Brews, Bonds, and Big Data: FSB professors use Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest as academic destination
Finance professors take advantage of major Midwestern cultural event to attract researchers to conference
Brews, Bonds, and Big Data: FSB professors use Cincinnati’s Oktoberfest as academic destination
Finance professors take advantage of major Midwestern cultural event to attract researchers to conference
In higher education, research conferences are traditionally held in major metropolitan areas or sprawling convention centers. Getting scholars to travel to college towns like Oxford can sometimes prove to be a difficult sell.
When Simon Buechler joined the Farmer School of Business Department of Finance two years ago, assistant professor Tanja Kirmse approached him with an unconventional pitch.
"She said, ‘Did you know Cincinnati has the biggest Oktoberfest in North America?'" Buechler recalled. "I thought perhaps we could do a conference around that to attract people to Oxford.”
Kirmse and Buechler said there was an unexploited niche in their discipline's social calendar. Finance academics already have top-tier annual gatherings built around local regional draws, such as Napa Valley's wine tasting or Kentucky's Bourbon Trail.
What was missing, they realized, was the “beer conference.”
“We’re a very attractive location for our research, we're attractive for the Oktoberfest, and we have a beautiful campus,” Kirmse said. “Our faculty is very research active, and so we wanted to show that off as well.”
The pair pitched the concept to their department chair, Joel Harper, hoping for a modest event featuring eight solid research papers. “I remember we said if we get eight people with good papers, we're going to be happy,” Buechler said.
Instead, they received more than 60 submissions.
“We realized we were going to have to reject some top people’s papers,” Buechler said.
To accommodate the demand, Kirmse and Buechler introduced parallel tracks in real estate and finance and doubled the schedule to 16 paper presentations and paired discussions. While attendees stayed in Cincinnati to take in the Oktoberfest festivities, they’re brought to Oxford for the core academic programming.
“You get to know people, you expand your network, you get to hear about great research, we get to present our research, and so it's a win-win for everyone,” Buechler said. “It was so successful that immediately we were asked, "Are you going to do it again?’”
This year, total submissions climbed past 75.
“We really wanted to showcase the research activity here. Obviously Miami is not known the way that Harvard is known for research, but we have people doing great research,” Kirmse said.
The event serves a dual purpose: expanding professional networks for FSB and area faculty while demonstrating that high-impact research is thriving at the Farmer School of Business.