|
 |
NEWS BRIEFS, September
27, 2004
Snead Family Foundation Pledges $1 Million to VCU School of Business
Thomas and Vickie Snead, 1976
graduates of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business,
have announced a $1 million pledge from the Snead Family Foundation
to support the $30 million VCU School of Business private fund-raising
campaign.
A major goal of the campaign is to construct a new School of Business
building that is part of the planned Monroe Park Campus Addition,
to be located east of Belvidere Street in Richmond. The campus
addition also will house the expansion of the School of Engineering.
"The Sneads’ million-dollar pledge is a big step toward
fulfilling our vision to be nationally recognized as the leading
technologically focused business school in the Commonwealth," said
Dr. Michael Sesnowitz, dean of the Business School. "This
state-of-the-art facility will create a greater sense of community
among students, faculty, alumni and business leaders.”
|
Tom and Vickie Snead, VCU '76.
Photo courtesy of VCU Advancement
|
Tom Snead is President of Anthem Blue
Cross & Blue Shield - Southeast Region. He recently was appointed
to VCU’s Board of Visitors and serves on the Business School’s
campaign executive leadership team. His wife, Vickie Snead, is
a former vice president of Merchandise Planning and Stock Control
of Miller & Rhoads Department store. She is a member of VCU’s
Alumni Board, the VCU Massey Cancer Center Advisory Board and the
Board of Directors of the Science Museum of Virginia.
"The VCU School of Business opened
a new world to me," said Snead. "Throughout my career,
the education and skills acquired at VCU have never failed me in
meeting the toughest of business challenges. This is why I feel
so strongly in supporting my alma mater, an institution that has
served me so well in life."
"As proud VCU alumni, we are happy to give back to the institution
that has given us so much opportunity," said Vickie Snead. "Tom
and I consider this a wise investment in the future of VCU and
its students."
The School of Business campaign is part of the overall $330.5
million Campaign for VCU launched last April – the most ambitious
and extensive capital campaign in the university’s history.
Thomas and Vickie Snead also are co-chairs of the campaign for
the Monroe Park Campus.
"VCU's new School of Business will prepare students for successful
careers and lifelong learning by providing management education
firmly grounded in technology, interdisciplinary teamwork and global
perspectives," said VCU President Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D. “This
exciting initiative will provide our business community with well-trained
and motivated engineers and business executives who have great
technical skills and can work in diverse environments. Everyone
at the University is so grateful to Tom and Vickie for their great
generosity and leadership. They are wonderful examples of our successful
and appreciative alumni.”
For more information on The Campaign for VCU, visit http://www.vcu.edu/campaign.
|
NEW WEEKLY BUSINESS COLUMN FEATURES “LESSONS
LEARNED” FROM “THE APPRENTICE”
NBC's "The Apprentice” is giving School of Business marketing professor
Dr. David J. Urban the opportunity to branch out into cyberspace with a weekly
dot com series called "Lessons Learned" that is being carried by Richmond.com.
(To view the column click on
http://www.richmond.com/business/output.cfm?ID=3265109&vertical=business)
The series is a "business postmortem" and is to appear
each Friday following "The Apprentice." It focuses on
Donald Trump's business manners, management style, decision making
abilities and people skills. Dr. Urban began following the show
last season and periodically made media comments including two
appearances on NBC12 and an interview
with Douglas Durban, the Richmond Times Dispatch's
television critic. After a few more interviews, Dr. Urban came
up with the idea to analyze and compare "the Donald's" decisions
with real life situations and probabilities.
"Lessons Learned" is another of Dr. Urban's innovative
ways to teach. Since his arrival at VCU in 1989, he has taught
at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in virtually every
educational format, and received eight national teaching awards
for his quest to help busy students learn course material more
conveniently and efficiently.
“The Apprentice” format holds strong appeal to teachers.
Dr. Michael Pitts, Professor of Management, also is using the TV
show in his undergraduate Statistics Management class. Teams of
four will follow the show, critique the performance of the two
teams on the show, and then prepare a four-page paper expressing
their own ideas as to how to handle the tasks that were assigned.
VCU considers partnering with EGYPTIAN UNIVERSITY to offer EMB
program in Egypt
The VCU School of Business, and Helwan University (HU), Cairo,
Egypt, are considering jointly offering an Executive MBA program
in Cairo. At the conclusion of a joint
conference held in Cairo in July, VCU's Dr. Van Wood (Professor of International
Marketing and Philip Morris Endowed Chair in International Business) who is
heading up the project, reported the university's efforts "have made significant
progress” in reaching tentative agreements on logistical needs, budget,
marketing plans, and general nature and content of the courses and teaching
methods. A decision on offering the program will not be made until next year
and the program
would not begin before 2006.
Dr. David Upton, Chair of the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate
department, and Dr. Peter Aiken, Assistant Professor of Information
Systems also joined in the conference. The primary objective was
to officially recognize and start the VCU and Helwan University
partnership project. Its scope is to explore the development of
an executive master of business administration (EMBA) program that
would be offered jointly by both academic institutions.
A second objective was to meet with stakeholders who would both
participate and benefit from the collaboration. This included representatives
from General Motors, Vodafone Egypt, American Chamber of Commerce,
MobiNil, Oratech, and Raya Integration.
DR. WILLIAMS HONORED FOR RESEARCH METHODS
Dr. Larry J. Williams, University Professor of Management and Research Professor
of Psychology, received special recognition at the recent meeting of the
Academy of Management that was held in New Orleans. He received a plaque
for outstanding service to the Research Methods Division of the Academy for
founding and editing the journal Organizational Research Methods.
This journal has been recently ranked as one of the top ten journals in the
areas of organizational behavior and human resources management, and it is
sponsored by the Research Methods Division, one of the largest divisions
of the 15,000 member Academy.
Dr. Williams founded the journal with Sage Publications in 1996
and has served as its editor for the first seven volumes. He will
be stepping down as editor in January 2005. He also serves as director
of the Center for the Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis
(CARMA) at VCU and was recently elected as a member of the Society
of Organizational Behavior, a group of prominent organizational
behavior scholars from throughout the United States and abroad.
NEW FACULTY APPOINTMENTS. Four new faculty appointments
have been announced. They are:
|
 Jose' H. Dula', Ph.D., associate
professor of Operations Management, who has joined the Management
Department. His areas of teaching and research include optimization,
quantitative methods in OM and MS including networks, inventory control,
scheduling, modeling and probability and statistics including stochastic
processes. He has taught at Southern Methodist University and the
University of Mississippi, and was a visiting principal researcher,
Computing Research Group with the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical
Research Division for the year ending 2003. His research has been
published in Journal of the Operational Research Society,
Journal on Computing and Journal of Productivity
Analysis. He earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees
in Applied Mathematics and Industrial and Operations Engineering
from The University of Michigan, M.S. from Stanford University and
Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from The University
of Michigan.
|
| |
 Myung S. Park, Ph.D. joins the Department
of Accounting as an assistant professor. He also is a member of the
editorial board of Journal of Accounting and Finance.
His areas of teaching and research include financial accounting,
managerial accounting and accounting information systems (AIS),
with heavy concentration on empirical research in financial accounting,
managerial accounting and AIS. Dr. Park received a Bachelor of
Arts
degree from Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea, an M.B.A. from
Korea University, Seoul, and a second MBA from Syracuse University
and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. His latest research endeavor
on "Pricing of Seasoned Equity Offers and Earnings Management" is
forthcoming in 2004 in Journal of Financial and Quantitative
Analysis.
|
| |
 Laura Razzolini, Ph.D. joins the
Economics Department as an associate professor. She also is managing
editor of the Southern Economic Journal;
specializes in public economics, and her research focuses on the
effects of cost allocations on the provision of shared goods. She
frequently conducts economic experiments in a laboratory setting
to test the predictions of models of behavior. She previously taught
at the University of Mississippi and was program director for National
Science Foundation's Economics program until August 2003. She currently
is working on projects that examine how different contribution mechanisms
affect the amount raised in charity auctions and lotteries, and how
different pricing mechanisms affect the congestion on a computer
network. Her research has been published in Experimental
Economics, Journal of Economic Theory and Public
Choice. Dr. Razzolini earned a Laurea (Baccalaureate)
from University of Florence, Italy; a research doctorate from University
of Bologna, Italy; an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Southern Methodist
University.
|
| |
 Brent C. Smith, Ph.D. assistant
professor, Real Estate and Urban Development, will be teaching
and continuing
his research exploring the impact of macroeconomic factors on real
property investment, and real estate market modeling while contributing
to the research demands of the Virginia Real Estate Center, housed
at VCU. Articles produced from Dr. Smith’s previous research
activity have been published in the journal Real Estate
Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, the
Journal of Real Estate Research, and Urban
Affairs Review, and the International Journal
of Property Tax Assessment and Administration. Dr.
Smith previously taught at Western Michigan University and Indiana
University. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Indiana
University, an M.B.A. from University of Notre Dame and Ph.D. from
Indiana University.
|
| |
UPCOMING EVENTS October 5 - REAL ESTATE TRENDS
CONFERENCE
Continental Breakfast, Registration and Networking begins at 7:30
a.m. for an hour. From 8:30 to 12:30 p.m. will be a powerful
program on local and national trends. Keynote Speaker is Susan
Hudson-Wilson, Founder and CEO of Property & Portfolio Research,
Inc., Boston. For further information call (804) 828-1721 or
visit http://www.realestate.vcu.edu
October 18 – TECH TUESDAYS
7:30 – 9:00 a.m. at the VCU School of Business, Snead Hall, School of Business
301 W. Main Street,
Room 1101. This new program offered by the Information Systems
Department is free and open to the public. Participants can address
their “burning technology questions” to the experts and can discuss
how technology can affect their businesses. Topics may include
emerging technologies, security, project management, CRM and social
responsibility. Tech Tuesdays will be continued
on each third Tuesday of the month. For information contact Maureen Carley, ISRI Associate Director at 828-7074 or mecarley@vcu.edu. |
| |
If you have News or Event information,
Comments or Questions about this Area,
Please email Fran Altman fealtman@vcu.edu |
|
