- When Data Gets Real: The NCAA Final Four Analytics Challenge
It doesn’t start with a lecture or a textbook.
It starts with a question – one without a clear answer – and a dataset big enough to feel intimidating. Students aren’t told exactly what to do or how to get there. Instead, they’re asked to figure it out, together, under real deadlines and real expectations.
That’s the premise of the NCAA Final Four Analytics Challenge, where analytics move beyond the classroom and into a professional arena. Using real NCAA data, students step into the role of analysts, strategists, and storytellers – applying technical skills while learning how to communicate insights that matter.
Originally launched as a regional analytics competition, the challenge has grown into a statewide experience that mirrors Indianapolis’s role as both a basketball capital and an innovation hub. Now co-hosted by Butler University and the NCAA, the Final Four Analytics Challenge invites students from across Indiana to step into the kind of analytical work happening behind the scenes of major sporting events – and far beyond them.
- Learning By Doing: Dr. Chi Zhang’s Approach to Marketing Education
Dr. Chi Zhang didn’t set out to become a marketing professor. In fact, when she started college in central China, she wasn’t even sure what business was. As a first-generation college student trying to make pragmatic choices, she picked computer science because it felt safe. “I knew it would get me a job, but I also knew pretty quickly that coding all day wasn’t where I wanted to stay.”
So, she added an English major – another practical decision at the time, when English proficiency was rare and highly valued in East Asia. But it wasn’t until she joined an international consulting project led by a business faculty member that something clicked. “That experience opened my eyes,” Dr. Zhang said. “I realized I wanted to be in the business world. I wanted to understand how organizations worked – and I wanted to create impact.” There was just one problem: she’d never studied business.
- Dr. Matthew Lanham Elected to Leadership Role in INFORMS Analytics Society
Dr. Matthew Lanham, Assistant Professor of Business Technology & Analytics in Butler University’s Lacy School of Business, has been elected Vice President / President-Elect of the INFORMS Analytics Society, the largest society within INFORMS and a premier global community for analytics and decision-science professionals.
The INFORMS Analytics Society brings together leaders in analytics, operations research, optimization, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to advance data-driven decision-making across industries.
- The Power of “Let’s Go”: Jenna Burd’s Path to Launching Yalla Solutions
Jenna Burd didn’t just grow up around business – she lived it.
From her earliest memories, she watched her mother build an advertising agency from scratch while caring for her as a newborn. “I grew up absorbing everything my mom was doing – her drive, creativity, and resilience,” Jenna recalled. “That entrepreneurial spirit stuck with me.”
By the time she was 10, her father had started his own business as well. Watching both parents juggle professional ambition and family life gave Jenna a vision of the kind of future she wanted: one where she could chase her passions, build her own path, and still maintain balance and flexibility. “They told me entrepreneurship was an option,” she said. “It’s not something only certain people can do. Why not me?”
- Lacy School of Business Students Drive Real-World Change with Indianapolis Vision Zero Initiative
At the Lacy School of Business, our students don’t just learn about data analytics – they apply it to real-world challenges that make a tangible impact on our community. This fall, a group of senior students partnered with the Indianapolis Department of Public Works (DPW) to contribute to Vision Zero, the city’s ambitious initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2035.
Through this collaboration, students worked on multiple projects analyzing live traffic data to identify high-risk areas across Indianapolis. One focus area was Michigan Road, where a significant number of traffic-related fatalities have occurred. By examining detailed data – including traffic speeds, patterns, and street usage – students developed actionable recommendations for improving safety, such as where medians or other traffic-calming measures could be most effective.
- From Courtroom to Classroom: Professor Hilary Buttrick’s Journey in Teaching Business Law
For Professor Hilary Buttrick, the path to teaching business law wasn’t a straight line – it was a slow realization that the things she loved most had been pointing her toward the classroom all along.
As an English major at DePauw University, she gravitated toward analyzing arguments, challenging assumptions, and helping classmates think through tough questions. But as graduation neared, she didn’t yet have a name for the career she was meant to pursue.
“Someone suggested I look into law school,” the associate professor of business law recalled. “No one in my family had ever gone, and I didn’t really know what it would be like. But it seemed like a way to leverage my strengths in critical thinking and argumentation.”
- Thinking Like a Business Leader: Inside First-Year Business Experience and Top Dawg
Before most first-year students have even settled into campus life, they’re handed a challenge: Here’s a real company. Here’s a problem. Now go figure out what to do about it.
That’s the heartbeat of the First-Year Business Experience (FBE), a course that throws students into the world of business from day one, letting them learn by building, creating, presenting, and discovering. It’s the class that nudges them out of the familiar and into the mindset of someone who asks hard questions, digs for answers, and thinks like a business professional from the start.
Teams begin the semester by diving into a publicly traded company – an intentional decision that gives students access to real data and real insight.
- Passion, Purpose, and Play: Manolo Ferreres’ Journey in Business and Soccer
When Manolo Ferreres first stepped onto Butler’s campus, he carried more than a suitcase and a soccer ball – he carried a dream.
Growing up in Deltebre, Catalonia, Spain, he had already built a life steeped in discipline and ambition, balancing his studies in economics with his passion for soccer. Moving to the United States meant stepping into a world that was entirely new: a different culture, different people, and new expectations. “At the beginning, it was kind of difficult,” he recalled. “Everything was new. But over time, people here made it easier. The professors, the classmates – they were always willing to help and guide me.”
