Message From The Dean

As we enter a new academic year, I am pleased to report to you the 
progress we are making in our quest to become one of the leading public 
business schools in the nation. 

We have received strong support at many levels toward our goal of securing 
a new building that will be the home of The UTD School of Management. 
Although there is still a need to raise 3.7 million dollars, the Regents 
of the U.T. System have released the thirty million dollars they pledged 
for the building a year ago, and groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled 
for early 2002. Completion of the new building, in summer 2003, will 
constitute a great advance for management education at UTD. The new 
building will not only allow us to consolidate and greatly upgrade our 
resources, but it also will enable us to better serve the needs of our 
rapidly growing number of students and the faculty who teach them. 

The level of contributions we are receiving from supporters is one sure 
indicator of progress we are making toward our goals. In addition to the 
Regents' allocation, we have received generous donations from corporate, 
alumni, and individual supporters, and we want to thank them for their 
contributions. The article in this issue by Ron Nash, chairman-elect of 
our School's Advisory Council and a member of the UTD Development Board, 
recognizes the contributors who already have brought the total to 4.3 
million dollars and spells out the need for the additional 3.7 million 
dollars that we must raise in order to complete our match of the Regents' 
allocation.

Even as we work with the architects to ensure that the new building 
supports not only our current innovations but also our future improvements 
in the delivery of management education at UTD, our School continues to 
grow at double-digit levels. Obviously, the quality of our programs is 
becoming well known, as revealed by the more than fifty percent growth in 
enrollment in the last three years. This fall's enrollment stands at 
4,329, compared to 3,850 a year ago, and makes The School of Management 
the largest school of the University. 

To serve our growing number of students, we continue to expand our 
faculty, which has also grown by more than eighty percent over the past 
six years. This fall, sixteen outstanding new faculty members join the 
School, bringing our faculty ranks to eighty-three. Our new faculty 
members, who are introduced in this issue, provide us with a wealth of 
expertise and new ideas, and enable us to maintain a faculty-to-student 
ratio at the level necessary to provide our students with an excellent 
educational experience. 

Another indicator of a School's success is the success of its alumni, and 
this issue also features the impressive successes of the four SOM 
graduates we have recognized with our 2001 Distinguished Alumni Awards. 

Several of the articles of this issue focus on the value back that the UTD 
School of Management provides to our constituents, be they students, 
alumni, or corporate or individual friends. For example, in the Corporate 
View article, K.P. Wilska, president of Nokia, Inc., speaks to the value 
added to his company by the educational opportunities the School offers to 
the DFW area workforce.

In addition, students and colleagues of Professor Stephen Guisinger, a 
longtime and much-beloved SOM faculty member who died suddenly and 
unexpectedly this summer, pay tribute to the value that he added not only 
to individual lives but to the School as well.

Our goals are lofty ones, to be sure. However, the broad-based support we 
are receiving from our constituents encourages us to proceed with 
confidence. Thank you for your support.

Hasan Pirkul 
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