Management Education and Development

A Division of the Academy of Management

It is my very sad duty to tell MED members who might not know that Walt Wheatley, editor of such a superlative MED newsletter this past fall, passed away right after the newsletter went to the post office. Life is so fragile. We are all deeply saddened by such an unfortunate turn of events and our prayers and thoughts have been with Walt’s family all year.

We were able to get a new newsletter editor in Larry Pate, currently of the University of Wisconsin, however, Larry has run into problems ramping up and so we have been without a spring or summer newsletter to date. Now, Regina Bento has stepped into the breach to help us out immensely by posting a newsletter site at this address. Regina has been web site co-coordinator this year and will assume the post of Web Policy Chair next year. Meanwhile, she has been extremely gracious and competent in helping us communicate via the newsletter web site. This is the method by which we will probably continue to communicate with everyone in the very near future, as we seek ways to save money, be efficient, and even increase the versatility of our means of communication.

On to thoughts of happier times to come…. Jim Stoner as Program Chair and Bob DeFillippi as Professional Development Workshop Chair are planning some great things for us in Chicago. You can read details of their programming in their columns in this newsletter (click here to see Bob's pre-conference news) . Andy van de Ven, Academy PDW Chair, began by raising the bar considerably in the planning phase of this conference by arranging for a summit meeting of Division Chairs and Program Chairs in Dallas in October at GTE training headquarters. There we planned some remarkable innovations, including national initiatives, around the theme of "change and development on the journey into a pluralistic world." I have never seen such serious attention paid to a conference theme. Highly significant among these initiatives is one trumpeted from the podium of the Academy president last August—MED’s contribution to the theme in Chicago.

That’s right, as I reported in the fall newsletter, MED is undertaking a major innovation this August. For the first time in the history of the Academy, to our knowledge, a division, MED, is formally partnering with another national organization, in this case the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, to present a significant part of the program. We have over 100 members who have been or are currently OBTS members so it is a natural that we partner with an organization that is devoted so completely to teaching management internationally. With the active encouragement of Andy and OBTS Executive Director Andre Delbeq, we have put together a 3 day program that begins on Friday August 6^th at 1 pm and goes until Sunday August 8^th at noon. In a whole new model for any Academy event, we will be seeing an organizational culture merger where the concept of synergy will be on display. OBTS’ hallmark is INFORMALITY, which will be rubbing up against the FORMALITY of the Academy. However, MED is probably the least formal of the Academy’s divisions and is very receptive to the core values of OBTS. It is because of the common core value of the importance of excellence in management education that we can be so excited about this program, which includes workshops, receptions, nationally known speakers, and yes, a talent show hosted by Kent Zimmerman! Jim Stoner has appointed Charlie Wankel to assist Bob D. in this endeavor and OBTS has put Bob Marx, one of its "co-OB1’s" and a longtime MED member in charge of joining our program design efforts. Both Bob and Charlie have been well-assisted by several "overlap" MED/OBTS members, including co-OB1 Ella Bell, Anne McCarthy, Mary Cianna, Colleen Jones, and many others. So get here by Friday August 6^th at 1 pm or you will risk missing out on some "serious fun," an oxymoron that captures the spirit of the whole event, I think. Chicago is central enough that almost everyone should be able to leave Friday morning and get there in plenty of time for the program. So get those airline tickets for Friday morning if you haven’t already.

Of course, another big piece of news for this newsletter is that Bob deFillippi prevailed over Terrell Manyak for the post of Program Chair and that Elena Antonacopoulou won over Kathy Powers for Program Chair-Elect. The elections were highly participative and closely contested. Utilizing an e-mail ballot because we were without a print newsletter, we had better participation than we ever had with print! Thanks so much to all four candidates for being willing to run and for devoting so much energy to MED.

Also noteworthy is that we are changing our web site server to Pace University from Plattsburgh so that various MED personnel can contribute to the web site. We will have a policy statement for our web site for you to vote on at the Business meeting.

One other bit of news is that our budget is in trouble for a variety of reasons. The newsletter expenses from 1998 and 1999, including postage, have been very high for us and we have had other expenses beyond the usual, too. You might be interested to know that we will be continuing to make some corporate solicitations throughout 1999 and into 2000 to help us in this regard. I can report a nice contribution from Sage, which has responded by offering to sponsor or co-sponsor a reception honoring OBTS, MED, and JME (Journal of Management Education) on Saturday night, just another reason to make sure you come for that program. OBTS has also helped sponsor this event with a contribution. It promises to be a gala evening, topped off by the Talent Show!

Jim Stoner and Bob deFillippi have been extremely busy putting together a great conference for us. They will report elsewhere on this site, as soon as they get a minute, some specific news about all the papers, symposia and other great events we have planned for you (go to the pre-conference news by clicking here).

If you were waffling about coming, STOP. Seven days in advance tickets are still available as of this writing. And if you already have your tickets, I’ll see you there!