Significant Strides: Research Efforts Place UTD Among Top Business Schools Academic study in INFORMS publication shows SOM moving from 43rd to 6th place. By Paula Felps The recent prominent inclusion of The University of Texas at Dallas School of Management (SOM) in a global study has reinforced the school's rising profile as a research heavyweight. An article about the study, published in the December 2002 issue of OR/MS Today, places the SOM at number six, worldwide, among schools with comparable information systems and operations management programs during the last six years. "This is the first time that someone has looked at what we've done and put us alongside the best schools," says SOM Dean Hasan Pirkul. "The fact that our faculty shows up as the sixth-ranked school during the last six years is very significant. It shows that we are, in fact, a dominating organization and are becoming a top school." The study compared the amount of research published in quantitative and technical fields, such as operations management and management information systems, by business schools during two six-year periods, 1990 to 1996 and 1997 to 2002. OR/MS Today is a bimonthly membership magazine of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). It features articles and updates by leading experts in operations research and management science. The study's authors, James R. Marsden and Ravi Bapna, both faculty members at the University of Connecticut, said they wanted to measure the performance of business schools that have organized departments to address management issues created by the information technology revolution. The researchers drew their conclusions by tallying the amount of academic research published in the last 12 years in four top journals that frequently publish research on operations management and management information systems: Management Science, Information Systems Research, Operations Research and INFORMS Journal on Computing. All four are published by the 10,000-member INFORMS, a widely respected organization that represents professionals and academicians in the operations management, management sciences, and management information systems fields. (See Many School of Management Professors Play Active Roles in INFORMS on page 5.) One of the most compelling aspects of the survey, Dean Pirkul says, is the dramatic leap that can be seen. During the study's first six-year period, the SOM ranked 43rd. "The leap we made - from 43rd to 6th - is a real measure of the progress we've made as we've grown over the last six years. It's particularly gratifying because it indicates that we're making significant progress toward our goal of creating a nationally recognized, top-quality management school here at UTD," he says. "We are now getting nationally recognized faculty from some of the country's top schools who want to come to UTD," Dean Pirkul adds. "They look at the journals and see the UTD name and want to be a part of what we're doing. This study reinforces that." The entire text of Professors Marsden and Bapna's study can be viewed at www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/orms-12-02/frpaperchase.html. Dr. Frank Bass Among INFORMS' First Fellows Institute recognizes SOM marketing science pioneer's leadership and achievement By Paula Felps In Nov. 18, 2002, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) presented its first INFORMS Fellows Award. The honor, developed to recognize outstanding achievement in one of five key areas designated by the institute, went to 113 recipients, including Frank M. Bass, who is the Eugene McDermott University of Texas System Professor of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas. The recipients, who were presented their awards during the society's annual meeting in San Jose, California, included all past presidents of the society and its predecessors, TIMS (The Institute of Management Sciences) and ORSA (Operations Research Society of America). Barry List, director of public relations for the society, said the award is "quite significant." "The award recognized outstanding achievement in our field, and Professor Bass, a leading operations research theoret-ician and practitioner, was inducted in a group that included the most eminent in our field, including two Nobel Prize winners," Mr. List noted. Professor Bass's name was immediately added to the list of recipients because of his service to TIMS. "One of the groups that INFORMS recognized was past presidents of our two founding societies, which merged to form INFORMS in 1995," Mr. List explained. "Professor Bass is past president of TIMS, which he served from 1978-79, thus qualifying him for recognition." Professor Bass is in good company, with other award recipients including all previous recipients of INFORMS' prestigious John von Neumann Prize for fundamental theoretical contributions and the George E. Kimball Medal for service to the profession. INFORMS members who were previously inducted into the National Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of Engineering also received the award. In addition to his service to TIMS, Professor Bass was formerly the editor of the Journal of Marketing Research and has won numerous awards for his research. He also was named the recipient of the Richard D. Irwin/American Marketing Association Distinguished Marketing Educator Award in 1990, and INFORMS has named an award in his name, the Frank M. Bass Dissertation Paper Award of the College on Marketing of INFORMS. Mr. List said that all future INFORMS Fellows Award recipients will be determined by a subcommittee of current Fellows. INFORMS Fellows Award Criteria INFORMS granted Fellows Awards based on outstanding achievement in one or more of the following areas: * Research * The practice of operations research/management science * Management of operations research/management science, including significant responsibility for applying the profession's techniques within organizations * Education in the field of operations research/management science * Service to INFORMS or the profession Many School of Management Professors Play Active Roles in INFORMS By Paula Felps The connection between The University of Texas at Dallas School of Management (SOM) and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is a long and lasting one. INFORMS presently includes several SOM faculty members in prominent positions, all of whom have a long-standing relationship with the organization. INFORMS is an international society representing professionals in the fields of operations research and the management sciences (OR/MS) and in related fields such as information technology. The organization promotes the application of scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management and operations. It also serves as a clearinghouse for the latest OR/MS ideas and information by publishing a variety of journals and organizing conferences for its membership of 10,000, which includes several Nobel laureates. In addition to 10 scholarly journals, INFORMS publishes the online journal Interactive Transactions of OR/MS, the membership magazine OR/MS Today, a book series, and a series of teaching cases. "INFORMS is the premier professional society for operations management and operations research faculty and practitioners," explains Dr. Kathryn Stecke, SOM professor of information systems and operation management (ISOM). "[It] is where the faculty and Ph.D. students go to hear about the latest exciting research in the world. Finishing Ph.D. students go there to look for a faculty position." Professor Stecke has been attending INFORMS conferences since she was a student in the master's program at Purdue University 25 years ago. Over the years, she has been a senior editor of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM). She also has served as a member of the organizing committee for several national INFORMS meetings. In 2001, she chaired the international INFORMS meeting in Hawaii. She was elected vice president of Sections and Societies in 2002, is on the INFORMS board of directors and is the board's liaison with all of the sections and societies of INFORMS. Her term runs through 2004. Other faculty members currently on editorial boards of INFORMS publications or active on INFORMS committees include Dr. Rajiv D. Banker, Dr. Nirup Menon, Dr. Vijay Mookerjee, Dean Hasan Pirkul, Dr. Ram Rao, Dr. Sumit Sarkar and Dr. Suresh Sethi. Dr. Frank Bass, a past national president of The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS), one of the forerunners of INFORMS, is a 2003 INFORMS Fellow (see Dr. Frank Bass Among INFORMS' First Fellows on page 4). Professor Sethi, Ashbel Smith Professor of Operations Management, is a senior editor of M&SOM and previously was associate editor for the Operations Research journal. Long active in INFORMS, he has served as cluster and sessions chair at 20 of the organization's conferences since 1975. Professor Rao, SOM's Founders Professor, chaired the national marketing science meeting for INFORMS in 1986 and has served on the editorial board of the INFORMS publication Marketing Science since 1984. He has also served as area editor of Marketing Science. Professor Banker, Ashbel Smith Professor of Accounting and Information Management and director of SOM's accounting and information management programs, serves as Information Systems Department editor for Management Science and has been a senior editor for M&SOM. Dean Pirkul, who is also UTD's Caruth Professor of Management Information Systems, has served as chair of INFORMS' Information Systems Society as well as the INFORMS technical section on telecommunications. He has also served as associate editor for the journals, Management Science and Operations Research. Professor Mookerjee, coordinator of SOM's Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) area, is currently associate editor of Management Science and serves on the editorial boards of the INFORMS Journal on Computing and Operations Research. Professor Sarkar, a member of the school's ISOM faculty, is on the editorial board of Information Systems Research and serves as secretary of the INFORMS Computing Society. For several years, Professor Sarkar has served as a member of the program committee for the Conference of Information Systems and Technology, while Professor Menon, who is an accounting and information management faculty member, has recently been invited to become an associate editor of Information Systems Research. Professor Sethi, who has been active in INFORMS for nearly 30 years, emphasizes the value of involvement in the organization. "INFORMS is a major society for information systems and marketing. Publication and participation in INFORMS journals only enhances the school's reputation," he points out. "It gives the school tremendous visibility. Serving faculty can influence the direction of the society." More information about INFORMS is available at www.informs.org.