The Southern Management Association is pleased to announce its Professional Development Institute (formerly SMA Institute) to be held on Wednesday, November 11, 2009, the day immediately preceding the official start of the 2009 SMA Conference in Asheville, NC. To build on past successes, the SMA Professional Development Institute will again have something to offer everyone, from doctoral students to faculty at a variety of stages of their careers, on topics related to both teaching and research.

In addition to the annual Doctoral Student Consortium (coordinated by Hettie Richardson of Louisiana State University and Gary Castrogiovanni of Florida Atlantic University), the program will include the biannual Faculty Consortium (coordinated by Anson Seers of Virginia Commonwealth University and Lucy Gilson of the University of Connecticut). The Doctoral Student Consortium registration deadline was September 1, 2009; however, you may contact Hettie Richardson at hricha4@lsu.edu to see if any openings still remain.  The Faculty Consortium is designed to address issues relevant for faculty members at all career stages, and additional information appears elsewhere in this newsletter. To register for the Faculty Consortium contact Anson Seers at aseers@vcu.edu or Lucy Gilson at lgilson@business.uconn.edu.

Two research methods workshops will be offered by faculty who are internationally recognized for their expertise.  In the morning, Professor Michael McDaniel of Virginia Commonwealth University will conduct a workshop on methods for conducting meta-analyses and systematic reviews. During the afternoon, Professor Larry Williams and Ernest O’Boyle from the Center for the Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis (CARMA) will offer an introductory workshop on latent variable models and their evaluation.  There is no charge for these workshops, and workshop preregistration is not required. Additional information can be obtained from either Mike McDaniel (mamcdani@vcu.edu for meta-analysis) or Larry Williams (larry.j.williams@vcu.edu for latent variable models).

Two teaching excellence workshops will be offered as well. One is the full-day teaching “boot camp” sponsored by the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. As the term “boot camp” implies, this workshop is most appropriate for doctoral students and new instructors (tenure-track and clinical faculty) in all areas of management and related fields. The workshop will be highly interactive, and will be facilitated by experienced, award-winning faculty who are members of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. There will be an enrollment fee of $55 for the workshop, which will cover workshop handouts, a binder of articles on effective teaching techniques, and a one year membership to the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society. Preregistration is required for this workshop. Interested participants should contact Roy Lewicki at The Ohio State University, lewicki_1@fisher.osu.edu, 614-292-0258 to register.

The second teaching excellence workshop on the role of business schools in environmental sustainability education will be held on Wednesday afternoon. Executive Professor of Strategy Daniel Fogel of Wake Forest University, who is on the cutting edge of this important topic, will lead this workshop focusing on various business school approaches to curriculum development in the broad area of sustainability, the types of university and community relationships needed to support such a curriculum, and the challenges of infusing sustainability into MBA and undergraduate programs.  Emphasis will be placed on providing resources (e.g., sample syllabi) for faculty use. There is no charge for this workshop; however, preregistration is required so that a resource guide can be prepared for each participant and some pre-workshop reading can be assigned. Please contact Dan Fogel to register and to suggest questions or topics you would like him to cover in the workshop (dan.fogel@mba.wfu.edu).