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Welcomes Students Back to School

TOWN HALL MEETING: HURRICANE KATRINA’S IMPACT

VCU School of Business sponsored a Town Hall Meeting on Hurricane Katrina's Impact at 12:30 p.m. on September 7. Dr. Etti Baranoff, professor of Insurance and Finance, VCU Finance Department, was the principal speaker, but was later joined by Drs. Van Wood, Brent Smith and Dennis McDermott and had a general Q&A with the audience of students and guests. The meeting will be further reviewed in October Briefs.

Dr. Baranoff is the author of "Risk Management and Insurance," John Wiley & Sons, an insurance textbook focusing on the 9-11 Disaster. She is now in the process of revising the book which has also become a handbook for insurance and risk management professionals.

DR. SEERS RECEIVES BEST PAPER AWARD

Dr. Anson Seers, professor of Management, received the Best Paper in Management Education Award at the 65th annual meeting of the Academy of Management, August 5-10 in Hawaii. Dr. Seers’ paper focuses on the challenge to management education from the current transition of the business world. The paper explains how educators treated knowledge as their own monopoly, before the shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy. Management educators will face more change in the next few years than they did throughout the 20th century, in order to adequately serve both students and the business community.

The Academy of Management is the largest professional association of management professors. At this year’s meeting, there were more than 6,000 people representing 62 countries on the program, speaking in 1,390 sessions.

TECH TUESDAY MEETING SEPTEMBER 20

Tech Tuesday sponsored monthly by the School of Business Information Systems will meet Tuesday, September 20 at 7:30 a.m. in Room 1132, School of Business, Snead Hall, School of Business
301 W. Main Street. The topic of discussion will be “Managing IT Projects and Business Expectations” and moderated by T. Wayne Belvin, IT Project Manager with Dominion Information Technology. For registration or additional information, contact Maureen Carley at (804) 828-7074

INNOVATION IN TAX EDUCATION AWARD WON BY JOHN EVERETT & COLLEAGUES

The 2005 Deloitte/American Taxation Association (ATA) Innovation in Tax Education Award of $5,000 was won by Dr. John Everett, professor of Accounting, and three colleagues, Dr. William Duncan, Arizona State University-West, Dr. Sharon Lassar, Florida Atlantic University and Dr. Walfrid Lassasr, Florida International University. The presentation took place on August 8 during the American Accounting Association annual meeting in San Francisco. The title of their winning entry was “Second Chance for Depreciation: A Case Study Analyzing Tax Planning Opportunities After Disposition.” The objective of the national competition is to encourage creativity and experimentation with new and unusual ideas. Dr. Everett is a former president of the ATA, and received the 2004 ATA Lifetime Service Achievement Award.

Summary of Winning Project (text of introduction by Sandy Callaghan of Texas Christian University at Annual Luncheon):

This year’s winning entry is a self-guided web-based tax research case study that has been designed for an advanced tax class.

The case includes a series of ten practice sets. It begins with the basics and adds complexity with each successive exercise. The step-by-step approach emphasizes a "learn a little and then use it" approach which, coupled with the inclusion of the interactive feedback that a web based system makes possible, assures that each layer of technical material and increasingly sophisticated analysis is mastered before the next is attempted. The materials offer an opportunity for the instructor to customize the level of difficulty by adding elements or omitting some guidance in the assignments.

As the student gains sophistication in the understanding of primary authority, the case introduces interpretive and legislative regulatory authority, the influence of the courts, and conflicts between jurisdictions. This complex interrelationship is demonstrated as the practice sets track the development of two related but separate areas of the tax law whose convergence culminates in the revelation of an almost certainly unintended tax planning opportunity.

The penultimate practice sets introduce ethical issues of professional responsibility, due care, confidentiality, disclosure and conflicts of interest faced by practitioners within a firm. The case concludes with an exercise that utilizes the spreadsheet skills and understanding of the technical rules developed thus far to create a tax planning model and draft a recommendation.

The winning entry will be posted on the ATA website soon and is currently available on the web at http://www.soa.fau.edu/taxcase/

REV UP THOSE ENGINES
HONORS CLASS 399 LAUNCHES ‘THE BUSINESS OF NASCAR’

Drs. Jon Ackley and Michael W. Pitts opened the fall semester of Management Honors Class 399 with IMAX’s overview movie of NASCAR. The class will incorporate visiting Richmond Raceway Park with hearing such guest speakers as Katherine Wintsch of the Martin Agency, representing NASCAR; Charlie Domalik of Carter Ryley Thomas representing Nextel and Joshua Lief, representing the group Virginians Racing for the Hall of Fame. “We want to go beneath the glitz and look at the business side of this growing entertainment field,” said Dr. Pitts. Other universities have taught this topic but not from a business slant. Clemson has included something similar in its MBA program. To read more about this class click on http://www.bus.vcu.edu/news/ackley.html

Team members gather around Project Hope’s director following the presentation.

Summer Marketing Class Creates Awareness
for Project Hope and CharCones

Summer school students registering for Marketing 371 may not have realized that they would be reading their text, discussing various strategies and then breaking into teams to generate integrated marketing communications campaigns for two organizations--all in a three-week period. Making these presentations is part of the “real world experience that takes students’ education beyond the classroom, ” says instructor Pat Thompson.

In August, student teams presented campaigns to Project Hope and to Michael Stephens, a Henrico County inventor and entrepreneur.  Project Hope is a community service group responding to the needs of abused women and children. Stephens invented a single-use charcoal starter product called CharCones.

Students reviewed the promotional materials that were already in use by both organizations, and made suggestions on how they could be improved or changed. Other suggestions included broadening public relations techniques, designing new logos and evaluating direct marketing and mailing support.

The clients were amazed at the depth of interest and artistic effort demonstrated in the student’s marketing plans, particularly noting that mocked-up samples had been done of logo-bearing T-shirts, brochures and mailing samples. Budgets and suggested timelines also were included. In previous semesters Mrs. Thompson has had students prepare integrated market communications plans for the Purse Lady, the Miss Virginia Wheelchair committee and Village Bellringers.

VIRGINIA iDAY COMING OCTOBER 12

The insurance industry will observe Virginia iDay on Wednesday, October 12 at the Holiday Inn Koger South on Midlothian Turnpike, Richmond. This is an educational day sponsored and attended by insurance industry professionals. The keynote speaker and panel moderator is Donald J. Hurzeler CPCU, CLU, president of Zurich and also president of the CPCU Society, representing nearly 28,000 people. A trade show featuring a variety of insurance industry vendors will be included in the conference.
For further information go to info@virginiaiday.org

A NEWS BYTE

Photographs of “moose in the wild” taken by Dr. Walter Griggs, associate dean, and his daughter Cara Griggs, are featured on the North American Moose Foundation website.

This advertisement in support of Team LINK's achievement will be placed in the COVITS program.

IS WINNERS TO DEMO AT COVITS

The IS Department’s “three Tablet PC musketeers” known as Team LINK, demonstrated their Microsoft winning techniques as part of the program at the COVITS Technology Conference held September 19 and 20. To read more about the accomplishments, click on http://www.bus.vcu.edu/news/microsoft_winners.html

COVITS is Virginia’s annual business and technology event hosted by Governor Mark Warner and Secretary of Technology, Eugene J. Huang.  It provides a platform for government and private industry to showcase technology products and network.

Paul I. Karofsky, Executive Director Emeritus, Center for Family Business, Northeastern University.

FAMILY BUSINESS FORUM PRESENTS SUCCESSION PLANNING

The VCU Virginia Family Business Forum will present “Rights of Passage: A Guide to Succession in Family Enterprise” on Wednesday, October 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Place at Innsbrook, 4036 Cox Rd. The speaker will be Paul I. Karofsky, Executive Director Emeritus, Center for Family Business, Northeastern University. Participants will be provided a guide to successful succession and discussions will focus on real life mini-case studies. This program is directed particularly to family members with shared business interests of ownership or management. The forum is sponsored by VCU School of Business and includes continental breakfast and lunch. Learn more or confirm your attendance with Dr. Charles Gallagher (804) 828-7288. email: cjgallag@vcu.edu

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