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<p>The&nbsp;Conference of State Bank Supervisors named a student team from the University of Tennessee at Martin as winner of the 2023 Community Bank Case Study Competition.</p>
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<p>The announcement came from the&nbsp;Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) on July 12.</p>
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<p>Teams from Iowa State University and Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, placed second and third, respectively.</p>
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<p>“The work of these three teams was top-rate, and we are pleased to see such in-depth findings,” said CSBS Executive Vice President for Policy and Supervision Karen Lawson. “The University of Tennessee at Martin’s case study earned top honors due to its particularly rich insight and detail as well as its excellent executive summary.”</p>
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<p>The annual competition is open to undergraduate students in all fields of study as an opportunity to gain valuable first-hand knowledge of the banking industry.</p>
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<p>This year, 34 student teams representing 28 colleges and universities entered the competition. The teams examined how local community banks are recruiting and retaining talent, approaching succession planning and using technology to advance operations.</p>
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<p>In the competition, the student team partners with a bank.&nbsp;The top officers of the bank tell the students their story and background information related to the topic of the case study provided by CSBS.</p>
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<p>The UTM team partnered with Commercial Bank &amp; Trust Company of Paris and its officers, President/COO Clint Davis, Human Resource and Professional Development Director Jennifer Starks, Chief Financial Officer Brent Stoots and Chief IT Officer Scott Freschi.</p>
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<p>Clark is the interim director of the UTM Horace and Sara Dunagan Chair of Excellence in Banking, while Davis is an associate professor of information systems and Farley is an assistant professor of finance.</p>
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<p>The members of the UT Martin team are May 2023 graduates Dan Hoffman of McKenzie, Cole Hollis of Trenton and Abbey Strong of Cookeville and December 2023 graduates Ben Arnold of Henderson and Libby Rushton of Waverly. John Clark, Dr. Lajuan Davis and Dr. Mark Farley served as faculty advisors.</p>
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<p>The winning team will present its findings at the&nbsp;Community Banking Research Conference&nbsp;in St. Louis in early October. Each member will receive a $1,000 scholarship.</p>
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<p>The second-place Iowa State University team members will each receive a $750 scholarship, and the third-place Messiah University team members will each receive a $500 scholarship.</p>
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<p>The top three case studies are available at&nbsp;www.csbs.org/bankcasestudy&nbsp;and will be published in the CSBS Journal of Community Bank Case Studies, available in October.</p>
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<p>The Conference of State Bank Supervisors is the national organization of bank regulators from all 50 states, American Samoa, District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.</p>
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<p>State regulators supervise roughly three-quarters of all U.S. banks and a variety of non-depository financial services. CSBS, on behalf of state regulators, also operates the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System to license and register non-depository financial service providers in the mortgage, money services businesses, consumer finance and debt industries.</p>
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