It's been a pretty good year for former Duck tight end David Paulson, MBA '12. There was the 2012 Rose Bowl win, and the fact that he succeeded in maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout the whirlwind football season. Getting drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers this spring--well, that was pretty special, too.

In a world that grows more connected every day, sport has the potential to be a truly international language. For women in the world of sports--whether athletes or business people--going global brings unique challenges. These challenges--and the opportunities they hold--were the topic of the sixteenth annual Women in Sports Business Symposium.

Sponsoring a sports event is a powerful way for companies and networks to bring their brands to a passionate audience. But once the event is over, will the positive association stick? For a company taking over an event's sponsorship from a previous sponsor—or a network taking over from a previous broadcaster—the answer is "perhaps not," according to a recent paper by Edwin E. and June Woldt Cone Professor of Marketing T.

"I wanted to better understand how the Olympics have become the preeminent sports brand in the world today and why companies are willing to invest so much money into a single marketing activity," said marketing instructor John Davis, explaining the motivation behind his book The Olympic Games Effect: How Sports Marketing Builds Strong Brands.

What creates a strong community identity and how can that identity decline over time? And once a town's brand has faded, is it possible to bring back the gleam? These are the questions tackled in "Rekindling the Flame: Processes of Identity Resurrection," a recent paper by PhD candidate Matthew Metzger (who starts next fall as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), and Professor Alan Meyer and Associate Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville, both of the college's management department.

Talk about a meaningful spring break. Business students Yiwen Yu, Yi Yang, Tian Xie, Qian Ye, and Charlie Campbell were selected to participate in the fifth annual Clinton Global Initiative University, a forum for students from around the world to tackle global challenges.

"Whether it's about feeling good or about the bottom line, there is still a case for sustainability," said Shannon Oliver, MBA '13. For Oliver, this was a key takeaway from the Center for Sustainable Business Practice's recent Seattle trip. She was one in a cohort of seventeen MBA students who spent three days this April meeting with managers at a variety of organizations, including REI, Starbucks, Costco, and Microsoft.

When sports and sustainability come together, the potential for change is tremendous. This was the thinking that inspired undergraduates Weston Cooper and James Walton to work with national clean energy nonprofit Focus the Nation to plan and execute the UO's first-ever Sports and Sustainability Summit.