Week of December 3 –8: Keeping you connected to COBA!

1. December graduation

Earlier today (Friday), Georgia Southern held its 60th annual Fall Commencement exercises in Hanner Fieldhouse. We (COBA) were delighted to issue a total of 277 degrees to our students-turned-alumni.

Of this total we had 11 Masters of Accountancy graduates, 19 MBAs, and 247 BBA graduates. For comparison, last December we granted the exact same number of MAcc and MBA degrees, but only 218 undergraduate degrees. So, our BBA production rose 13 percent over last year – a good sign for our retention, progression, and graduation initiative.

Thanks to all the faculty and staff who attended the graduation exercises and celebrated our students’ successes.

Oh yes, one other tidbit: Jayson Foster walked across the stage today to receive his degree in business with a major in logistics and intermodal transportation – he’s a COBA grad!!

2. Savannah Business Report & Journal

William Amponsah contributed this week’s book review of “The Conscience of a Liberal” by Paul Krugman. William writes:

“Just as in Barry Goldwater's 1960 expose, "Conscience of a Conservative," noted economist Paul Krugman purposefully leads future thinking on policy with "The Conscience of a Liberal," weaving an impeccably reasoned history of how the interaction between recent U.S. politics and social norms has shaped its economic status.”

For a primer on liberal’s philosophy, read William’s review at the link below:

http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=260&ArticleID=12453

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In this month’s forensic accounting column, Tom Buckhoff supplies us with another doozy of an example of fraud titled “Check-tampering Schemes.” Here’s how his column starts:

“’Melanie Roberts’ was married with two young children and active in school and other community organizations. She was admired and respected by her family, friends and neighbors. Melanie worked as the executive secretary for an international charitable organization, and its board of directors liked Melanie and trusted her completely. She had complete control over both cash receipts and cash disbursements, and her work was rarely, if ever, reviewed by others. Like many charitable organizations, Melanie's employer did not consider internal controls to be necessary, believing that its noble charitable mandate would deter would-be thieves. Who would dare steal from an organization that provides disaster relief to needy families? Well, Melanie would and did.”

To learn how she did it – and how you can avoid being hoodwinked in your business – read Tom’s complete column at the following link:

http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=260&ArticleID=12452

3. Eagle Executive Society

It’s coming in 2008! The Eagle Executive Society!!

Susan Williams and her task force have cooked up this wonderful idea to create an annual giving program to COBA through a membership society that we are going to call the Eagle Executive Society.

Alumni and friends of COBA will be invited to join for $50 a year. Susan is working on a web site and a mailing (to go out in early January).

I won’t spill all the news just yet, but please respond when we contact you and ask for your support next year. COBA needs you!!

4. Visiting scholar

Bill Levernier was honored by the Furman University Department of Economics this fall as their 2007 Visiting Scholar.

According to their web site,

“The Visiting Scholar program brings to Furman’s campus an economist with notable research achievements in an area of interest to faculty and students. He or she presents a research seminar to our economics students and professors and lectures in selected classes. Most importantly, the Visiting Scholar reads and critiques the work of our Hollingsworth Undergraduate Research Fellows, who have been working on research projects throughout the previous summer.”

Congratulations, Bill!! This is quite an honor.

Bill would like to start a similar program here at Georgia Southern and has prepared a proposal for funding. If you are interested in helping us launch an undergraduate economics research program in COBA, please let me know! Thank you.

5. Sales competition (from Linda Mullen)

The context of the following note from Linda is an on-campus sales competition that our sales faculty organized. They lined up volunteers to serve as judges, as a buyer, and as a sponsor. Students participated to earn the privilege of representing Georgia Southern at the national sales competition next spring.

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I especially want to thank CH Robinson for their financial support as well. This competition could not happen with their support. We REALLY appreciate all the judges. They were: Sean Mannion, CH Robinson; Patrick Thompson, Loop-loc; Jena Smith and Wendy Denton, Sea Island; Darryl Smith, Custom Ring; Ravi Kahan, Hantz Group; Chad Mitchell and Ken Olston; Network Systems, Inc.; and Elizabeth Childs, Georgia Southern University.

Special thanks to our "Buyer" Kathy Shepherd.

The winners of the competition were:

1st Place - Cody Ray

2nd Place - Adam Allen

3rd Place - Chris Collins

4th Place - Kandice Chapman

We are going to be working hard to practice for the National competition in March 2008. If you might be interested in working with these students as buyers, coaches, or anything you think might be beneficial, let us know.

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Thank you Linda, Dena Hale, and Dave Shepherd for organizing this event!

6. Research roundup

Congratulations to Jackie Eastman! She published her first article with a Georgia Southern affiliation! Jackie has a long publication record, but she is new to our faculty as of this fall and already has achieved success with “The elderly’s internet usage: an updated look” in the Journal of Consumer Marketing.

7. COBA Holiday Poll

Jeremy Hill concluded his two-part series that reported on the results of our 4th Annual COBA Holiday Poll. Last week he shared perceptions of consumers; this week he focused on retailers.

 

“Retailers in Georgia's Coastal Empire and South Carolina's Lowcountry share consumer expectations of a down holiday sales season this year, according to a recent survey by the Bureau of Business Research and Economic Development.”

Sounds like a lead-in for the Grinch Who Stole Christmas – consumers are closing their wallets and retailers are expecting slower sales.

Jeremy noted that “…52 percent of the retailers thought that the economy was worse this year,” and that “67 percent of the retailers did not hire new full-time employees to their staffs, a definite indicator of a slow market and a cautious outlook.”

For complete results, click on the following link:

http://savdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=14&SubSectionID=260&ArticleID=12471

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Jeremy’s work gained some added visibility in the Savannah Morning News. One of the Morning News reporters interviewed Jeremy for the article titled “Consumers expected to spend less this season.” Here is a link to that article:

http://www.savannahnow.com/node/409026

(Thanks to Loretta Brandon for bringing article this to my attention.)

8. International travel

Between last week’s Update and this week’s, I traveled (quickly!) to and from Hong Kong as part of my work on the AACSB’s Initial Accreditation Committee (IAC). I’d like to share some insight into the work of this committee and some observations from my travels.

There are 16 deans from around the world who sit on the IAC, so I feel quite privileged to be invited to be a member of this committee.

We meet three times a year to approve (or not) accreditation plans for business schools that are attempting to earn AACSB accreditation for the first time, accept (or not) annual reports from schools whose plans have been approved, but have not yet advanced to the visit stage, and concur (or not) with visit teams’ recommendations for initial accreditation.

There are about 100 b-schools seeking initial AACSB accreditation, the vast majority of them are international schools in Europe, South America, the Middle East, and Asia.

Each school is assigned an IAC committee member to be a “liaison” and another member to be the “reader.” Essentially that means the liaison and the reader have to read all the materials submitted by the school and be prepared to lead the discussion at the IAC meeting. This translates into a responsibility of about 10-12 schools for each IAC member.

Our meetings last all day and are intense. So what is the upside for Georgia Southern in this? Let me mention two benefits.

First, I get to read and hear about what all these other schools are doing. How we deliver higher education in the U.S. is not how the rest of the world does it. You learn that the French approach is different than the Germans, which is not the same as the Chinese, etc. I get to see the best of the best and bring some of those ideas home.

Second, I get to interact with the other deans on the committee (and those whom we meet at the location of the meeting) and learn about their schools. This includes the dean of one of the top rated schools in Canada (Queens University), in Europe (ESADE in Barcelona, Spain), and in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology).

It was a long flight home and it gave me time to reflect on COBA, Georgia Southern, and the world of business schools.

One of my observations is: I’m not sure we think positively enough about ourselves.

Outside of the top business schools, I didn’t hear anything to compare to some of the things we’ve done and accomplished recently. Did anyone have a “Project ADRIAN” (see last week’s Update for that story) to talk about? No. How about a new program like forensic accounting? No. An online MBA program? Not exactly. Some are starting down this path; heck, we’ve been doing it for seven years!! A new building? About half and half. (By the way, I still think of our building as “new.”)

I could to on, but let’s leave it here. Faculty, staff, and alums: believe me when I tell you that – except for the top ranked business schools in the world – we are right there with any one of the 100 schools that pass before the IAC and the domestic schools that are similar to us. Let’s feel good about this!!

• Andrew Fialko (’92 BBA in finance), who is vice president of sales for W.H. Mell Associates, Inc., in Summit, NJ.
• Kelly Newberry (’84 BBA in accounting), who is associate vice president for Wachovia Securities, LLC, in Savannah.
• Risa Fielder (’77 BBA in management), who is director of supply chain management for the Southern Company in Atlanta.
• Kathy Hooson (’97 BBA in general business), who is staffing recruiter for Hewlett Packard in St. Simons.
• Amber (Todd) Wiggins (’94 BS in nursing) and John Wiggins (’93 MBA). John is chief financial officer for Evan Memorial Hospital in Claxton.
• Lara Hoium (’02 BBA in management with an emphasis in human resource management), who is human resources supervisor for The Home Depot in Savannah.
• Brian Joiner (’07 BBA in accounting), who is an accountant and auditor with Nichols, Cauley & Associates, LLC, in Warner Robins.

To Todd M. and Banks T.: thanks for your feedback!

January 14, 2008 – Spring semester begins

Fearless Football Forecast: Season record: 37-16.

Waiting for the Tech, Georgia, and Florida bowl games.