The Graduate School of Management recognized its best and brightest at the Student Awards Ceremony and Afternoon Tea on January 30. Top academic performers, outstanding community leaders, and students honored for their leadership and career promise joined with the generous donors who invest in the School and its future business leaders.

Associate Dean and Professor of Management Hemant Bhargava inducted 29 UC Davis MBA students into the international honor society Beta Gamma Sigma. The society, which recognizes academic achievement and future leadership promise, is open to MBA students enrolled in programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International. Only those in the top 20 percent of their class are eligible. Membership in the society is the highest national recognition an MBA student can receive.

Stephen G. and Shelly A. Newberry Distinguished Student Fellowship

The Stephen G. and Shelley A. Newberry Distinguished Student Fellowship, the Graduate School of Management’s largest privately funded fellowship award, supports students with a broad base of experience and who show exceptional potential as team leaders in business.

Second-year Daytime MBA student Sonya Till, the 2011 Newberry Fellow, has succeeded in a range of leadership roles. The president of the School’s student-run Marketing Association, Till interned last summer at the Fortune 500 software security giant Symantec (Mountain View, Calif.). There she created and managed an internal and external communications plan to promote the Symantec Alliance Network, a new global co-marketing initiative. Before coming to UC Davis, Till was an account executive with Telerep Inc. (Atlanta, Ga.), where she was instrumental in negotiating advertising sales that maximized revenue for 30 television stations across the country.