UAH College of Business receives continuing $100K gift from SAIC

(L – R), Dr. Helen Lien, UAH Major Gift Officer; Dr. Chuck Karr, Interim President of UAH; Shenandoah Speers, NASA Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO), Program Executive (PE) for Applications; Joe Poist, SAIC Vice President for Civil Space; Chuck Lewis, SAIC Senior Director; Dr. Jatinder (Jeet) Gupta - Eminent Scholar/Professor in the UAH COB; Dr. Jason Greene - Dean of COB; Edward Faulkner, SAIC, retired; Dr. Kuan Collins, SAIC Fellow and Master Solutions Architect; Dr. Ravi Patnayakuni - Professor in the COB; Mallie Hale - Vice President for University Advancement/Executive Director of UAH Foundation.

Michael Mercier | UAH

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of the University of Alabama System, announced that Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has presented the UAH College of Business (COB) with a $100,000 gift as part of a continuing effort to support the integration of modern enterprise technologies into the classroom, support students in obtaining professional certifications, assist faculty development and research and extend community outreach. SAIC’s support helps enable the COB to fully realize the benefits of being an academy partner with several leading technology partners, including SAP, Oracle, Amazon Web Services and CompTIA. SAIC has made this gift to the college each year since 2009.

This funding enables UAH to continue to offer a world-class education to its students by providing them access to the latest enterprise technologies used in the industry, including SAP. This support ensures the University’s business majors and the College's curriculum keeps current with industry standards.

Taylor Manasco (COB, Senior Management, 2022) says, "The ERP/SAP software has been tremendously helpful in my understanding of supply chain information systems. Being able to work through real-world problems using this software has enabled me to understand the complexity of supply chain issues and practice resolving issues I may face in the future.”

“With the support of NASA, SAIC has made this continuing gift to the college each year for 13 years,” says UAH President Dr. Charles L. Karr. “As we look back over this time and the support they have provided, I have to say that’s quite an extraordinary commitment. Most of all, it demonstrates the faith our valued partners have in our institution and the goals we share together.”

The purpose of the gift is to support enterprise systems education and use of SAP and other technologies in the UAH COB curriculum. The funds are being used to support the licensing of the software; for faculty professional development and curriculum innovation; to facilitate GTA support of enterprise systems courses; to bolster student recruitment to enterprise systems courses and support for certifications; and to support administration/coordination of activities to promote enterprise systems and technologies.

“With the continued support of and partnership with SAIC, we have incorporated SAP/ERP into our business courses, which means that this resource touches the lives of hundreds of additional students every year,” notes Eminent Scholar and COB Professor of Information Systems, Dr. Jatinder (Jeet) Gupta. “As a result of this partnership, we have enhanced our abilities to offer state-of-art tools and techniques in our Information Systems, Supply Chain and Business Analytics programs. Given the importance of both the Army and NASA to the local economy and local industry, this is beneficial to our faculty, students and community.”

SAP has been integrated into 12 different course curricula in support of the College's SAP and IS programs. SAIC’s pledge is helping students prepare for careers and career advancement with real-world tools and enables faculty to stay at the forefront of technology. As COB expands its curriculum to include other technologies, gifts like these are vital to enable UAH to continue to fulfill the ever-growing workforce requirements of SAIC, NASA, the DoD and other important elements in our region.

"It is immensely gratifying to witness SAIC’s commitment to our college and the larger community,” says Dr. Ravi Patnayakuni, a professor in the College of Business. “With the support provided by this gift, we are able to provide our students access to enterprise technologies used in the workplace and are going to be able to provide them scholarships and certification opportunities in the near future. We are also able to support faculty development to incorporate these technologies into their courses and their research on technology use and adoption.”

SAIC, a technology integrator with over 25,000 employees, is a longtime supporter of the College's SAP program. In 2006, after receiving a grant from SAP University Alliances to access the software, UAH reached out to SAIC for additional assistance to train faculty to develop and teach courses with SAP content. SAIC immediately recognized the benefit of partnering with UAH to help grow a local workforce of trained SAP professionals. SAIC supports both the NASA and Army missions at nearby Redstone Arsenal.