Tag: traditions

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, family-centric, and unfamiliar to international college students who are left on campus when all the American kids head home for the long weekend in November. That’s why Dean Stuart Greenbaum organized the first Thanksgiving potluck dinner in 1995.

“I came from the Kellogg School at Northwestern, and the campus Thanksgiving dinner there was a popular event,” Greenbaum said. “Students, faculty, alumni brought their families and it was a great community gathering for the business school.”

At the first Olin Thanksgiving, faculty and staff prepared the turkey and traditional meal for a few dozen guests. By the next year, with 161 RSVPs, reinforcements were called in from campus food services. The table, set up in Piper Hallway in Simon Hall, kept getting longer as the number of guests kept multiplying. In 1998, 170 people attended. There were more than 350 guests in 2002!

• 2008: A record-setting year with more than 600 professors, students, and families in attendance and they gobbled up more than 250 pounds of turkey.
• 2009: A few statistics from the chef: The kitchen prepared and served 260 pounds of turkey, 100 pounds of white potatoes and 120 pounds of sweet potatoes. They ran out of turkey legs, but no one left hungry. The dessert tables were brimming with pies, cookies and candy, and there was the always-popular soft-serve ice cream.
• 2011: More than 515 guests were served during the event, at which 28 Knight Center staff members arrived at 4 a.m. to help prepare.
• 2014: the chefs roasted 50 turkeys to serve more than 500 guests.

Many thanks to the Aramark staff who prepare and serve the Olin Thanksgiving feast every year before heading home to do the same for their families.

Click below to expand images:

Over the years, the Thanksgiving Feast at Olin Business School has grown to be a favorite tradition for many. The tradition started as a potluck dinner for international students under former Dean Stuart Greenbaum. The dinner was originally served by faculty and staff in Simon Hall, then moved to the Knight Center to better accommodate the number of attendees that increased annually.

This year, the Olin community looks forward to sharing this holiday tradition with several hundred of our extended Olin family of students, faculty, staff, and their guests.

Dean Gupta and his wife, Sunita, and the Aramark staff expect more than 400 guests to attend this year’s feast on Thanksgiving Day at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center.

Image: Jeremy Tarling, Huge turkey, Flikr Creative Commons

Olin is steeped in tradition from Convocation to the Olin barbeque on the first day of the semester, to graduation. Among the many traditions we have here is the QBA 121 – Managerial Statistics II poster session. The poster session has become synonymous with the end of the semester and the beginning of finals week. The poster session is the culmination of students’ semester-long projects applying statistical methods to problems of their choice. By allowing students to choose a topic to analyze, they realize how statistics apply to varied business decisions.

The poster session is held in the Atrium of Knight and Bauer Halls. This semester visitors were intrigued by the multitude of projects on display. While the course focuses on the technical analysis of data and ensuing managerial implications, students’ projects are what make the poster session a success. Projects vary widely, reflecting students’ varying interests; still they all have a common theme – apply statistical tools to generate managerial insight. Here’s a sampling of this year’s topics: What determines a WashU student’s happiness; Factors that influence salaries in professional sports; Is food at WashU expensive?; Determinants of literacy rates; and How to get more “likes” on Instagram.

The Atrium provides an opportunity for visitors to be involved with the students’ projects. Some come every semester to see what’s new in the course. These include academic advisors, Olin faculty, and deans. They question students on what they learned and how to apply their knowledge to real-world problems. Other visitors are just passing through. Among these are high school students contemplating whether to choose Wash U. Other visitors include classmates, students in other programs, and outside faculty. They all leave with a better understanding of how our students transform data into knowledge and a better appreciation of what goes on inside an Olin classroom. If you want to see more about the poster session, visit the QBA121 poster eBook for Spring 2015.

Blog post by Eli Snir, Senior Lecturer in Management

Related post: Running stats for real by Andrian Lee, BSBA’17

Many thanks to all the Aramark employees at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center who work so hard to cook, serve, and clean up the biggest Thanksgiving day feast on campus! 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of Olin’s turkey tradition that began with a small gathering of international students who were introduced to this very American holiday with all the fixings when Stuart Greenbaum was dean.

More than 500 reservations have been made for this year’s celebration. And the Knight Center Chef has roasted 50 turkeys. Pass the mashed potatoes and enjoy!!

Image: Rick Scully, Thanksgiving Dinner, 2008, Flickr, Creative Commons