April 13 , 2007

On March 30th five participating schools, including Wittenberg, rolled into Springfield ready to compete in the Tau Pi Phi Case Competition hosted by Wittenberg University. Three Witt management students and faculty advisor, Dr. Wendy Gradwohl, planned and executed the event. Cari Gronowski, senior and project leader, stated, “Working on this WittCAM project was definitely a learning experience. I feel as though my group worked really well together, which helped with the success of this year’s competition. All of the advisors and judges who participated commented on what a great job we did, which really is what our group was working towards. This experience really helps you grasp teamwork, communication, and success.”

Dr. Gradwohl commented, “I am extremely proud of the project team.  For the past seven months they have worked together as a high performing team, and all of their hard work and persistence paid off this past weekend.  They were well prepared for any issue that arose during the competition, but they also had fun.  I’ve enjoyed working with them.”

The students conducted work outside the classroom such as marketing the competition to other universities, making hotel reservations, scheduling presentation rooms and obtaining the proper equipment, contracting the Courtyard Marriott catering services to provide the banquet dinner, contacting local business professionals to participate as judges, purchasing awards for the winners as well as providing gift bags to each participant.

Suzanne Thompson, a junior, commented, “I thought the competition went very well this year.  The Marriott was extremely helpful throughout the weekend and all around to help make this competition a success!  The team worked very well together throughout thepast 6 months, and I feel like all of our planning helped this past weekend run smoothly.”

Zack Bitzer, also a senior management major states his feelings on being a part of the WittCAM project, “Working with Dr. Gradwohl was a wonderful experience, it was nice to work with a professor outside of the classroom. I think our group not only achieved a lot, but we had a very unique group dynamic.”

Cari Gronowski ‘07

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