October 17, 2006

CONTENTS

• Dean's message
  • Carson International Business Scholars Fund
  • College of Business events
  • Task forces and recommendations
• News and updates
  • Faculty Affairs and Research
    • Recent A publications
    • 2006 Climate Survey
  • Graduate Programs
  • Advising Center
  • Carson Center for Professional Development
  • Development
  • College Relations
• Upcoming events

DEAN'S MESSAGE
Eric R. Spangenberg, Dean

I am very pleased to announce Scott and Linda Carson's recent pledge of $1 million to create the Carson International Business Scholars Fund to further educate the next generations of global business leaders. This fund will provide need-based scholarships to "Carson International Business Scholars": Washington State University students participating in College of Business global education opportunities and global internship experiences.

Fall semester is in full swing and our College events lineup is keeping everyone busy. I hope many of you were able to attend last night's Walton Lecture to hear from Stan McNaughton, PEMCO CEO.

Thank you to all who attended the annual College of Business Homecoming Barbeque on Saturday. It was great to see our alumni and friends mingle with CB students, faculty, and staff, enjoying the great weather, food, and Cougar spirit.

One of the CB's focal areas is positive societal impact, which includes responsible stewardship of natural resources. I would like to thank CB Events Manager Traci Tyacke for spending the extra effort to make the barbeque a Zero-Waste event. In accordance with University Recycling Zero-Waste guidelines, unbleached and/or recycled-content plates, paper cups and napkins, biodegradable cutlery, service items, paper products, and liquids must be used, and all aluminum cans, plastic bottles and other recyclables must be collected and properly handled. Successfully executing a Zero-Waste event takes extra planning and work, but the effort is highly worthwhile.

Additionally, the recently distributed Dividend magazine is the first to be printed on recycled paper. I thank those of you helping to advance the College's goals in this important area.

Please mark your calendars for two other important events:

• The 25^th Anniversary Burtenshaw lecture, to be held Thursday October 19 at 3:30 p.m. in Todd Auditorium. Jim Treadway, CEO of MTM Luxury Lodging, will speak about "Life, Luxury, and WWF".
• The 2006 Maughmer Lecture featuring Edward Fritzky, retired CEO of Immunex (now Amgen) on Wednesday, November 15 at 4:30 p.m. in CUE 203. Mr. Fritzky is a highly respected leader in biotechnology and will speak about the evolving relationship between entrepreneurship, innovation, and biosciences.

I would like to thank those involved in various task forces around the College. The Ethics Task Force, led by Ken Butterfield, worked over the past year to develop a supplement to the University's academic integrity statement that is near finalization. The recommendations of the Master Teacher Task Force, led by Debbe Sanders, are currently under review, and some will be adopted soon. Please contact Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research David Whidbee with questions about either task force or their recommendations.

College events and service commitments such as task forces can be difficult to fit into your schedule in addition to your full workloads. Thank you for taking the time to do so, because these things are important aspects of our commitment to transform students' lives and positively contribute to business and academic communities worldwide.

I appreciate your time and your dedication to the College's goals.

FACULTY AFFAIRS AND RESEARCH
David Whidbee, Associate Dean, Faculty Affairs and Research

The College congratulates the following faculty on recent A-level publications and acceptances:
McNamara, M., and Yu, T. (forthcoming). "The Wealth Effect of Demutualization: Evidence from the U.S. Property-Liability and Life Insurance Industries". Journal of Risk and Insurance.

Climate survey
The results of the college-wide climate survey conducted last spring are in. Thank you to Dave Sprott for developing the survey and compiling the results, and to Tyson Livingston for working with Dave to get the survey up on the Web. Finally and most importantly, thank you to those of you that took the time to fill out the survey.

Overall, the results are positive and encouraging, but they also indicate a few areas where we have room to improve. Without discussing results for individual units, here are a few of the general findings:

1. Overall, attitudes toward the College are good. The mean composite score based on three semantic differential items (using 7-point scales) regarding respondent's "attitude towards the WSU College of Business" from Section 1 (Bad/Good; Negative/Positive; Unfavorable/Favorable; a = .97) was 5.90.

2. Similarly, attitudes toward individual units are good. The mean score for the semantic differential items (using 7-point scales) for attitudes toward individual units was 5.95

3. The level of commitment to the College is high (4.02 on a 5-point scale). This score represents an average of 10 Likert items (anchored from "Strongly Disagree" and "Strongly Agree") from Section 1 of the survey (Question 2 thru 11; Section 1). Based on an established scale, these items are unidimensional with a high alpha (a = .90)

4. Across the College, job satisfaction scores average 4.12 on a 5-point scale, suggesting that most people are relatively happy in their jobs.

5. The Dean is perceived to be performing well (4.17 on a 5-point scale). This measure is the average of 16 Likert-type items (anchored from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree") that tapped various aspects of the Dean's job performance and his values. These measures appear in Section 3 of the survey. The measure was based on last year's survey, is unidimensional, and produced a high alpha (a = .95).

6. Regarding the educational mission of the college, most units find undergraduate programs to be most important with the Ph.D. program being the next most important, and masters programs coming in third. In addition, there is generally favorable support for internationalization activities.

I will be discussing the findings concerning individual units with unit heads. In addition, I'll be sharing the results of the educational mission questions with chairs and directors. If you would like more information about the results of the climate survey or have any questions, please come see me. 

GRADUATE PROGRAMS
Traci Hess, Associate Dean, Graduate Programs

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first MBA Resume Portfolio. This portfolio includes the resumes and pictures of 45 MBA students who are in the process of searching for permanent career or internship opportunities. The portfolio will be distributed to past and prospective employers and at events such as the Homecoming Barbeque and Power Breakfasts. You are welcome to pick up a copy from the Office of Graduate Programs or Stefany Unda, our Interim Placement Coordinator and Recruiter in the Carson Center.

The 2007 and 2008 MBA cohort students will be traveling to Spokane on Thursday, October 19^th to attend the Spokane Power Breakfast and participate in site visits with two Spokane companies, Sterling Savings Bank and the Spokesman-Review. While visiting these two companies, the students will attend presentations with Ezra Eckhardt, Executive Vice President at Sterling Savings Bank, and Shaun O'L. Higgins, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Spokesman-Review and President and COO of New Media Ventures, Inc.

Thank you to the faculty who have participated in the College-Wide Doctoral Seminar on Research and Professional Development this fall. The faculty presentations and panels have been very well-received.

We are in the midst of the Graduate Programs Recruiting Season. Faculty and staff referrals are an essential part of our recruiting efforts for MBA, MAcc, and Ph.D. students. Thank you for your past referrals! Please do not hesitate to pass on the names and contact information of potential applicants or refer them to our office.

ADVISING CENTER
Gloria Tong, Director

With mid-terms out of the way, students are now looking toward the spring 2007 semester. Although advising for the College continues year-round, peak times still arise around the opening of registration. We are responsible for advising over 2000 undergraduate students for the College. Currently, advising appointments in the office have increased from an average 2-3 a day to 8-12 appointments a day per advisor. The advising office is experiencing around 100 student visits per day, and this will continue until Thanksgiving break!  METRO registration opens Monday, November 6.

The on-line application to apply for a major or minor in the College will open on Monday, October 16 and remain open until December 8 for students who will certify for the spring 2007 semester. We hope to certify 250 or more students over the semester break. The link for both applications can be found on the CB Web site main page.

Recruiting duties for the College have returned to the Advising Office this fall. Veronica Mendez, our newest advisor, will be the contact person for our office. Please send any materials, student inquiries, or ideas you have to her at vmendez@wsu.edu. Veronica holds a masters degree in higher education with an emphasis in diversity issues and has an extensive background with multi-cultural student groups. She is very excited to have this opportunity to recruit for the College.

We are experiencing an increase in the number of students who are interested in doing a Study Abroad semester. Bonnie Burkett has noted a marked increased in visits to her office for course evaluations this fall. The College will be offering 4 faculty-led programs this year to China, Italy, Switzerland, and Thailand.

Finally, Aimee Corning, who graciously walked in to replace Janet McGough in August will be leaving as planned November 15. She will join her husband and their new life in North Carolina. Our thanks go out to her for helping us get through the start of school this semester.

CARSON CENTER FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Janel Lang, Director

The Carson Center held the first Career Opportunity Night for business students on October 2. Seven companies participated: Boeing, Apex Systems, Cintas, Protiviti, Buckle, Target, and Macy's. We had 75-80 students attend and the initial feedback from employers was great. We will follow up with a more formal survey in the near future. We are considering holding the event before each university Career Fair, but need to talk and work closely on that with the Office of Career Services on campus.

DEVELOPMENT
Rueben Mayes, Senior Director

I am very pleased that the College's first annual report publication is now available in hard copy and online at http://www.cb.wsu.edu/2006annualreport. Limited hard copies are available, but we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future annual reports. Please see the Development Office if you have any questions about this publication.

The Development Team would like to thank the faculty for their ongoing conversations around the college's key initiatives and for helping to executive proposals going forward.

The next Development Dialogue session is scheduled for Tuesday, November 14. Please note that the December Dialogue session will be held on Wednesday, December 13 rather than Tuesday, December 12. The sessions are scheduled from 12:00-1:00 p.m. and take place in Todd 575. Mark your calendars! We look forward to seeing you there.

COLLEGE RELATIONS
Malia Jacobson, Director

We are looking forward to an engaging Spokane and North Idaho alumni and business partners at the first Spokane Power Breakfast featuring Sterling Financial Co. Chair and CEO Harold B. Gilkey, to be held at The Davenport Hotel on October 19. This is the first Power Breakfast event to sell out entirely more than a week in advance, and reservations are no longer available. If you have not already secured a reservation, you can view the video footage of the presentation after the event.

I hope you enjoyed the most recent Dividend magazine. In addition to being the first issue printed on recycled paper, this is the first issue to include advertisements as part of our efforts to steward our resources and promote commerce. Future editions of eDividend newsletter will include some advertising as well. I welcome your feedback and comments on the magazine. Please email me at jacobsonm@wsu.edu.

The CB Web update is moving forward on schedule. CB PR and Communication Coordinator Frances Ryan has begun entering text in the Content Management System for department sites. She is still awaiting text from some departments please submit text to her at frances_ryan@wsu.edu as soon as possible if you have not already done so.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. Please send feedback or suggestions for CB InsideR to Malia Jacobson at jacobsonm@wsu.edu. Please send information about A-level publications or acceptances to David Whidbee at whidbee@wsu.edu for inclusion in future issues of CB InsideR.