Sauder Students Win Big at JDC West 2008; Reclaim Title of “School of the Year”

Vancouver, BC— This past January, undergraduate students from the Sauder School of Business at UBC turned in a hugely successful performance at the prestigious 2008 JDC West (Jeux de Commerce, or Commerce Games) Competition – highlighted by the garnering of “School of the Year” honours and top billing in a number of business specializations.

From Jan. 18-20, 470 students representing 10 schools across Western Canada gathered at the University of Lethbridge for Western Canada's largest and most respected undergraduate student academic competition. Over forty Sauder undergraduate students competed at JDC West, in all areas of academics, sport, and social challenges against 10 other universities from across the region.

The Sauder delegation placed tops in a number of categories, as follows:

School of the Year: 1st place (Sauder School of Business)

Accounting: 1st Place (Livia Danila, Paul Moore, Michael Lloyd)

Entrepreneurship: 1st Place (Jordan Gildersleeve, Conor Topley, Matt Cunning)

Marketing: 1st Place (Jenny Ma, Jordan Menashy, Ealeen Wong)

International Management: 2nd Place (Selina Chan, Shahed Tootoonian, Paulina Lipska)

Business Strategy: 3rd Place (Monica Polonis, Kevin Baldwinson, Ian Crosby)

Human Resources: 3rd Place (Norma-Jean Thompson, Davina Chan, Carlee Blades)

Sports: 3rd Place (Mick Stobart, Ed Blunderfield, Alan Spence, Erik Horn, Marica Rizzo, Jithmi Lokuge)

Participation Award: 3rd Place (Sauder School of Business)

The Sauder School recognizes the important contributions made to this year’s successes at JDC West. Very special thanks are owed to this year's team captains and coaching team.

Team captain Tory Nash did a formidable job in assembling, motivating and organizing training of the team. Ceanne Horon served as VP Academic and worked tirelessly with the coaches on training and academic development. Denea Campbell was an integral part of planning the team. Allen Manser, Mark McCoy, Julia Fan Li and Matt Stevens (all alumni of Sauder and previous case winners) volunteered dozens of hours to coach the team as lead coaching staff.

Sally Khan, Sophia Haque, Janice Cheam, Ideh Fesharaki, Ariel Laver, Cameron Fleming, George Cadman, and George Kondopulos (also all Sauder alumni) served in coaching on specific academic disciplines.

Kin Lo, Jeff Kroeker, Dan Putter, Juiette Zhu, Y.M. Cheung, and Paul Cubbon from the Sauder faculty also provided coaching, workshops and guidance to the team.

Schools represented at this year’s event included York University (Schulich), University of Manitoba (Asper), University of Saskatchewan (Edwards), University of Regina (Hill), University of Alberta, University of Lethbridge, University of Northern British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, and UBC (Sauder). As part of the competition, the students from all ten schools also raised an impressive $150,000 for local charities.

Founded and previously hosted by the Commerce Undergraduate Society at Sauder, JDC West 2008 is the western expansion of Jeux du Commerce, a competition that has built a prominent reputation in Quebec over its 19-year history as a leading business school competition for undergraduate students.

The Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia is Canada's leading academic business school, recognized globally for its contributions to the transformation of business practices through innovative research and teaching. The school has over 28,000 alumni in 70 countries around the world.