The Majdi Najm Outstanding Service Award is given annually to an individual or individuals who have provided outstanding service to the SAP University Alliances program. This year, the SAP University Alliances team in North America recognizes Nancy Jones, Lecturer – School of Accountancy, San Diego State University (SDSU) and Nitin Kalé, Associate Professor of Engineering Practice, University of Southern California (USC) for their contributions to the program.
The award was established to honor the memory of Dr. Majdi Najm, former Director of the hosting center at the University of Missouri Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology), who passed away in 2004. It recognizes those who continue to advance the use of SAP in the classroom. The winners are notable for their collaboration with faculty members from other SAP University Alliances campuses. Since the inception of this award, the honorees chosen have demonstrated a history of leadership in the program, development of curriculum content, mentoring of other faculty, and promotion of the SAP University Alliances program both on and off their home campus. Nancy and Nitin epitomize these characteristics and more.
Nancy Jones exemplifies outstanding service. Nancy uses SAP solutions in several accounting and accounting information systems classes. She is a certified TERP10 instructor that teaches this certification course at her own university and others. She has taken ownership of and further developed AIS content, as well as innovative analytics materials. Nancy was involved in our early Business ByDesign efforts in University Alliances. Nancy has helped to build a successful University Alliances program at SDSU and at California State University, Chico. She has taught many University Alliances workshops, hosted breakout sessions and webinars at SAP and academic conferences and is a recognized leader in our program, mentoring new and existing member faculty alike.
Nitin Kalé demonstrates outstanding service as well. Nitin teaches several classes using SAP solutions in USC’s Engineering program. He has taught numerous University Alliances workshops, hosted breakout sessions and webinars at our conferences around the world and developed curriculum content. Early on Nitin developed curriculum materials relevant for engineering students, influenced our early Business ByDesign efforts in University Alliances, created strong analytics materials that are used by universities globally and is actively contributing to a global data management and data analytics curriculum development effort. He serves on the North America Academic Board, whose mission is to be the connection point between SAP and faculty involved with the program.
Together Nancy and Nitin developed the first analytics textbook to tie a range of SAP analytics solutions to the critical topics industry experts and future business leaders need to know to be successful in today’s data driven workplace. “Practical Analytics” and the supporting hands-on materials also created by the duo are already being used to educate the business community via Americas SAP Users Group (ASUG) workshops and in classrooms around the world.
The award was announced at the SAP Academic Conference Americas, held in San Diego, California on February 17 - 18, 2016. At the conference, both inspired faculty during a plenary faculty spotlight showcasing their experience with student projects and innovations through SAP Next-Gen Consulting.
We are pleased to award Nancy and Nitin with the 2016 Majdi Najm Outstanding Service Award and are grateful for their support and commitment to our program.
From left to right: Colleen Raftery (SAP), Heather Czech Matthews (SAP), Nancy Jones (San Diego State University), Nitin Kalé (University of Southern California) and Ann Rosenberg (SAP).
Nancy and Nitin join a distinguished group of honorees: Bret Wagner (2006), Gilbert Babin, Jacques Robert, Pierre-Majorique Léger, Jacques Robert, and Robert Pellerin (2007), Fawzi Noman and Ross Quarles (2008), Jim Mensching (2009), Paul Cronan, Christine Davis, David Douglas (2010), Simha Magal (2011), Raymond Boykin (2012), Gail Corbitt (2013), David Haseman (2014) and Lorraine Gardiner (2015).
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