Goodman School of Business wins prestigious competition title

Goodman School of Business students celebrate with their trophies after arriving back at Brock University from winning School of the Year at the 2017 JDC Central competition in Ottawa.

One of the most coveted trophies in Canadian university business competitions has a new home: Brock University’s Goodman School of Business.

Goodman students captured the top-prize School of the Year award in Ottawa on Sunday, Jan. 8 at the JDCC case competition, which is central Canada’s largest undergraduate business school competition with 700 students from 12 institutions in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes.

When the bus carrying Team Goodman pulled on to the St. Catharines campus late Monday afternoon, the 40-plus students spilled out proudly carrying their new trophy.

JDCC, often dubbed the “business school Olympics,” is actually three days of exhaustive competitions encompassing academic cases in eight fields of business, parliamentary style debates, sports tournaments, social competitions and charity contributions.

Goodman students took first place for both finance and marketing, as well as the all-encompassing Academic Cup. They also placed second in sports, debate, international business and entrepreneurship, and finished third in the participation and Management Information Systems events.

The School of the Year award takes all aspects of the competition into consideration and includes volunteer hours and the nearly $1,200 raised in funds for charity by the team.

“We are so proud of our students’ successes,” said Goodman School of Business Interim Dean Barry Wright.

“These results are a true testament to the hard work and perseverance they have put forward over the past semester. We are honoured to hold this title and to have others recognize their passion, excellence and Goodman spirit as well,” he said.

Brock’s 2017 School of the Year victory comes after the prize had been won for seven consecutive years by another Ontario university.

Under the guidance of team captain Dan Giddings (BBA ’16), the Goodman team was well-supported by staff, faculty and alumni who devoted hours to preparing students for the competition. Faculty members Eric Dolansky, Wesley Helms, Teju Herath, Barbara Sainty, Glenn Skrubbeltrang, Lewis Stevenson and Peter Yannopoulos, and staff and alumni members Brittany Smith and Alyssa Freeman, coached teams and the final results prompted a steady stream of tweets from proud Goodman graduates, many of whom also dedicated many coaching hours last semester.

Goodman graduates and JDC Central veterans Sohail Ahmed, Sean Bouwers, Julia Chiarelli, Scott Darlow, Bryan Dizon, James Fioretti, Matt Leslie, Zurain Malik, Anthony Marotta, Jordan Menchella, James Riley Osler Percheson, Brittany Smith, Dayna Stephenson, Derek Visser and Aqib Zia all supported this year’s Goodman JDCC team by devoting some of their weekends last semester to the cause.

A celebration will be held to honour the big win Thursday, Jan. 12 from noon to 1 p.m. in the Cairns Atrium.

Light refreshments will be provided.

All are welcome to attend and celebrate the team’s success.