Shopping Centers Today

DEC 2016

Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)

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136 S C T / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6 Texas university students took on some of retail developers' top challenges By Joe Gose The new college try Students from the University of North Texas (top) with their advocates. The Texas Tech University team (bottom) took top honors T eams of students from a handful of Texas Universities are tackling retail property problems, coming up with solutions in mere days, as part of the 3-year-old ICSC Texas Undergraduate Case Study Competition. They must then explain their solutions to a panel of six judges with some 200 years of combined real estate experience among them. The students receive a fictional case study about 10 days before the start of the conference. The student teams generally present their remedies for about 20 minutes and then answer questions for an additional 10 minutes. "Anytime you can put a competitive student group into a real-life situation, the learning accelerates tremendously," said Patty Bender, a partner at Houston- based Vista Private Equity Group, who has served as one of the judges for three years. "Over the years, I've seen the groups excel in marrying financial analysis with some really out-of-the-box creativity to come up with solutions I would never have thought of." Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, took top honors at this year's competition, which featured seven teams. The University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas, Denton, tied for second. Kendra Hinderland, a managing director who oversees asset and property management for Dallas-based Cypress Equities, spearheaded the contest's launch in 2013, during her stint as ICSC's Texas state director. She wanted to help introduce college students to real estate as a career choice. A job fair and mentoring program were added to give employers and students the chance to interact. n N E W S M A K E R S

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