Three win Provost's Awards

It’s an enviable goal for any college student: to enhance the university’s pool of knowledge through one’s own academic endeavor. Each year, Miami confers Provost’s Student Academic Achievement Awards on rising seniors who have established an outstanding record of academic achievement and have contributed to the university’s intellectual climate in a substantive way.

At Miami’s convocation August 21, nine students were recognized with these $1000 awards. Three of the honorees are Farmer School Students: Nicole M. Mitchell, W. Preston Parry, and Matthew A. Price. All three are University Honors and Business Honors students.

Mitchell, an interdisciplinary business management major and entrepreneurship minor, undertook a significant undergraduate research project as a junior. She initiated, developed and performed an experiment that studied, in women of varying body compositions, the metabolic effects of ingesting carbohydrate during exercise. Her research paper was submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and she was invited by the American College of Sports Medicine to give an oral presentation at the organization’s annual conference in May 2009.

Business economics major Parry secured an internship with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland the summer after his sophomore year. During that internship, he presented a major research report to the bank leadership and recommended to them that all banks under their supervision undergo a “stress test” to measure their viability. “This was an incredible window into the organization charged with saving our nation’s financial system, and I was honored to play a small part in the effort,” he said.

Parry also has been involved with Miami’s Student Venture Fund, an experience he has found very meaningful. In a few years, he may be looking for venture capital himself: his post-graduation plan is to work in an industry that interests him for a few years, perhaps get an MBA, and then start his own business.

Price’s foundational research project grew from his freshman business ethics class and questioned the frequent assumption that government is not a stakeholder in business transactions, but merely representative of other stakeholders. “My research project looked at several business cases and scholarly arguments to determine whether or not government could be considered a stakeholder in its own right,” explained the business economics and computer science major.

"The research I have done while at Miami has really opened my eyes to a new world of academia that most students don't get to experience. My positive experiences with the research I have done have lead me to consider becoming a professor."

Mitchell is headed in a very different direction. “I plan to attend medical school, where I would like to continue my love of research,” she says. “I hope that the entrepreneurial and management skills I have learned as an undergraduate will assist me in setting up my own medical practice.”

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