School of Business Launches Concentration in Information Systems
By Linda Wheeler
This fall the School of Business offers a new concentration in accounting information systems that will provide students with the skills they�ll need to keep up with the changing demands of the accounting profession.
According to Professor David Marcinko, who heads the School�s accounting programs, the new concentration in the Master of Science in Accounting Program will prepare students to audit systems rather than a single set of financial statements. "The nature of auditing, in particular, is changing dramatically as investors demand accounting information on a real-time basis," he said.
David Marcinko
"Consumers want to get on the Internet and find out information as of that minute that used to be available only once a year. Since it�s not feasible to verify all the data minute by minute, auditors will have to verify that the systems used to produce the data are accurate and functioning properly."
The one-year program, which is available to students who hold a bachelor�s degree with a major in accounting or in business with an accounting minor, consists of 10 courses. Five provide a broad perspective on the environment in which accounting operates, and the other five are in the information systems area, including analysis, design, implementation, maintenance and audit of information systems. The courses are heavily computing-oriented, project-based and writing intensive, and the program supported by state-of-the-art computing facilities.
"The use of technology in improving the efficiency, effectiveness and value to our clients is the core of the audit profession," said Jeff Black �76, a partner in charge of the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut commercial products and services audit practice for Arthur Andersen LLP.
"This trend of increased utilization of electronic tools and applications has increased dramatically and the momentum continues to build. As a result, accounting firms require professionals to possess strong technology skills along with technical skills. Students who include technology in their curriculum and who have a desire to work in this type of environment have a greater opportunity for success in our profession."
Marcinko agrees. "The current practice of auditing will soon be hopelessly obsolete," he said. "Already it provides little value to investors and creditors in a world where financial information needs to be up to the minute on a real-time basis.
"The design of our curricula reflects the fact that we are 10 years ahead of practice, which we have to be in order to turn out students who have the skills to handle the needs of tomorrow�s customers."
School of Criminal Justice Applauds 30 Years of Pacing the Nation
By Carol Olechowski
For 30 years, the University�s School of Criminal Justice has changed the outlooks of active and future law enforcement officials across the nation and even the globe. It is no wonder that its anniversary will be commemorated with an entire year of special events.
Reflecting on the School�s three decades of excellence and growth, Dean David Bayley noted proudly that there is much cause for celebration. He recalled that the School, founded exclusively as a graduate institution, recruited its original faculty in 1967-68. After spending a year planning the academic program, the faculty welcomed the first doctoral students for the Fall 1968 semester. The undergraduate program, added in 1983, "diversified the possibilities for enrollment."
School of Criminal Justice students, according to Bayley, "come from all over the country, and some come from abroad. Our program is designed to develop the analytic capabilities of students who want to enter the field of criminal justice as academics, policy researchers, or managers in criminal justice institutions."
The School offers bachelor�s, master�s, and doctoral degrees, as well as a combined B.A./M.A. Its nationally recognized interdisciplinary program focuses on the study of criminal behavior and society�s response to it. In fact, Bayley observed, "the School consistently ranks first in the nation in terms of faculty research productivity, the quality of its graduate students and alumni, and the prestige accorded it when professionals in the field are surveyed." The dean pointed out that there are 26 Ph.D.-granting schools of criminal justice in the U.S. and about 150 universities that award master�s degrees; "we compare ourselves with the schools of criminal justice that award doctoral degrees," he explained.
The anniversary observance actually got underway last spring, when the School sponsored two highly successful conferences, "The Death Penalty in New York: Law and Research in Action" and "Zero Tolerance." Planners hope both will become yearly events.
Another special celebration, a reception and dinner, is scheduled for Sept. 16 at The Desmond. The keynote speaker will be U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration head and former New York State Police superintendent Thomas Constantine, M.A. �71, one of the first class of troopers to receive graduate degrees from the School.
Thomas Constantine, M.A. '71
In 1992, Constantine became the first recipient of the Governor�s Excelsior Award for excellence; he earned the Governor�s Law Enforcement Executive of the Year Award two years later. As DEA administrator since early 1994, he supervises a workforce of more than 7,000 special agents and support staff, as well as offices in all 50 states and more than 50 foreign countries.
"Professionally speaking, the year I spent at the School of Criminal Justice was probably the most important year of my life," said Constantine. "For me, as for many police officers, the opportunity to go away for a whole year to study for a master�s degree and do research changed my outlook. The School emphasized the need for excellence in criminal justice research, writing, and standards. Those are the things I derived from my attendance there."
The DEA administrator�s keynote address will focus on the School�s beginnings, its value to him and to the law enforcement community, and "how crime exploded in this country in the 1960s and just now is starting to retreat."
Constantine remembered: "The School of Criminal Justice was born during what was probably the most violent period in the history of the United States. It is important for everybody to remember that. As a result, the School has been a significant asset for everybody in the criminal justice system."
Also planned for the Sept. 16 is a report on another 30th anniversary initiative: a $30,000 fundraising campaign to create the Robert Hardt Computer Room. Hardt, now professor emeritus, taught many of the School�s graduate alumni and "is remembered for his great kindness and helpfulness in teaching the difficult subject of statistics," said Bayley. "Bob also worked extensively with the State Police on several projects requiring surveys and statistical analysis."
Monies raised during the campaign will support a renovation and updating of the existing graduate computer laboratory in Draper Hall. Plans call for it to add four first-class computers, two new printers, a zip drive, and new workstations; in addition, a fund will support upgraded software. The refurbished facility, Bayley contended, will enhance student analysis and research capabilities and serve as "a powerful tool for attracting top-flight graduate students."
Of the approximately 110 graduate students who enroll each year, "about 65 are Ph.D. candidates, and the other 45 to 50 work toward the master�s degree," the dean noted. Currently, there are 135 undergraduate majors. The School also boasts an alumni base of 768 undergraduate, 140 doctoral, and 650 master�s degree recipients.
"The School of Criminal Justice has come a long way since 1968," Bayley commented. "We hope the entire University community will join us in celebrating its accomplishments over the past 30 years."
Class of 2002 Moves in With Numbers and (Academic) Strength
By Carol Olechowski
They�re 2,300 strong, they�re here, and they�re ready for an exciting and challenging academic year. They�re the University at Albany�s Fall 1998 freshman class.
Originally, the University�s Undergraduate Admissions Office staff had planned to enroll 2,200 freshmen. The actual recruitment exceeded expectations by more than 4 percent, according to Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs Sheila Mahan.
The new freshman class includes:
� more than 100 out-of-state students � 10 percent more than in Fall 1997;
� 196 Presidential Scholars � an increase of 13 percent from last year;
� 540 participants in Project Renaissance, Albany�s special living-learning program for freshmen, up from 380 a year ago;
� about 25 international students;
� approximately 25 percent multicultural students.
Mahan is very pleased with the recruitment results. "We have seen increases of 7.5 percent in applications last year and another one percent this year. We are especially pleased that, this year, we have seen a strong surge in the number of admitted students who chose to enroll at Albany, even as we have raised our admissions criteria," she noted. The largest freshman class ever enrolled at Albany was 2,423 in 1986.
Transfer applications, Mahan continued, "have decreased, in part because of lower enrollments at our major feeder community colleges. However, our transfer enrollments have increased over the last several years, and we anticipate enrolling between 1,150 and 1,200 transfer students this fall."
Vice President for Student Affairs James P. Doellefeld also expressed satisfaction with the Fall 1998 enrollment. "This class is composed of academic achievers who have selected the faculty at Albany to help them grow intellectually," he said. "The over-subscription of the Class of 2002 is a manifestation of the University�s academic reputation, which clearly makes Albany an attractive institution to high-achieving high school graduates."
While Admissions staff have been recruiting students, the University�s Residential Life & Housing Office has been busy preparing to house them.
This fall, the Uptown Campus and Alumni Quad will be home to a total of 5,800 students. The maximum number of occupants the five uptown quads � Indian, Dutch, Colonial, State, and Freedom � and Alumni Quad can accommodate is 6,200, according to Residential Life director Laurie Garafola. But for her and her staff, this year�s bumper crop of resident students is déjà vu: "We experienced this situation in the mid-1980s, as well," Garafola recalled.
More than a third of the on-campus residents are freshmen. To accommodate them, about 50 rooms have been converted to triple occupancy. Some freshmen are also being housed at Brubacher Hall on Alumni Quad, which features a newly renovated dining hall. On all quads, Garafola stressed, "the amenities, the security, and the safety measures are the same." Logistically, the only adjustment Alumni Quad residents will have to allow for is transportation; the housing director noted that "these students have to be a little more organized, time-wise, since they have to commute uptown."
Freshmen were guaranteed housing; however, Residential Life stopped accepting housing applications from transfers and returning students in early August. Requests received since then have been referred to the Office of Personal Safety and Off-Campus Affairs, which assists students in locating off-campus housing.
Over the past several years, Residential Life has worked to increase the number of juniors and seniors who choose to live on campus. Garafola attributed the success of that initiative to several factors, such as renovations: "We�ve been strategically focusing on those." In addition, ResNet, cable television hookups, and increased telephone services have persuaded students that living on campus is an attractive option. Project Renaissance students have their own computer lab right in their residence hall. Other amenities include on-quad recreational and fitness centers, and coffeehouses on Colonial and Dutch quads.
Aside from the Ethernet, TV, and phone connections in individual rooms, Residential Life also provides each student basic furnishings: a bed, an extra-long mattress, a dresser, a desk and chair, and a lamp. Students must furnish their own telephones and desk lamps. Microwave ovens are prohibited; however, each student has the option of renting a micro-fridge, a combination microwave and refrigerator. Many students also bring their own computers.
Garafola anticipates that there will be enough space available for all students who wish to live on campus for the Spring 1999 semester to do so. Students have come to view living on campus, she said, "not only as a convenience, but also as a preference. I think our numbers reflect that."
The Educational Landscape for Higher Education
Excerpts from University of Maryland Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg�s speech to the Graduate Commencement, May 17, 1998
Erich Fromm, the psychologist and educator, once asked, "Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?"
Donald N. Langenberg
As you commence the rest of your lives today, you will enter an era when not only society, but each one of you, will be called upon to engage in perpetual learning. We are all entering an era that is shifting its emphasis from teaching to learning � with far-reaching implications for how our existing educational system � and you � must change if you are to reap the full benefits of what you have accomplished so far.
Important transformational changes are under way. For example, for the past quarter-century enrollment of 18- to 24-year-olds in American colleges has been growing at a rate of about 1% a year. Enrollment of people 25 or older has been growing almost four times as fast. Today, 45% of all American university students are 25 or older. I�m sure even the least mathematical of you realize what that means. As the new millenium begins, we will reach an important symbolic milestone. Soon, the majority of all American college and university students will be 25 or older!
It is fascinating to contemplate the implications of that fact. It means that the face of our college student population will change, with a major influx of adult professionals with jobs and families. It means that most of you will be in school off and on throughout your lives. Clearly, perpetual learning is becoming the norm, the rule rather than the exception.
While you will frequently be in school, you won�t necessarily be at school. I have been honored here today in part because I am an advocate for technology enhanced and enable learning. We�re all aware of the extraordinary explosion of information technology. I recently heard an interesting factoid: When Bill Clinton was elected president, there were about 5,000 sites on the World Wide Web. Today, less than six years later, it is estimated that there are 300 million! Obviously, there�s something remarkable going on out there in cyberspace, and it is impossible to ignore its impact on the ways we teach and learn.
A frequently-expressed concern in discussions of information technology and education is that the new technologies may isolate students from their teachers and one another, dehumanize the process of education, and destroy our academic communities. Such evidence as there is suggests the contrary. Let me give one example.
One of the institutions in the university system I head has just completed construction of a new library. What a library was supposed to look like and do was once obvious to everyone, but today at the dawn of the Information Age it is less obvious. Many question the wisdom of ever again building anything called a library. One of the architects on our project said that he had heard it predicted that as campuses get wired and connected, fewer people would come to libraries. It turns out that that prediction is wrong. In fact, as more technology is provided, more people are coming into libraries. Technology is neither replacing collections, nor, with remote access available, discouraging people from gathering together in library facilities.
Another frequently expressed fear is that information technology might disrupt traditional modes of academic research and graduate education, often ideally pictured as a professor and a graduate student working together at a laboratory bench in an intimate mentor-apprentice relationship. The fearful overlook the fact that, in many fields, that idyllic model has long since been abandoned, partly as a result of technology. A salient example is that of experimental elementary particle physics. Decades ago, the size and cost of the basic tool of the field, the particle accelerator, outgrew the financial capacity of any single scientist, any single university, and most single nations. The result today is a very few international accelerator laboratories where single experiments occupy teams of hundreds of physicists for a decade, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The life of a faculty member engaged in academic research of this sort bears little resemblance to the traditional ideal. A physicist colleague, who for several years managed a normal campus teaching load in Cambridge, Mass., while running a major experiment in Hamburg, at the cost of a weekly trans-Atlantic round trip, once described himself as holding an endowed chair on Lufthansa. The graduate students of another added up his frequent-flyer miles for a year, divided by the number of hours in a year, and found that his average speed that year was about thirty-five miles an hour. These are just examples of the thoroughgoing changes underway in today�s academic research arena � even before we factor in the full impact of what�s now happening in information technology.
Another part of this new academic tapestry has recently captured my imagination. Steve Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University, has taken note of the fact that university communities are becoming popular places of retirement for our burgeoning population of retirees. The reasons are obvious: College campuses are rich in cultural and intellectual activities, not to mention sporting events, and populated by people who can remind one of what it was like to be young. Trachtenberg speculates that as the "baby boom" generation ages and retires, our university communities� population of octogenarians will skyrocket. He predicts that this will spur a rebirth of the humanities, as many retirees, freed from the demands of their careers, choose to return to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
Adding these developments to others that are becoming apparent, we can discern a vastly changed � and for humankind, I believe � a vastly improved educational landscape. I expect most people will continue to have some sort of quasi-traditional undergraduate university experience that includes parties, Saturday football games in the autumn, and sitting under a campus tree in the spring reading Shakespeare. But when they reach their golden years, they�ll come back not only for parties and football games, but also to learn some things they missed the first time around. And in between, they�ll be engaged � often with the aid of technology � in perpetual learning.
China Initiative Launched with Towers Perrin Support
By Greta Petry
University officials traveled to Shanghai, China, last spring to sign an agreement to launch the China Initiative, a program in which Albany faculty will train business people in cooperation with Fudan University. The program is being undertaken with generous support from Towers Perrin, one of the world�s largest management consulting firms. Albany alumnus John Lynch, B.A. �70, is chairman and CEO of Towers Perrin.
As a sign of the Albany�s commitment to the initiative, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Judy Genshaft headed a delegation that included Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs Carlos Santiago, East Asian studies chair Jim Hargett, and Penelope Benson-Wright, �68, director of the China Initiative, .
Upon her return from Shanghai, Genshaft remarked, "The China Initiative is further evidence of the University at Albany�s global presence. Over the years, we have had international agreements with more than 80 institutions of higher education in 45 different countries and the China Initiative brings a new, innovative, and very welcome dimension to our international activities."
The agreement between the universities means they will work together to deliver a series of week-long seminars over the next year, providing human resources management (HRM) training to employees in China, presented by U.S. and Chinese faculty, executive lecturers from corporations, and HRM authorities from both nations. The first seminar will be given in Shanghai in December. The curriculum will include Human Resources strategy, leadership, decision making, communication, compensation, performance management, personnel recruitment/retention, personnel selection, training and development, as well as other topics which will be customized to meet the needs of the participating corporations.
"This program represents a milestone in the 20-year history of cooperation between the University at Albany and Fudan University, one of the most respected schools in China," said President Hitchcock. "As an educational partnership in executive management education, the China Initiative establishes a foundation that will support an ongoing exchange of knowledge and expertise between our people, our cultures, and our corporations, as well as our educational institutions. We hope that the China Initiative will make a significant contribution to U.S.-China economic relations, as well as promote intercultural cooperation."
According to Benson-Wright, there is a tremendous need for trained managers in China. "Traditionally, these managers do not go to business schools. They may be scientists or engineers, but they do not have a business focus in school. They study traditional academic subjects," she said.
"During our trip to Shanghai in May, we signed an agreement to deliver the program and expand our relationship with Fudan University and the city of Shanghai. We met with faculty and leaders of the Shanghai municipal government, and members of the American business community, and are preparing the ground work for the first of four weeklong seminars over the next year," Benson-Wright said.
In initiating this program in China, the University joins other major universities, including MIT and Rutgers, in establishing partnership programs with Chinese universities to address China�s need for graduates and workers who understand the global economy.
University at Albany, Fudan University and city of Shanghai officials meet in May. Standing, from left to right, are: Ya Jun Zhou; Jim Hargett, chair and associate professor, Department of East Asian Studies; Penelope Benson-Wright, director of the China Initiative; Carlos Santiago, associate vice president for Academic Affairs; Xiaoyan Zhuang, a graduate student from Fudan, majoring at Albany in communication; Yinzhang Chen and Min Li, executive deputy director an executive assistant in the office of international programs at, Fudan University. Seated, from left to right, are: Judy Genshaft, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; and Mingwei Zhou of the office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government.
