SunTrust Names Professorship in Finance
SunTrust Bank has become the first corporation to name a professorship in the Finance Department of the Robinson College of Business with the creation of the SunTrust Professorship in Capital Markets. The professorship will attract and retain a scholar of world-class ability and recognition and will support outstanding doctoral student research assistants. The announcement of the professorship was made at a ceremony attended by Carl V. Patton, president of Georgia State University; Sidney E. Harris, dean of the Robinson College of Business; Phil Humann, chairman, president and CEO of SunTrust; and other officials from Georgia State University, Robinson College and SunTrust.
SunTrust is committing an unprecedented 3:1 match for alumni/employee contributions.
At the ceremony, Dean Harris said that "We view this gathering as a strong vote of confidence in what we do.... We hope to replicate this initiative in other large companies in Atlanta. With SunTrust's support, this professorship can become the most distinguished in the College and help the College achieve the recognition it so richly deserves."
The dean also noted that the SunTrust Professorship will further strengthen Robinson's Finance Department, which is already on CFO.com's list of the nation's 10 most intriguing programs.
Following his remarks, the dean introduced the keynote speaker, Phil Niehaus, managing director, credit derivatives in the Financial Risk Management Group at SunTrust.
College Ranks Among Nation's Best 10 for the Ninth Consecutive Year
For the ninth straight year, the Flex (part-time) MBA program at the Robinson College of Business has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 10 programs in the nation. The program ranks seventh (third among public universities) on this list of top picks of business school deans and MBA directors. Robinson is the only business school in the South to make the top 10.
In addition, Robinson's information systems program (MIS) advanced two positions to eighth (fifth among public universities) in the nation.
"For the past nine years, the Robinson College of Business has been a member of an elite group of business schools that have consistently topped the U.S. News part-time MBA rankings," says Dean Harris. "Schools such as NYU, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and Robinson prove time and time again that program innovations, commitment to the changing needs of students and the business community, and high-quality faculty are the keys to a successful program."
The College's computer information systems (CIS) program continues to climb the list; last year the program cracked the top 10 and this year it moved up two positions. Faculty who produce leading research, an outstanding student body and a top-notch curriculum were listed as factors in the program's continued high ranking, according to program chair Richard Baskerville.
The rankings are included in the magazine's annual special edition guidebook titled "Best Graduate Schools." The expanded online rankings are currently available at www.usnews.com.
Meet New RMI Chair Sanjay Srivastava
Sanjay Srivastava, professor of risk management and insurance and director of the department's mathematical risk management program, has been named the new chair of the Risk Management and Insurance Department. His tenure as chair began on July 1.
Srivastava replaces Harold "Skip" Skipper, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Skipper joined the College in 1976 as an assistant professor and became chair of the RMI Department in 2001. Skipper will stay on as faculty for an additional year working on a variety of teaching and research activities.
Srivastava joined the College in August 2002 as a visiting professor from Carnegie Mellon University. While at Carnegie Mellon, he held the position of alumni professor of economics and finance in the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) and served as director of GSIA's Center for Financial Analysis and Securities Trading (FAST) Program, a research and teaching program. Srivastava also founded Carnegie Mellon's Computational Finance Program and directed the program for its first five years.
His research findings have appeared in a number of professional journals, including Econometrica, Journal of Risk, Journal of Finance, Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Economic Studies and Journal of International Economics. He has also served on the editorial boards of respected research publications and is the author of several textbooks. In addition to Georgia State and Carnegie Mellon, Srivastava has taught at the California Institute of Technology, ITESM in Mexico and Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan.
He earned his B.A. degree in economics at Warwick University in the United Kingdom and his Ph.D. in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In addition to his post as chair, he will serve as executive director for the Educational Foundation, Inc. (EFI). The foundation provides the business services community with a vehicle for raising funds to support the risk management programs at Robinson, recruitment and retention of top faculty, scholarships to deserving students, and important faculty research.
Dean Keynotes efmd MBA Directors Meeting in Rotterdam
Dean Sidney E. Harris served as the keynote speaker for the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd) MBA Directors Meeting 2004 held April 22-24 in Rotterdam.
The meeting, with its theme "the changing face of European MBA education," was designed to provide efmd member institutions with insights into the trends, challenges and opportunities facing management education. The dean's keynote remarks compared European and American management education. He focused on the competitive environment, compared the Western European and U.S. b-school markets and discussed what role business schools play in the development of emerging market economies. He also compared specific European and U.S. b-school models and discussed the new role faculty must play in order to produce students with the leadership qualities necessary to excel. Said the dean, "Business faculty should not simply be teachers of the work of others, but active contributors to what is taught, thought and practiced throughout the world."
Other topics covered at the conference included recruitment and admissions, design of MBA programs and branding. In addition, Maury Kalnitz, former Robinson EMBA director and now managing director of the Executive MBA Council, presented that organization's recently concluded benchmarking study.
Profs Win Best Paper 2003
Three professors from the College have received the award for Best Paper of 2003 by the editors of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, a journal produced by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
The paper, "Why Software Projects Escalate: The Importance of Project Management Constructs," was co-authored by Mark Keil, professor of computer information systems; Arun Rai, the James A. Harkins III Professor of computer information systems; and Peter Zhang, associate professor of management. The study reports on a survey showing that the use of certain project management practices can predict which projects are likely to be delivered on time and within budget and which projects are likely to run behind schedule and go over budget.
Additionally, Keil's paper, "Reporting Bad News about Software Projects: Impact of Organizational Climate and Information Asymmetry in an Individualistic and a Collectivistic Culture," received an honorable mention for Best Paper.
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management is a research-
based, refereed journal in engineering management. The journal
is published quarterly by IEEE, a leading authority in technical
areas ranging from computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications to electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics.
Robinson College Adopts Core Value Statements as Prelude to Development of New Five-year Plan
In preparation for the development of a revised five-year strategic plan, the Robinson College of Business has completed the process of reaffirming its core values. According to Dean Sidney E. Harris, the College adopted five core value statements that "emanate from the rich history and tradition of the College, but will also serve as beacons for our future growth and development."
Says Harris, "With the strategic plan activity under way, it was critical that we looked within ourselves and reaffirmed just what these values are for the Robinson College. They are the underpinnings of our culture, they help us preserve what is special about the College and they will keep us focused on what is important."
Harris notes that while core values exercises are common in the corporate world, that is not the case in academia. "Yet," says Harris, "for any organization to flourish, everyone must be on the same page and be passionate about what the organization stands for." The five core values are as follows:
Excellence
We strive to be the best in everything we do.
Integrity
We are truthful, fair and accountable at all times.
Collegiality and Diversity
We respect diverse perspectives and people in a
collegial environment.
Innovation
We encourage and support new ideas.
Partnership
We engage our stakeholders in mutually beneficial ways.
Harris notes that developing these values was the result of an extensive nine-month effort that involved nearly 350 members of the Robinson faculty and staff. Input from these groups, received through meetings and surveys, was brought to a 19-member planning committee. That committee had the task of condensing the information and preparing final values statements.
Concludes the dean, "The values statements we've just adopted will help guide Robinson's efforts to remain a leader in business education, to compete with the best and to continuously improve the ways we develop and educate business leaders of the future."
With the core values in place, the Robinson planning committee will begin work on other elements of the strategic plan, which is scheduled for completion in spring 2005.
