Old Westbury, NY – A group of New York Institute of Technology School of Management graduate students recently won a regional competition testing their human resources skills, defeating teams from New York University and Villanova and taking home a $2,500 prize.

The victory was especially gratifying since it was the first time a team from NYIT participated in the competition, said William Ninehan, advisor to the school's chapter of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). In addition, said Ninehan, three NYIT students (including two team members) have recently won local awards, rounding out a successful spring semester for the program.

Brendan Feifer, Ingrid Bryni, Rebecca Weisz, Yuing (Kenneth) Geng, and Stephanie Trinidad captured first place in the Society of Human Resource Management Northeast Regional Case Competition for graduate students, held in Providence, Rhode Island last month. The students are part of NYIT School of Management's Master of Science program in Human Resources Management and Labor Relations. Geng is in the NYIT-Tongji double-degree program.

The team had four hours to prepare a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation analyzing a human resources case involving a fictional college and its sexual harassment and discrimination policies. 

"We needed to develop an action plan for how to report claims and stress the importance of implementing such a policy for staff and faculty members to upper management," said Trinidad, who is graduating on Sunday. "This was our moment to showcase all of our HR knowledge that we learned through the program at NYIT."

After they presented their case, judges selected NYIT and a New York University team as finalists. The teams had an additional hour to refine their presentation.

"The pressure was on," said Weisz, who is also graduating on Sunday. "But we were confident. We managed ourselves well on stage and we took all the questions, answered them to the best of our ability and we succeeded – it was great."

Feifer, who will be president of NYIT's chapter of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), added: "I believe our team won due to our clear format of how we wanted to address the issues in the case. Our goal as a team was to deliver a presentation that left no questions in the judges' minds as to what we wanted to accomplish and how we were going to do so. I also believe that we had a level of professionalism in our demeanor that was unmatched by the other universities."

Team members practiced for months with Ninehan. They also worked through practice cases and honed their presentation skills before faculty, alumni and other human resources professionals.

"All the preparation we had been doing before the competition was very beneficial," said Bryni. "I am very happy that I challenged myself and became a part of the team. It has given me a lot of experience and knowledge."

The Society for Human Resource Management – Long Island Chapter (SHRM-LI) recently awarded Weisz the Matt Halpern Memorial Scholarship award. Feifer recently received the Sherman Award from the Human Resources Association of New York, and another student in the master's program, Ryan Herlihy, won an award from the Long Island chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association.

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New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) offers 90 degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; education; engineering and computing sciences; health professions; management; and osteopathic medicine. A non-profit independent, private institution of higher education, NYIT has 13,000 students attending campuses on Long Island and Manhattan, online, and at its global campuses. NYIT sponsors 11 NCAA Division II programs and one Division I team.

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