Architecture, The Law School, Keough School of Global Affairs as well as the Graduate School and the many centers, institutes and departments on campus to bring a digital learning experience through talks, podcasts and other series. Visit ThinkND to view the talks, podcasts and webinar series available.

Other University Resources
While many of our professional development and training programs offered through the University look a little different now, there are many outstanding programs available.

Employee Resources Group Educational Opportunities:

While 2020 has thrown us all quite the curve ball, I believe we will all look back at this as a time of amazing growth and learning. Thank you for all you have continued to do to put one another, our current and prospective students and our stakeholders first. Now it’s time to give yourself the same care and attention that you give to others.

In Notre Dame,

Kara

Kara J. Palmer
Director of Administration

Many of you had the opportunity last fall to hear Tom Mendoza (ND ’73) speak as part of the 2019 Dean’s Lecture Series. I received many comments about how engaging and inspiring Tom was, especially in talking about ethical leadership in the tech industry.

I’m excited to announce that we are launching a new series — this time, hosted by Tom, who during his 24-year tenure with tech startup NetApp rose to the position of vice chairman and was considered instrumental in the development of the company’s corporate culture and its global recognition as one of Forbes’ “Great Places to Work.”

Tom Mendoza Presents will feature Tom’s conversations with top business executives about their journey to success, what they learned along the way in forging great companies that have positive social and environmental impact as well as financial performance, and their advice to students and professionals as they build their careers. During this academic year, the events will be held as webinars facilitated by ND Studios.

I encourage you to join the webinars, as well as to ask your students to attend for those who teach. It’s a great opportunity to hear first-hand from leaders at the forefront of tech investing and innovation.

The speakers include:

October 16, 11 a.m. EST: Carl Eschenbach, partner at Sequoia Capital investing, which is considered one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capital firm. Eschenbach focuses on infrastructure technologies, cloud and SaaS investments. He is a director of Armis, Aurora, Cohesity, Gong, Palo Alto Networks, Snowflake, ThousandEyes, UiPath, Workday and Zoom. Eschenbach has 30 years of high-tech industry experience including infrastructure software, networking, telephony and storage.

November 6, 1 p.m. EST: Jayshree Ullal, president and CEO of computer networking company Arista Networks, who is responsible for Arista’s business and strategic leadership in cloud networking. Ullal led the company to a historic and successful IPO in June 2014 and its entry into the S&P 500 in 2018. With more than three decades of networking and executive experience, she is the recipient of numerous awards including Barron’s 2018 “World’s Best CEOs” and Fortune’s 2019 “Top 20 Business Persons.”

You can register for the webinars (and find more information) at Tom Mendoza Presents or by contacting Jean Meade (Jean.Meade@nd.edu).

On another topic, I want to let you know that, unfortunately, we will not be holding the annual Mendoza Christmas Party for faculty and staff this year due to safety considerations regarding social distancing and large gatherings as well as continuing budget restrictions. I know this is deeply disappointing. The occasion is a cherished Mendoza tradition that we all — including myself and my family — very much enjoy. 

I’m glad that the University announced that all staff members are being given six additional paid holiday days, which will begin with a paid day off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (November 25) followed later by an extended Christmas break from Monday, December 21, through Tuesday, January 5. Even though we won’t be able to celebrate as a community as we have in the past, I hope these additional days will allow you to rest and enjoy time with your loved ones during the holidays.

I echo the words of provost Marie Lynn Miranda and executive vice president Shannon Cullinan — you have worked tirelessly and with amazing commitment during the past six months. I’m thankful for your heroic efforts.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn 

Our faculty continues to publish research in top-tier journals at a robust rate. I am pleased to highlight several faculty members’ recent success:

Peter Kelly
Assistant Professor of Finance
Earnings Announcement Return Extrapolation
Review of Accounting Studies (Forthcoming)

The researchers show that extrapolative beliefs are an important ingredient for explaining return patterns and investor behavior around earnings announcements (EAs). Stocks expected to have high EA returns according to their new extrapolation measure experience predictable increases in prices before EAs and predictable decreases afterward (consistent with over-extrapolation). Additionally, the research offers evidence that individual and institutional investors hold extrapolative beliefs before earnings announcements based on past earnings announcement returns.

Katie Wowak
Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
"Hiding in the Herd: The Product Recall Clustering Phenomenon"
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (Forthcoming)

The research finds that product recalls in the automobile industry occur in clusters, which are a collection of recalls within close temporal proximity in which a leading recall (the first recall in a cluster) by one firm excites following recalls (subsequent recalls in a cluster) by competitor firms. Over a 48-year period (1966-2013), 73% of recalls announced during that time occurred in recall clusters. Additionally, leading recalls are associated with as high as a 67% larger stock market penalty than following recalls.

Ahmed Abbasi
Joe and Jane Giovanini Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
"TheoryOn: A Design Framework and System for Unlocking Behavioral Knowledge Through Ontology Learning"
MIS Quarterly

Analysts and researchers are increasingly dealing with a data deluge that impacts coverage and precision while retrieving information. When manually processing large volumes of scientific research and/or technical documents, these knowledge inaccessibility and inaccuracy issues are especially pronounced. Building on recent advances in text analytics, the researchers designed and developed a machine learning framework to aid analysts and researchers in their information seeking process. Through a series of experiments, they show that the proposed framework can significantly improve the quality, completeness and speed of information retrieved by expert users. This work is part of a research stream on human-centered text analytics that recently won the INFORMS Design Science Award.

Mike Mannor
John F. O'Shaughnessy Associate Professor of Family Enterprise
Management & Organization
"Keep Your Eye on the Ball or the Field? Exploring the Performance Implications of Executive Strategic Attention"
Academy of Management Journal (August 2020)

For CEOs managing complex organizations in a rapidly changing world, it can be hard to decide how to focus their strategic attention. This research, a collaboration between Mike Mannor and a former Notre Dame MBA student, finds that performance is strongest when CEOs adapt the breadth of their attention to align with the quantity and quality of opportunities in the current market, and their organization’s recently demonstrated ability to convert opportunities into results.

Yixing Chen
Assistant Professor of Marketing
"Improving Cancer Outreach Effectiveness Through Targeting and Economic Assessments"
Journal of Marketing (May 2020)

What should health care institutions do to boost cancer screening rates while saving more money for the health care system? Combining machine learning and a large-scale field experiment, this NIH-sponsored study recently published in the Journal of Marketing develops a personalized outreach program that can simultaneously improve liver cancer screening rates by up to 24 percentage points and return on outreach program by up to 96%.

Please join me in congratulating these colleagues contributing new knowledge to their fields and advancing the reputation of Mendoza through their research.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn