(Posted June 6, 2019)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. – Juniata College’s Tau Pi Phi team traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, April 5 and 6 to participate in the 2019 Tau Pi Phi Case Competition, where the two-person team of Spencer Korman ’20 and Chloe Nhi Doan ’19 placed third in their section. 

Korman is a rising senior studying economy and finance and Doan is a recent graduate who earned a degree marketing communication.

“It’s a pretty stiff challenge, you’re going up against the best students from these other schools,” says Randy Rosenberger, professor of economics and business administration, as well as governor of the College’s Tau Pi Phi chapter. “I think it’s a great chance to compete hard against students from other places.”

Tau Pi Phi is a National Honor Society for the College’s ABE (Accounting, Business, and Economics) department. The department votes juniors and seniors with a GPA of 3.2 or above into Tau Pi Phi.

This year’s competition included Tau Pi Phi chapters from Juniata College, Capital University, the University of Mount Union, Heidelberg University, and Marietta College. Tau Pi Phi has six teams in total, but Wittenberg University was unable to compete this year.

“It puts the analytical and decision-making skills you learn in business classes to practical use,” says Korman.

Teams compete in both two-person and three-person groups and the competition is broken up into two rounds. The first day of competition, students are given a business case and four hours to prepare a presentation that identifies problems and recommended solutions. They then present their findings to three independent judges, with a short question and answer period afterward. The second day, students are given only two and one-half hours to prepare a presentation for a new case.

“The case competition was an opportunity and a challenge that I pushed myself to take on to discover whether a career in consulting is what I would like to do”, says Doan. “I walked out of the competition feeling accomplished because I had learned so much in just two days. Being able to bathe myself for hours in the real-world cases, consult with a teammate majoring in a different field than mine, and receive enormous support from the accounting, business and economics professors were the most valuable experience that I very much treasure.”

--written by Nathan Woods ‘19--

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.