Blueberry Case Study
Academic Highlight
The Berry Center is accepting applications for two students to work with President Garner on developing a business case study on a blueberry farming operation in Uruguay. The project involves travel to Montevideo, Uruguay for a week. The business case study on Uruguayan blueberries is an independent study project that will take place during block six, February 2009. Current sophomores, juniors, and seniors are eligible to apply. The application deadline is November 19. Click here for more information.

International Internship
Student Highlight
Vitaly Shmel’kin ’09 recently completed an internship at RenMax in Montevideo, Uruguay. RenMax is a brokerage house providing investment advice and services to companies and individuals, mostly dealing with bonds and emerging markets. Vitaly follows Kristin Willard ’08 as the second Cornell student to intern at RenMax. Click here for more about Vitaly's internship experience.

Innovations
Course Highlight
In Block 8 of the 2007-2008 academic year, Professor Eric Carlson from the University of Santa Clara taught a Berry Center-sponsored course on entrepreneurship. This course introduced students to basic economic and managerial theories and principles of innovation and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on social benefit entrepreneurship (innovating on behalf of the poor). Click here to read more about the entrepreneurship course and for student perspectives.

Going Athgo
Activity Highlight
In July, politics professor David Yamanishi and five students attended a conference on international economic development at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. The conference was sponsored by Athgo International. Students heard presentations from high-level speakers and worked in groups to develop new business models and policy proposals to address problems of weak governance in developing countries.
Click here to read more.

Finance Faculty
Faculty Highlight
We are pleased that Chris Conrad has joined the Economics and Business department as an Assistant Professor. Chris comes to Cornell from a major insurance company where he helped manage a $20B+ portfolio. Prior to that, he worked in the health insurance industry where he priced health products and performed financial analysis. He holds a B.A. from Macalester College, a M.B.A. from the University of Iowa and he is a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.  Courses he will teach this year include: Financial Accounting, Health Care Management, Introduction to Financial Management, Financial Management Seminar, and Investments. He looks forward to taking a class to the Chicago financial district in February.

Money, Money, Money...
Student Groups in Action
The Cornell Financial Group takes the investment theories learned in the classroom and puts them into practice in the real world -- from tear sheet competitions to fantasy investing and managing their own portfolio. Members recently attended Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" event at the University of Iowa. They are also planning an Investment 101 workshop with the Business Interest Group. Click here to see what the CFG has got coming up.

Ready, Set, Read
Extraordinary Opportunity
For the second year, the Berry Center offered two reading groups for students. President Les Garner and a group of 18 students read the best-seller, Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago. On November 12, the group traveled to the University of Chicago's Graduate School of business for a brown bag lunch followed by a private meeting with author Richard Thaler, a specialist in behavioral economics.

For students interested in economic globalization, professors Todd Knoop (economics and business) and David Yamanishi (politics) hosted the reading group where students discussed Harvard economist Dani Rodrik’s One Economics, Many Recipes. Click here to learn more.