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Top leaders from the state’s business, government and academic communities will gather in Birmingham Oct. 15 for the 2008 Economic Summit for Alabama Leaders.

The event, co-sponsored by the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce and the Business Council of Alabama, will be the first of a planned annual gathering designed to examine the state’s business climate in light of national economic trends and forecasts.

“We’re proud of our accomplishments in this state,” said Dr. Michael Hardin, senior associate dean at the Culverhouse College of Commerce. While news media outlets report that the national economy is shaky, the economic climate in Alabama is better off than most other locations, he said.

With a slate of top-notch state and regional speakers, experts in business and economic policy, the summit will look at various segments of the state’s economy including banking and real estate. Speakers also will address the issue of public policy and its impact on the economy. Speakers scheduled to speak so far are Neal Wade, director of the Alabama Development Office; John D. Harrison, superintendent of the Alabama Banking Department; BCA President William J. Canary; and Sherry Dinges from the Alabama Association of Realtors.

Alabama’s economy has continued to weather the storm that has affected much of the rest of the country, thanks to the creation of jobs from new and expanding industry.

Speakers will address the reasons for the solid foundation of the state’s economy, the challenges facing the state as an increasingly respected player in the global economy, and the opportunities that lie ahead as Alabama looks to the future.

The summit will be held at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel. The program begins at 8 a.m. with registration, and will end at 1:30 p.m., following a luncheon featuring Gov. Bob Riley. Cost will be $250 per person.

To receive a conference brochure, email alabamasummit@cba.ua.edu.

DATELINE: BETHESDA, Md. Aug. 8
BETHESDA, Md., Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ — Lockheed Martin Corp.(NYSE:LMT)today announced the appointment of UA graduate Marillyn A. Hewson as president of Lockheed Martin Systems Integration-Owego, effective September 1, 2008. She succeeds Frank C. Meyer, who will retire from the Corporation in early 2009 following a 39-year career. Read More

Reprinted from The Tuscaloosa News

By Adam Jones Staff Writer

Donations from two women to the University of Alabama pushed its major fundraising effort past the $500 million goal, a year ahead of schedule.

At the end of June, UA collected $512 million for the “Our Students, Our Future” campaign, university administrators announced.

“While we’ve met the goal, we’re still not through,” said Pam Parker, vice president for university advancement.

The $500 million goal is more than double that of the university’s last capital campaign, which ended in 1998 and raised $224 million.

UA President Robert Witt announced the major fundraising campaign in April 2006, making public an effort that began in 2002. When the campaign became public, UA had collected $299 million.
“This campaign’s success is a result of our focused intensity on campaign goals and a shared vision for the university’s future,” said Witt in a statement.

Just over 102,000 people donated to the campaign, with 108 of those giving $1 million or more. Parker said the university’s fundraiser met its goal without a mega-gift of $50 million or more, and that the largest gift was $11 million.

“I’m the proudest of the fact of the broad base of support we have received,” she said. “There hasn’t been one person that saved us. You’re talking about the Alabama family of supporters reaching into their pockets.”

For any capital campaign, a lot of time is spent courting major donors, a process that can take three to five years before a large gift is pledged, Parker said. But the last two gifts were different because the two women, who wished to remain anonymous, approached UA staff with donations totaling $17 million that they promised to leave UA in their wills.

“They came in, and we didn’t know they were coming,” Parker said.
Individual goals within the larger campaign still need funding, however, with $250 million for scholarships the largest unreached target. Through June, $203 million towards scholarships has been pledged or donated, Parker said.

The campaign ends in June 2009.

“We made a commitment to bring the best and brightest students to this university and, with today’s slowing economy, scholarship support becomes even more critical in our ability to honor that commitment,” Witt said. “We’re going to continue our momentum as we move into the last year of the campaign.”

Besides scholarships, UA hopes to add $58 million to its endowment for professor salaries, and has raised $36 million so far, Parker said. Getting donors to give to faculty salaries is more difficult because most donors were at UA as undergraduates and want to help students pay tuition or help the individual colleges under which they learned, she said.

Also, the library and the larger academic colleges are just shy of meeting their goals, she said.
“I have no doubt every division will meet its goal,” Parker said.

The campaign was able to push past its overall goal largely on a surplus in athletic gifts, according to data provided by Parker. Of the $500 million goal, $50 million was earmarked for athletic facilities such as the completed expansion of Bryant-Denny Stadium and renovation of Coleman Coliseum. Athletics raised $70 million, with the extra going to athletic scholarships and paying off debt, she said.

Donations for academic buildings, historically the focus of UA capital campaigns, are close to the $20.5 million goal, and campaigns for the addition to the UA School of Law and a new building for the Capstone College of Nursing surpassed their goals. Money for the other academic building, an expansion and renovation of the Jones Archaeological Museum in Moundville, is just below its goal, Parker said.

The recent economic downturn and rising energy and food prices haven’t hurt the campaign so far, but Parker said that doesn’t mean it won’t.

For one, most of the people giving larger gifts donate assets, while smaller gifts come from income, Parker said. It’s possible those assets could become devalued in the coming months, but the vast majority of pledges should come through, she said.

Along with a weakening economy, Auburn University ran a similar campaign until it ended in June, but Parker said Auburn’s campaign did not hurt donations to UA.

UA officials announced their campaign two months after Auburn’s administrators announced a similar $500 million capital campaign. AU’s campaign ended in June, and officials announced last month that nearly $609 million had been donated. Before Auburn set the record for giving to a state university, the University of Alabama at Birmingham set the mark when it closed its capital campaign in December 2003 with $388.7 million raised, well above the $250 million goal.

Parker joked that her staff might make a big deal out of besting Auburn’s tally as the end of the campaign nears next spring, but said she doesn’t see Auburn as competition in raising money.

“I have never worried about what Auburn does,” she said. “We’ve raised $1.1 billion for education, and I think it’s just wonderful that our citizens of this state have supported education like that. Wouldn’t it be great if we raised $1.2 billion?”

Dr. Subhabrata Chakraborti, a professor of statistics at The University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Commerce, has been elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA).

Chakraborti received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Calcutta, and a master’s degree and a doctorate from State University of New York at Buffalo.

The designation of fellow is reserved for professionals in statistics who make outstanding contributions to the field. ASA members work in government, industry and academia applying statistics in medical, biological, physical, economic and social sciences.

The fellow designation is limited to no more than one third of 1 percent of the ASA membership, which now is about 18,000 in the United States, Canada and overseas.

“Dr. Chakraborti is both a world renowned researcher and world renowned teacher,” said J. Barry Mason, Dean of the Culverhouse College of Commerce. “In modern society the use of statistics to assist in making intelligent decisions is a critical skill. It plays an important role in our everyday lives. To achieve the designation of Fellow in this important discipline is a great accomplishment, and Dr. Chakraborti is to be congratulated.” Chakraborti is the fourth Culverhouse faculty member to receive the designation. The others are Drs. Jean Gibbons, Badrig Kurkjian, and William Woodall.

Chakraborti has published more than 50 articles in a variety of journals and has made presentations in both national and international venues. He was a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa for 2004 and has won a number of teaching and research awards.

The ASA was founded in Boston in 1839 and counts among its members Florence Nightingale, Alexander Graham Bell, Herman Hollerith, Andrew Carnegie, and Martin Van Buren.

ASA members apply their expertise in a number of areas, including research in medical areas such as AIDS; environmental risk assessment; the development of new therapeutic drugs; the exploration of space; quality assurance in industry; the examination of social issues such as the homeless and the poor; analytic research on current business problems and economic forecasting; the setting of standards for statistics used at all levels of government; the promotion and development of statistical education for the public and the profession and the expansion of methods and the use of computers and graphics to advance the science of statistics.

The first class of The University of Alabama’s Executive MBA program in Huntsville is in place and has already exceeded expectations.

“We are absolutely thrilled with our first Huntsville class,” said Susan West, assistant dean and head of the Manderson Graduate School of Business at UA.

The degree is offered through a cooperative agreement with The University of Alabama in Huntsville on the Huntsville campus. The courses will be taught primarily by faculty from UA’s Manderson Graduate School of Business on the Tuscaloosa campus, complemented by faculty members from the Huntsville business school. The degree will be awarded by The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

The Huntsville classes will meet Friday evenings and Saturdays, every other week, for 21 months.

“The growth in the Huntsville area, both in population and economically, and the high educational level of residents which is the highest in the state, make an executive MBA program a much needed offering,” West said.

West said the class an average age of 35 and 12 years of work experience. Students are from the United States, Sweden, India and Germany.

“We also have a nice mix of undergrad degrees” West said, “with about a third holding business degrees, half holding engineering degrees, business degrees and degrees in liberal arts and sciences.”

The occupational background for the class reflects the Huntsville employment profile, with about a fourth representing the defense industry growth in the area, followed by the telecom industry, manufacturing, utilities, government and technology consulting.

“The Huntsville EMBA will provide the same rigorous curriculum provided by the Tuscaloosa EMBA program,” West said. “The degree will be a UA degree, and the students will be taught by a world class faculty.”

The program requires at least five years of work experience, along with a GMAT or GRE. For more information, visit the website at www.emba.ua.edu or contact Donna Blackburn at dblackburn@cba.ua.edu, 205/348-8748.