Earlier today, Father John sent an announcement to 2020 graduates, faculty and staff that the University will host a virtual commencement on May 17 in lieu of in-person celebrations, and will host the in-person ceremony for 2020 grads on Memorial Day weekend 2021. I echo his sentiments that this is sad news, but regrettably it is necessary to safeguard everyone’s health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This news follows the announcement on Friday (March 27) by Provost Tom Burish about several important changes to the University’s academic policies. In addition, Mendoza’s College Council adopted similar policies for our graduate programs. Our objective is two-fold: 1) to best accommodate students who face particular difficulties in the new online teaching environment and 2) to provide equitable treatment to all students across our programs.

Briefly, here are highlights of the new grading policies for the 2020 spring semester:

UNDERGRADUATE: The University is adopting a temporary pass/no credit grading. Faculty submit letter grades as usual at the end of the semester. Students view their final grades and then choose whether to accept their letter grades or elect a pass/no credit option, with A through D warranting a pass (P) while an F translates to no credit (NC). Pass and no-credit grades will have no effect on a student’s grade point average and the students can make this choice for any or all of their courses.

MENDOZA’S GRADUATE PROGRAMS: Mendoza also is adopting a pass/no credit option for any graduate student enrolled in the Notre Dame MBA, MSM, MSBA (South Bend and Chicago), MSA, MNA, Executive MNA, and Executive MBA (South Bend and Chicago) programs. (MSF is not currently in session.) The protocol is the same as for the undergraduate students; however, the grade ranges for a passing grade are A through C-. Likewise, Pass and no-credit grades will have no effect on a graduate student’s grade point average and the graduate students can make this choice for any or all of their courses.

Dr. Burish’s message included additional information about changes to student leave of absence policies and extending the faculty tenure and promotion clock by one full year. I encourage you to check the coronavirus.nd.edu website frequently for updates.

As we start another week of online classes, I again want to thank our faculty and staff members who have made the transition go so well. I’ve had a number of student messages passed along to me about the great efforts that faculty members have put into their teaching. Here’s just one example from business analytics major Keagan McLaughlin who wrote a note of thanks to Chad Harms about his “Tiki Time” approach:

“I just wanted to say that was the best thing I have ever seen. You have outdone yourself, and the episode definitely brightened my day during this troubling quarantine.”

Thanks to all of you for your very hard work, creativity and grace.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn

For many of us, this has been our first week of alternative working arrangements, as the pandemic seems more challenging, uncertain, and disruptive every day. There’s still a lot of activity going on, and I’m grateful to all of you for the many ways you have risen above to meet the current challenges.

Three special kudos go to our IT group for helping faculty switch to online teaching, to our Faculty Support group for scanning thousands of pages of course materials for students, and to our Communications group for the many messages conveying the latest news.

Since we are working remotely, it is easy to feel disconnected from your colleagues and the College in general. This is our new normal for the time being, unfortunately. I encourage you to continue to reach out and check on each other, by email, Google hangouts, text or Zoom session — or a phone call — also to just say hello.

We will continue to share information as fully and expediently as possible. The University distributes announcements and updates on coronavirus.nd.edu as decisions are made. I will update you via email if there is information specific to Mendoza that you should know. We also will highlight important news in Mendoza Exchange. And hopefully you received our new College newsletter, Morning Brew, that sends out some lighter side Mendoza “news” on Wednesdays and Fridays.

I want to emphasize that as needs arise, there is help available. Please contact me, Kara Palmer or your direct supervisor to let us know about any concerns or needs.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn 

I have often talked about the three Cs as the pillars of our mission: Contribute, Cooperate, Compete.

In these past days as disruption, uncertainty and social-distancing have overtaken all parts of our lives – personal and professional – three different Cs have been much in evidence: Community, Connection and Compassion.

Despite the challenges we have faced in figuring out how to totally change the way we do our jobs, we have pulled together as a community to share information and learning, and to treat each other with patience and grace while still endeavoring to do our best to serve our students amidst difficult circumstances.

This is what it truly means to compete as the business school of the University of Notre Dame; to serve the most vulnerable among us through contributing and collaborating, even at a time when we ourselves might be the most vulnerable.

To be sure, everything hasn’t gone perfectly and there’s been a lot of stress. But we can draw a measure of comfort in knowing that although we’re “socially distant,” we’re still a community.

I’m thankful to so many of you who have gone above and beyond. Just to name a few: Our IT team led by Chris Fruehwirth has done an amazing job quickly bringing resources online while supporting each one of us with our individual tech questions and needs. Kristen Collett-Schmitt has reached out to coach faculty members (including me) about teaching online, even as she had to teach her own EMBA class online for the first time.

The Chicago EMBA students who participated in their residency online (rather than the campus experience they expected) reacted by organizing a fundraising effort for the Greater Chicago Food Depository to ensure underprivileged school children don’t go hungry.

These are real life examples of how we Grow the Good in Business. They are humbling reminders that we share a meaningful mission and that we can make a difference.

Please continue to share these stories. We will highlight them in Mendoza Exchange.

Please also share your needs. Even though we need to observe the critical social distancing policy, we also should remember that many people in our community stand ready to help each other.

The Mendoza faculty continues to publish research that is highly relevant to our workplaces, financial markets, corporate policies, data management and a wide range of other important topics. Here are a few of our recently published studies:

Robert Battalio, Finance Professor and the William and Cassie Daley Department Chair
Option Investor Rationality Revisited: The Role of Exercise Boundary Violations
Financial Analysts Journal

Our empirical results overturn the well-known textbook theory that American options should not be exercised early except in very limited conditions. In the real world, the best bid available in the market is frequently below the option’s intrinsic value, which we call an “exercise boundary violation” (EBV). In an EBV, early exercise can be the right strategy and the “American” option characteristic has economic value. Our results suggest that actual exercise behavior is much less irrational than earlier studies concluded.

Mike Crant, Mary Jo and Richard M. Kovacevich Professor of Excellence in Leadership Instruction, Management & Organization
Proactive yet reflective? Materializing proactive personality into creativity through job reflective learning and activated positive affective state
Personnel Psychology

Proactive leaders are creative, identifying opportunities and coming up with ideas for a better future. Research has considered this to largely originate from “ah hah!” moments, but our research suggests that proactive ideas are also a function of how deeply people reflect on their successes and failures at work. We refer to this process as job reflective learning, and across two studies we found that the more people think about—and take responsibility for—their successes and failures, the more likely they are to turn their experiences into fresh ideas.
 
Xinxue (Shawn) Qu, Assistant Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations
A Time-Based Dynamic Synchronization Policy for Consolidated Database Systems 
MIS Quarterly

In the age of analytics, data is becoming an increasingly important asset for organizations, which calls for efficient maintenance policies to keep the data up-to-date. This study proposes a maintenance policy for consolidated databases, which evaluates the data staleness level at predetermined checkpoints and run synchronizations only if given staleness thresholds are crossed. The proposed method consistently outperforms existing policies, leading to substantial cost savings.
 
Hal White, Vincent and Rose Lizzadro Endowed Professor of Accountancy
Information Overload and Disclosure Smoothing
Review of Accounting Studies

Companies often release large amounts of information over short periods of time, which can make it difficult for investors to adequately process; i.e., they become overloaded with information. Our research evidence suggests that companies can improve investors’ processing ability by spreading out their disclosures, so they have more time to digest each piece of information. This results in greater stock market benefits, including enhanced liquidity, reduced stock price volatility and more accurate analyst forecasts of the companies’ performance. This evidence helps inform regulators who are looking to combat the negative stock market effects of information overload.
 
Congratulations to these faculty members on their publications!

In Notre Dame,

Martijn