Professor of Business Debika Sihi was selected to the Marketing Management Association (MMA) Board of Directors to serve a three-year term. In this role, Debika will have the opportunity to help shape the strategic direction of the organization and contribute to the continued growth and success of future marketing scholars, including service related to doctoral student consortiums and editorial/review work for conference proceedings and affiliated journals.

Professional Academic Advisor Jenny Terry Roberts ’95 received the Organization Advisor of the Year Award for her work with SU’s chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, the gender-inclusive national service fraternity. APO was founded 100 years ago on the principles of leadership, friendship, and service; the Alpha Gamma Kappa chapter was chartered at SU in 1991. Jenny joined in her first semester as a student at Southwestern and loves helping current students keep it going strong. Additional awesome SU APO Advisors include Faculty Advisor Debika Sihi, Community Advisor Paul Ford ’00, and Scouting Advisor Scott Roberts ’94.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi co-hosted a panel with Hannah Walters, Associate Professor of Marketing at Northern State University and author of “AI in Marketing: Applications, Insights, and Analysis,” at the Marketing Management Association Spring Conference. The panel explored four initiatives for integrating AI as a tool to develop critical thinking across marketing courses. Debika also presented her early-stage research project titled, “Place Marketing: Bridging the Gap Between Longtime Locals, Newcomers, and Tourists through Digital Marketing,” which examines how city marketing and communications teams manage the evolving brand identity of fast-growing communities.

Abigail (Abby) Ryan ’25 and Professor of Business Debika Sihi have published their research, “Crafting and Evaluating Generative AI Prompts: Insights from Students, Educators, and Marketers,” in Marketing Education Review. This work draws on perspectives from these different groups to design a prompt engineering assignment that can be integrated into a variety of marketing courses. The abstract of the article can be read here.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi and two of her first-year seminar students, Abigail Norton ’28 and Mateo Torres ’28, were featured in a Litmaps Community Highlight, a newsletter received by over 100,000 researchers all over the world. The students were highlighted for their work visually mapping a literature review. The piece is available here. (Students granted permission to share their work, and the students’ names were redacted on the piece to protect their privacy due to the wide distribution of the newsletter, so they have agency on if/how they want to share the piece.)