November 4, 2005

 

From the Dean’s Office:

 

Thanks to those who took time to visit campus last weekend for Fall 2005 Homecoming.  We had a few folks show up at the WCU Alumni Breakfast on Saturday morning.  While I didn’t take time to visit extensively in the tailgate area, I know that there were many alumni here for the weekend.  Western did manage to defeat Elon University in the afternoon football game (catamountsports.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/102905aaa.html).  It was a great day to sit outside and watch football.  The Pride of the Mountains Marching Band (www.prideofthemountains.com) also provides great entertainment for those who love a good band. 

 

Alumni happenings:

 

Ø      Stephen Ross (BSBA-CIS, ’02, MBA, ’04) reports that he is enjoying his Accounting II position at the Food Lion Store Support Center in Salisbury, NC.  Actually, he reports that his working title is Systems Analysis and Maintenance. He is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the computer systems in support of store operations.

 

If you have not visited the College of Business Alumni Database recently, take a look and make sure your data is correct and/or follow up on some of you classmates or friends.  You can reach the website at: bcis.wcu.edu/alumni

 

 

Masters of Business Administration News:

 

  1. For the 2005 Fall Semester, we have 131 MBA students (52 in Cullowhee and 79 in Asheville), 40 of which are new students.  Fifteen non-degree students are enrolled and will be reviewed for admission into the program as soon as we receive their test scores.  For the new students, the average GMAT is 486 and the average GPA is 3.33. 

 

  1. The following 17 students are planning to graduate in December with the MBA degree.  Congratulations to Arshad Ahmadi, Bradley Barnes, Donna Cottrell, Marsida Doda, Nikhil Goel, Adrianne Gordon, Peter Gut, Huseyin Karadag, Lewis McCrain, Amanda Murajda, Hanjang No, Byron Rose, Srinivasan Swaminathan, Ramakrishna Venkatraman, Justin Wagner, Howard Wahnetah (plus Entrepreneurship Certificate), and Ty Whitaker.

 

Business Computer Information Systems & Economics News:

 

  1. Dr. Perry has been invited to be a featured speaker in Elon University’s “Voices of Discovery” series for the 2006 academic year.  The tentative title of his presentation is “The Art and Science of Protecting Our Nation’s Critical Infrastructure.”  The topic includes a discussion of the asymmetric threat environment faced by our nation’s information infrastructure and the countermeasures that can be deployed to mitigate the threat matrix.  Speakers in the series present to students, the university community and regional constituents in an all day venue.  

 

  1. Barbara Jo White recently received notice that an article, “Guided design search in the interval-bounded sailor assignment problem,” is slated for the June, 2006 issue of Computers & Operations Research, a top-25 journal in the information systems area. Barbara Jo worked on this article with principal authors Mark and Karen Lewis.

 

  1. Professors Jacques and Stillwell worked together to aid the Mountain Discovery Charter School in Bryson City with nonfunctioning computers through the project, “Computer renewal and resurrection from a rural charter elementary school.” This project entails root cause diagnosis of failure in a variety of computers owned by the school. Thirteen students enrolled in CIS 493 Hardware Installation and Maintenance got a chance to use their skills developed from class. The benefit of the project to the students includes the opportunity to apply their knowledge of hardware and software functions within the finished assembly problem and to leverage that knowledge to apply other course content such as fault diagnosis methodology and perform indicated repairs in a way that restores these machines to functionality.

 

4.      Robert F. Mulligan’s articles, “Property Rights and Time Preference” and “An Empirical Examination of Austrian Business Cycle Theory” have been accepted by the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. His article, “The Austrian Business Cycle: a Vector Error-correction Model with Commercial and Industrial Loans” has been accepted by the Journal of Private Enterprise.

 

5.      Steve Ha, Robert F. Mulligan, James Murphy, and Jim Ullmer are all presenting papers at the Southern Economic Association annual meetings in Washington DC later this month.  Ha and Ullmer will present "Threshold Market Analysis for Western North Carolina."  Mulligan is presenting "Maritime Regulatory Influences on Entrepreneurial Behavior," coauthored with Gary A. Lombardo of the United States Merchant Marine Academy.  Murphy is presenting "An Experiment on a Psycho-Economic Model of Donation Behavior for Rainforest Conservation," coauthored with Samiran Banerjee of Emory University and Deborah J. Webb of the University of West Georgia.

 

NEXT NEWSLETTER – November 18