Those who received awards at Thursday’s ceremony:

  • Beacom School of Business Faculty Excellence Award – Teaching: Rand Wergin, associate professor of marketing. Wergin serves as chair of the Undergraduate Assurance of Learning committee. He primarily teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in marketing strategy and professional selling, both online and face-to-face.
  • Beacom School of Business Faculty Excellence Award – Research: Ali Dag, assistant professor of business analytics. His research interests are in the areas of data analytics, health care informatics and text-web mining. Dag has published nine articles in journals and also serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for various journals.
  • Beacom School of Business Dean’s Award of Excellence: Carole Cochran, director of South Dakota Kids Count program. In Cochran’s role as director she is responsible for compiling, analyzing and sharing accurate, up-to-date statistics and research on child well-being indicators with people and policymakers.
  • Beacom School of Business Distinguished Service Award: Jeffrey Cotton, managing partner for the Minneapolis office of Deloitte. Cotton leads the quality, client satisfaction, business development, human resources and communications initiatives for the Minneapolis office. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Greater Twin Cities United Way and is a member of the executive committee and chair of the Audit Committee for the Minnesota Business Partnership.
  • Beacom School of Business Distinguished Leadership Award: James W. Abbott, University of South Dakota president. Recognized for 21 years of academic leadership and commitment to the students, faculty and staff of the Beacom School of Business.

Two business students were also recognized. Hyun Woong “Daniel” Chang received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award. He is a student in the joint B.B.A./M.P.A. program from South Korea. Chang plans on continuing his academic career in research and will join the Ph.D. program at the University of North Texas after graduation in May. Conrad Adam was honored with the Outstanding Senior Award. Adam is from Pierre, South Dakota, and is graduating in May with a major in finance and a minor in accounting. After graduation, Adam will begin a position at Abbot Downing, a boutique wealth management firm in Minneapolis.

"The awards banquet is a great opportunity to recognize the excellence of our students, faculty and staff,” said Venky Venkatachalam, Ph.D., dean at the Beacom School of Business. “It makes me proud to honor the great talent and dedication that exists within our school."

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