West Virginia University Homecoming falls in September this year, a bit earlier than usual. From September 24-29 the entire campus will be buzzing with activities and celebrations, and B&E has plenty planned for its own subset of Mountaineers.

Thursday, Sept. 27 marks the beginning of Homecoming festivities for B&E with a networking reception for graduate students at the Waterfront Place Hotel. Those enrolled in graduate programs will have the chance to meet with the B&E visiting committee and campaign team members, who will have met earlier in the day.

"At 54, I'm still not clear on what I want to do," said the 1979 accounting graduate with a chuckle.

Fred Wilkerson, a St. Albans, W.Va., native who now resides in Charlotte, N.C., is a wealth management advisor with Estate Strategies Group, a national network of advisors specializing in estate and business succession planning.

It's probably a good idea to keep customers happy. At least that's the popular notion. Yet Assistant Professor Matthew Sarkees thinks many companies go too far.

His research, published in the  Harvard Business Review, shows that marketers sometimes waste company resources on customers who simply won't contribute to the bottom line. The paper was titled  The Right Way to Manage Unprofitable Customers with coauthors Vikas Mittal of Rice University and Feisal Murshed of Towson University.

The  Center for Executive Education in the WVU College of Business and Economics helps decision-makers from all industries become more dynamic leaders and more valuable team members, while our  Center for Chinese Business focuses on furthering mutually beneficial enterprise between the U.S. and China. This summer, these centers teamed up to host a group of 20 banking executives from Tianjin, China, for a three-week program on U.S. finance. Each of the executives received a certification in Financial Risk Management and Financial Supervision upon completion.

If he could have his way, when marketing major Chris Snook graduates next spring he'll stay right where he is.

Snook is an intern with SustainU, a company in Morgantown that sells clothing made in the United States solely from recycled materials.

Dr. Amanda Ross, Assistant Professor of Economics, will officiate a soccer game between the gold medal winning U.S. Women's National Team and Costa Rica on September 1 in her hometown of Rochester, New York. The game will be televised on NBC with a 2:30 kickoff.

The game, which is the first post-Olympic international friendly, will feature Rochester native Abby Wambach, who holds the best goals per game ratio in U.S. soccer history.

The chairman and CEO of Cisco will speak to the University and business communities in a lecture at West Virginia University’s Mountainlair Sept. 28. John Chambers, an alumnus of the WVU College of Business and Economics and the WVU College of Law, will visit as part of the B&E Distinguished Lecture Series at 9 a.m. in the Mountainlair Ballrooms.

The B&E Distinguished Lecture Series is presented in part by Wells Fargo.

John Chambers is one of the most recognized business leaders in the world, heading a corporation with operations on nearly every continent. And he is a Mountaineer.

The Charleston, W.Va., native is Chairman and CEO of Cisco, a globally visible company with more than 65,000 employees around the globe. Chambers, who earned degrees from the  West Virginia University College of Business and Economics and the  WVU College of Law, will speak at his alma mater on September 28 in B&E at 60, the business school’s 60th anniversary lecture series.