Marshall wins community service-based competition

The Marshall School of Business won first place Sunday at Challenge 4 Charity, a yearlong competition among nine West Coast graduate business schools to accumulate the most hours of community service and raise the most money for charitable organizations.

The team of Marshall MBA students won the Golden Briefcase Award, given to the team with the highest competition score, for the third year in a row. This year, the USC chapter staged 20 fundraising events, volunteered more than 5,300 hours and raised $150,000 for charity.

Brian Wang, co-chairman of the USC Challenge 4 Charity chapter, said the award represents the effort put forth by the entire graduate school throughout the year.

“A lot of hard work and dedication goes into raising over $150,000 and volunteering over 5,300 hours of service,” Wang said. “C4C hosts the Marshall Business tailgates where all proceeds go to charity, puts on all of our business school parties, plans an alumni gala and works with Special Olympics, A Better LA and Junior Achievement to create volunteer opportunities for full-time MBA students.”

The competition culminated with the Challenge 4 Charity weekend, held this year at Stanford University, where teams from each school competed in sporting events such as football, ultimate Frisbee, dodgeball and swimming. The results of the events were factored into each school’s overall competition score.

Nicholas Hasara, a graduate student studying business administration, said everybody played a part in the fundraising portion and the sports aspect of the competition.

“Our leadership did a great job of coordinating events with our charity organizations and getting the students to rally around the cause,” Hasara said. “For the sports aspect, we had a lot of students step up by organizing practices and getting us ready for the weekend.”

Shantanu Dutta, vice dean for graduate programs at Marshall, said the victory represents the school’s achievement in social work.

“Our MBA team’s success demonstrates Marshall’s commitment to developing business leaders who are working toward the greater good of society,” Dutta said.

Alex Abraham, co-chairman of the USC Challenge 4 Charity chapter, said the competition is important because it makes a positive impact.

“There are two main reasons why MBAs hold the golden briefcase in such high regard,” Abraham said. “One is that it represents the positive work we have collectively put in to improve the local Los Angeles community. The second reason is simply the fact that it is something every West Coast business school tries to win each year,” Abraham said. “It is a chance for USC to go head-to-head with UCLA, Stanford, Berkeley, [the University of Washington], and utterly dominate the competition.”