Education
Encyclopedia3 sections2 cited sources
Brent O’Mara holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, which he attended from 1997 to 2001. That sentence is the whole of what this site records about his schooling. The rest of this entry describes, from the university’s own pages, the college that grants the degree and the building it now occupies, so that a reader knows what the credential stands for without any claim being made about the person who holds it.
A metropolitan business college
The College of Business Administration describes its purpose as preparing leaders to make an impact in their communities and in the global economy, and its method as a balance of academic perspective and practical application. Its own account stresses that for every academic concept there is a practical use, and that students are encouraged to put their knowledge to work well before they graduate.1 Being part of a metropolitan university gives the college what it calls a unique collaboration with local business: guest speakers from the city, community partners who welcome students and faculty, and an internship program after which, the college reports, 70 percent of its students are offered employment by the businesses that hosted them.1
The college also sends students abroad. A seven week course prepares undergraduate, MBA and Executive MBA students for a ten day study tour led by the college’s professors, and standing partnerships in Ireland and Costa Rica sit alongside destinations that have included Italy, India, China, Belgium and Australia.1 On the faculty side the college pairs teaching with research; its page points to an economics professor who tracks local economic activity across five counties to give local media a snapshot of current conditions.1 The degree named in the fact above is the undergraduate business degree of that college, and the entry on the College of Business Administration at UNO treats the college at reference length.
Mammel Hall
The college’s home is Mammel Hall, which the university describes as a hub of learning and collaboration, the place where local businesses gather, and the spot from which Warren Buffett sent his first tweet.2 The building opened in the fall of 2010. The years he attended, 1997 to 2001, came earlier, so the hall belongs to the college’s present rather than to his student days, and it is described here for that reason: it is where the degree is taught now.
Mammel Hall was made possible by what the university calls the largest single donation in its history, and it was designed specifically for business students, with breakout rooms for team projects and open and private settings for independent study.2 The three story, 120,000 square foot interior holds an atrium with interactive digital displays of the college’s history, a two story auditorium with 186 seats, lounge areas, a student operated coffee shop and food store, bridges and skywalks between sections, glass walled classrooms wired for presentation, and laboratories for investment science, for innovation and entrepreneurship, for executive decision making and for technology.2
The building is also a green one. The university records that Mammel Hall was the first academic building in Nebraska certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, that all of its signage is digital and powered down overnight to conserve resources, and that rain gardens outside capture runoff from the parking lots, filter pollutants and feed a native garden.2 Students may reserve its breakout rooms for group projects or study sessions.2
The university around the college
The college is one part of a university that has changed its name, its campus and its governance since it began, and that history is told, with its sources, in the entry on the history of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and across the subject index on the University of Nebraska at Omaha. What belongs on this page is narrower: the degree, the college and the hall. The biography places the degree in the order of his life, and the home page band on the university points here.