Message from the Dean
As this academic year continues, I am happy to report important developments marking many successes for our students and faculty.
Enrollment is one gauge of our effectiveness in that offering outstanding programs attracts not just more students but more highly qualified ones. Over the past five years, the School of Management student population has grown such that undergraduate- and master's-degree enrollment is up 9 percent, and SOM remains the largest of the seven UT Dallas schools. Our credit hours are up 5 percent over the fall semester a year ago.
We take pride in several student achievements. Three teams of UT Dallas graduate students swept the top three places in a development application contest that was part of a regional student conference in information technology that the School of Management was honored to host recently. Two other top-performing SOM scholars are spending this semester in Washington, D.C., in the prestigious Archer Fellows program, a rigorously selective internship opportunity. Another student earned a $10,000 scholarship from the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation.
Thanks to the generosity of individual and corporate supporters, this year the school has awarded nearly 300 scholarships totally more than $370,000 to worthy students such as these.
Such achievements reflect on the labors of our exceptional faculty. I am pleased to report that this fall we were able to hire 14 new faculty members, including eight tenure-track professors. Within the past year, the research productivity of the school's faculty was ranked 18th among business schools worldwide and 17th among those in the United States.
Our programs, too, report success. The school's internal auditing program has been endorsed by the Institute of Internal Auditors as a Center for Internal Auditing Excellence, the IIA's highest designation. UT Dallas is one of only two schools in the U.S. and five worldwide at this level.
Recently, the School of Management-based Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UT Dallas earned an award from a consortium of its university peers for outstanding contributions to advancing the discipline of entrepreneurship.
Quality programs such as these, along with our location in a dynamic and growing area populated with many vibrant global companies, offer the school a unique competitive advantage. All these features provide an environment in which we can deliver the highest quality education to our students.
—Dr. Hasan Pirkul, Dean and
Caruth Professor of Management Information Systems
