CONGRATULATIONS GRADS! Over 70 School of Business graduates and their families gathered Friday evening December 12 in the Commonwealth Ballroom of the Student Commons for a reception in their honor. Tom Phillips, President of the School of Business Alumni Board, addressed the graduates and encouraged them to stay actively involved as alumni. The graduates were recognized by their department chairpersons. Dr. Allen Lee, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, recognized all those receiving graduate degrees and certificates. On Saturday 359 degrees were awarded to August and December business graduates as part of the University's third December Commencement in the Siegel Center. U.S.Treasury Secretary John W. Snow was the speaker and was awarded the doctorate of humane letters by President Trani. Prior to his appointment as Treasury Secretary, Mr. Snow was chairman and CEO of CSX Corp. in Richmond. Over 1800 degrees were awarded university wide.

Link to Text of Tom Phillips speech.

NEWS MAKER. Dr. Pamela Kiecker, professor of marketing, was a special holiday guest on the December 23 Channel 12 4 p.m. newscast talking with anchors about shopper behavior during the holidays.

VROOM VROOM - Dr. Jon Ackley and Dr. Michael Pitts, management professors, successfully completed a pilot module for their management class called “From Dirt Tracks to Wall Street: The Business of NASCAR.” The curriculum explored the different business features of NASCAR Students in the module had the opportunity to speak with a driver, a reporter from the weekly Winston Scene newspaper, the director of public relations at Richmond International Raceway (RIR), and the lead person from the Martin Agency handling the NASCAR advertising program. Students also visited RIR to review the concessions and also interviewed a NASCAR fan to see what attracted the individual to the sport. The students in the class and the professor’s feel that their initial efforts were so successful, that after fine tuning the course, they are hopeful of presenting it again.

COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. Three School of Business faculty members are putting the finishing touches on a chapter they have collaborated on for Volume 2 of “State of the Art of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis - An Annotated Bibliography,” being edited by Jose Figueroa and Salvatore Greco to be published in a few months by Kluwer Academic Publishers. They are Dr. H. Roland Weistroffer, associate professor of information systems, Dr. Charles H. Smith, associate professor of management science and Dr. Subhash C. Narula, professor of management science and statistics Their chapter, No 24 in the international textbook, provides the current state of multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) decision support software.

RISKY BUSINESS. Dr. Etti Baranoff’s book “Risk Management and Insurance, has been reviewed for a third time in the November trade magazine Best’s Review. The introductory text for college students was previously reviewed on Best’s website, and Best’s Week, a weekly insurance news and analysis newsletter. The article “Greater Than the Sum of the Parts” connects with a wide range of subjects from the evolution of the risk manager to the state of the job market for graduating students. (1.24M pdf of article)