MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

"Meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing, technology-driven, global 
society" forms the foundation of our School's mission. Naturally, 
continuous change and innovation are fundamental principles that guide us 
at all times. Innovation is a major theme for this issue of Management, 
which highlights research by our faculty. This issue also explores the 
continuing growth in our programs, faculty, and student body. The lead 
article delves into the current research of several of our professors and 
presents only a snapshot of the variety of leading-edge issues and 
problems SOM faculty researchers are tackling.

Over the last five years, we have emphasized strengthening SOM's excellent 
faculty. Always striving to hire the most qualified professionals, we have 
added thirty-two members, bringing the size of our faculty roster to 
seventy-eight. Their excellence in both teaching and research is reflected 
by the international recognition that many have received. The Marketing 
Science Institute recently named Professor Frank Bass one of marketing's 
greatest thinkers and featured his pioneering research on its Internet 
publication. The New York Academy of Sciences named Professor Suresh Sethi 
a fellow of the academy for his extraordinary scientific accomplishments 
and service to the science community and the public. The American 
Accounting Association recognized Professor Rajiv Banker with an award for 
notable contributions to the accounting literature for his research in 
governmental and nonprofit accounting. Our tenured faculty, as a whole, 
ranked first in Texas and thirteenth nationwide when compared with tenured 
faculties at other U.S. management schools in a recent faculty research 
citation index developed by SOM Professor Stan Liebowitz. These honors 
attest that, while our faculty is seventy percent larger than it was just 
six years ago, we have not sacrificed quality and that our faculty ranks 
among the best in the nation.

Information systems as an undergraduate major - one of our new programs 
that stress innovations in the latest technologies - is the subject of 
another article in this issue. This is but one of the new programs we 
offer. We have a new undergraduate major in finance. We also offer new 
master's degree concentrations in e-commerce, telecom management, and 
information technology consulting. These programs have drawn an 
enthusiastic response from the public, as evidenced by a more than fifty 
percent increase in enrollments in just the last three years. In fact, SOM 
now has nearly a thousand graduates per year - as well as the largest 
enrollment, with 3,850 students - of any school at UTD.

The article by SOM Advisory Council Chairman-Elect Ron Nash describes the 
need for new facilities, a need created by the tremendous growth in our 
faculty and student body. Last fall, The University of Texas Board of 
Regents granted our School thirty million dollars to be used for a new 
building. We now need to raise an additional eight million dollars before 
groundbreaking for what will be a first-rate facility.

At this exciting and very important point in our School's development, we 
are inviting our alumni and friends to help us with support and input. We 
are working with the architects to ensure that our new building contains 
the latest technologies to support not only our current innovations - such 
as the two MBA programs we offer via the Internet - but also our future 
improvements in the delivery of management education. We look forward to 
your input as the design phase proceeds for the new home of the UTD School 
of Management.

Best wishes,
Hasan Pirkul

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