From the June 21, 2011 edition

By Lisa Vernon-Sparks

Journal Staff Writer

With scores of social media sites crowding cyberspace, Kayla Ferria felt that Twitter was just another one out there.

The 20-year-old Bryant University communications student was not alone. Aside from Facebook, Ferria and lots of her classmates didn’t think much of Twitter, much less LinkedIn, as a way to communicate with the world.

Recently, Ferria had a change of heart, especially when she learned the value of creating an online presence at a workshop about personal branding held at the school in the spring.

Read the original Providence Journal article in its entirety:

http://www.projo.com/lifebeat/content/CONNECT_SOCIAL_MEDIA_06-21-11_G9OKL8O_v23.45730.html

But “what’s today’s date,” “who’s the president” and “how do your pupils look” is really not a scientific way to determine traumatic brain injury, whose symptoms may manifest themselves months or years down the road, says Christian Franck, an assistant engineering professor at Brown University. He’s among eight teams that were showcased Thursday for winning collaborative research grants totaling $1.4 million from the state Economic Development Corporation.

Read original article at:

http://www.projo.com/news/content/STAC_GRANTS_2011_02-04-11_UEMA0N0_v28.1af9064.html

By PBN Staff

December 16, 2010

SMITHFIELD – Bryant University has created the “Institute for Public Leadership” to help provide public officials with the skills they need to govern effectively, the school announced in a news release on Thursday.

Read original article at http://www.pbn.com/Bryant-launches-Institute-for-Public-Leadership-for-elected-officials,54403

November 12th, 2010

SMITHFIELD, R.I.  – Bryant University and Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate in teaching, research and community service.

Read original article: http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p=662

Read original article at http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101022/NEBULLETIN/11010328

 SMITHFIELD, R.I. (Oct. 6, 2010) – More than 100 young professionals and college students interested in business startups are heading to Bryant University for Startup Weekend New England – an intensive 54-hour event Oct. 15-17 that immerses aspiring entrepreneurs in the process of moving a business idea to market.

 Contact: Tracie Sweeney / tsweeney@bryant.edu

 Bryant University, Smithfield, RI

 (401) 232-6183

 The weekend, which begins at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15, and ends at 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17, challenges its participants to present their ideas, form teams, plan, implement, and then finally present their just-born startup to a panel of judges.

 “When you introduce some of the sharpest students in Rhode Island to some of the state’s savviest business minds, you can’t help but produce the kind of innovation and collaboration that will help Rhode Island build its knowledge economy,” said Cary Collins, Trustee Professor of Entrepreneurship at Bryant University and organizer of the event. “That’s what Startup Weekend New England is all about.”
The student participants will come from Bryant, Brown University, Johnson & Wales University, Providence College, Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Rhode Island. Business leaders who will be attending include developers, managers, marketers, graphic artists and others interested in startup businesses. Co-sponsors of the event include Betaspring and the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 
Collins and two Bryant student groups — the Global Entrepreneurship Program and the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization – partnered with Startup Weekend to bring the event to Rhode Island. Startup Weekend is a Seattle-based nonprofit focused on educating entrepreneurs through community building, innovation and education. Since 2007, it has held Startup Weekend events in more than 25 countries and helped launch more than 560 new startup ventures. 
How Startup Weekend works 
The agenda is determined by its participants, but in general, the weekend begins with elevator pitches during which each participant has 60 to 90 seconds to present ideas for new startup ventures. The facilitator then crowd-sources the favorites, and teams form around those ideas. Working in groups of 4-10 people, participants then spend the entire weekend getting advice from professional mentors and building a proof of concept, demo, or sometimes even a finished product. For more information, see the Startup Weekend FAQ: http://startupweekend.org/firsttimer/. To register, see http://newengland.startupweekend.org/

 Online newsroom: http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p= 613

Bryant grad masters the French treat 

Two little cookies sandwiched together with buttercream, ganache or jam, these bite-size treats have nothing in common with the coconut-flavored cookies we call macaroons.

“They were all over the place in different colors and flavors, so they’d catch your attention as you walked down the street,” he said.

Fast forward a bit to Entrepreneurial Marketing, a course in Bryant’s Global Entrepreneurship concentration that Fitch took with instructor Sandra Potter at the start of his senior year. His course work called for him to prepare a go-to-market plan. He evaluated an idea to make and sell French macarons and deemed it a go.

In his next and last semester as a senior in 2009, he took another course with Potter. That one was an incubator course designed to help students launch their fledgling business ventures, and it included extensive concept and taste testing and focus groups.

With a real business plan developed, and after a year experimenting in the kitchen with recipes, earlier this year Fitch started his own company making and selling them under the magical name of Moondust Macarons.

Potter continues to advise Fitch even now. “Bryant is working hard to help our young entrepreneurs launch,” she said.

Moondust Macarons are sold at two places: Eastside Marketplace in Providence (where they cost $10 for an elegant six pack) and Beach Rose Café, 85 Brown St., North Kingstown (priced individually at $1.50 per cookie).

Fitch makes them in six flavors: coffee, pistachio and chocolate each filled with ganache; raspberry stuffed with jam; lemon made with a tart cream; and simple but lovely vanilla made with buttercream.

Though these macarons are regular fare at Parisian bakeries and cafes, not everyone can make them.

“They are unforgiving,” Fitch admitted. Mastering the cookies requires a perfect blend of just three ingredients (egg whites, sugar and almond flour) and techniques to make them have just the right amount of crispiness on the outside and melt-in-your-mouth texture on the inside.

He’s battling with the perfect chemistry in a commercial space on Allens Avenue in Providence that is home to Sin Desserts, pastry chef Jennifer Luxmoore’s successful wedding and specialty cake business.

Like others, Luxmoore found it hard to say no to a tasty macaron. And there’s been a funny bonus here: some brides order a decorative box of three Moondust Macarons for their wedding favors.

Fitch grew up in North Kingstown and considers his French trip a real life-changer. He loved the food culture he found there. The idea to start a business around French macarons marked “a convergence of all his interests” — cooking, marketing and a new passion for all things French.

He knew he not only had to master the technique to make them, but he also had to educate the public about them.

They are still pretty obscure, even though they’ve been featured as a food trend in publications including The Wall Street Journal and The Providence Journal.

Fitch is willing to do his part to change all that. He got a gig at a Providence College fundraiser where he handed out his Moondust Macarons. That led to a television cooking appearance on local television.

“So many common things we enjoy today were brought here from abroad,” he said, sounding like the marketer he is.

“Starbucks, for example, adopted the European coffee house experience for the U.S. Yogurt has been around for hundreds of years but only since the ’50s has it become huge.”

So he hopes it will be for French macarons.

Details: Learn more at Moondustmacarons.com

Bryant grads launch 2 other food ventures1

Moondust Macarons aren’t the only foods hatching at Bryant University.

Two recent graduates are moving forward with food projects from instructor Sandra Potters’ MBA Entrepreneurial Marketing class at Bryant.

Miguel Dominguez is launching plans for a tea bar called Avant, which will serve brewed tea-based beverages, hot and cold, using all varieties of tea from all over the world — white, peach, green, black, etc.

Michael Adams is working on Green Mountain Mustard. He has a trio of mustards that is already available in some local venues in his home state of Vermont. Learn more at greenmountainmustard.com.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 2, 2010
By Gail Ciampa
Providence Journal Food Editorhttp://www.projo.com/food/content/fd-moondust_macarons_06-02-10_UKILGUM_v25.11e25bcf.html

Read original Projo story

Diana Oblinger of EDUCAUSE and architects Robert Siegel and the late Charles Gwathmey also will receive honorary degrees, as will Graduate School keynote speaker Laurent Vernerey of APC by Schneider Electric.

SMITHFIELD, R.I. (April 21, 2010) – Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed will address Bryant University’s graduating seniors and guests and will receive an honorary degree during the University’s undergraduate Commencement Saturday, May 22. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. on the University campus, 1150 Douglas Pike.

Senator Reed’s honorary degree is one of five to be presented by the University this year. Diana Oblinger, president and CEO of EDUCAUSE, and internationally renown architects Robert Siegel and the late Charles Gwathmey, who designed two of Bryant’s newest buildings, will receive honorary degrees on May 22. On Thursday, May 20, Laurent Vernerey, president and CEO of APC by Schneider Electric, will receive an honorary degree and present the keynote address during the Commencement ceremony for the Graduate School of Business, which begins at 5 p.m. on the University campus.

(The complete press release containing more biographical information about the honorary degree recipients is online here)
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“College students are the driving force behind change, and every act can have a significant impact,” says honoree Chris Brida ‘12 of Southampton, Mass. “I think that being active with the local and global communities is imperative.”

SMITHFIELD, R.I. (April 19, 2010) — A Bryant University project that assists Tanzania’s educational institutions has earned a Bryant student recognition from Liberty Mutual as one of five of the country’s Responsible Scholars.

The Liberty Mutual Responsible Scholars program challenges undergraduate students to demonstrate what it means to be responsible. The insurance company awarded a $10,000 scholarship to each of the five students whose award-winning sustainable service or volunteer program set them apart from the other 1,000 entrants.

Christopher Brida ‘12 of Southampton, Mass., a management major who is minoring in sociology and entrepreneurship, was selected for developing Project Tanzania, begun by Alex Perullo, assistant professor of anthropology, ethnomusicology and African studies, to provide textbooks and other materials to students in Tanzania’s universities, colleges and schools.

“Project Tanzania is basically an effective recycling program,” Brida said. “At the end of every semester, we collect textbooks that students are not able to send back to the bookstore, sort them, stamp them, box them up and then send them to universities in Tanzania.” Last semester, Brida and classmates in one of his management courses helped collect more than 800 textbooks from Bryant, Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island College, Providence College and the University of Rhode Island. (“The biggest need is for art, engineering, medicine and law books, so we worked to fill these requests,” Brida said.)

To ship the books, Brida created and ran a fundraiser called Buy-a-Box. For $20, a donor can sponsor shipping a box of textbooks to Tanzania.

Brida currently is working with Bryant administrators on an initiative to waive tuition for one student from Tanzania to attend Bryant for a year.

“College students are the driving force behind change, and every act can have a significant impact,” Brida said. “I think that being active with the local and global communities is imperative.”

Brida, a member of the University’s track and field team, also serves on the Bryant in Action for Haiti committee, which to date has raised more than $5,000 that will go toward Haitian relief efforts. He is vice president of Bryant’s chapter of Amnesty International, and founder and president of Bryant’s Oxfam Club.

“I only hope that I can spread the important message that where you live should not determine if you live,” Brida said. “That is how I have always felt, and I hope I can pass that along.”

Contact:
Tracie Sweeney / tsweeney@bryant.edu
Bryant University, Smithfield, RI
(401) 232-6183

SMITHFIELD, R.I. (April 5, 2010) – Some of the best practices in the delivery of health care are found in the U.S. military, and one Bryant University professor is gathering the examples into a report that could guide policy decisions and help implement a more cost-effective and efficient health care delivery system.

Michael Gravier, assistant professor of marketing at Bryant University, is researching health-care logistics. As the second highest cost after labor, medical logistics comprises one of the most controllable cost areas in health care. “With the U.S. currently spending 15.2 percent of its GDP on health care, getting a handle on medical logistics costs is an important public management problem,” Gravier said.

Unlike the civilian health care delivery model, the military health care system was an early adopter of information technology and supply-chain management principles. As a result, some of the best health care outcomes per dollar spent per patient are found in military medicine, said Gravier, who served as an Air Force logistics specialist for 12 years before joining the faculty of Bryant University’s College of Business in 2007.

“Civilian health care is sort of the last frontier” for modern business practices, Gravier said. “Health care workers are highly motivated to make changes, but they want to know where to turn.”

By this summer, health care workers, policy makers and researchers will be able to turn to Gravier’s report. Using a $20,000 grant from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, Gravier is examining more than 2,000 research articles on military supply-chain logistics to determine which aspects can be applied immediately to civilian health care and which areas look promising but require more research.

His report, tentatively titled “Identifying Opportunities to Manage and Reduce Healthcare’s Most Controllable Cost Area: Logistics and Supply Chain Management (SCM),” will be distributed through the IBM Center for the Business of Government this summer.