FROM THE EDITOR

Well, the feature editors have done it again! They have put together an outstanding collection of articles for your reading enjoyment and information. In her first "President's Letter," Betty Whitten, University of Georgia, shares some of her views on Institute priorities. She reaffirms the Institute's top five objectives for the coming year and discusses the Institute's role in improving instructional competency within the decision sciences.

In the "International Issues" column, Essam Mahmoud, Arabian Gulf University, describes the strong linkage between technology and future economic development within the Arabian Gulf states, and highlights the opportunities that this linkage provides. The "Research Issues" column features a discussion by Steve Melnyk, Michigan State University, of strategies and guidelines for successfully integrating the "real world" into your research and teaching. He offers lessons learned from operations management professionals who have managed to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

In the December/January 1996 installment of the "Production/Operations Management" column, Karen Brown, Seattle University, discussed international study tours as a vehicle for expanding students' global awareness. In this issue, she joins with Keong Leong, Ohio State University, to present different approaches that can be employed for international study tours, based on experiences at their respective schools.

A subject that is constantly in the news these days is the Internet and the impact it is having on information transfer. In the "Information Technology" column, Lance Eliot of Eliot & Associates predicts that the hottest information ticket in 1997 will be the "Intranet" for more private organizational networking needs.

In previous installments of the "Doctoral Issues" column, we have seen descriptions of the disappointing academic job market for new doctoral graduates. In this issue, Ann Marucheck, University of North Carolina, outlines prescriptions for doctoral students that may increase their likelihood of finding a job in academia. Andrew Vazsonyi, University of San Francisco, relates some of his recent experiences with using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in his column, "The Specialist with a Universal Mind." He concludes that VBA, which is the macro language available within Excel, is the best new vehicle for teaching modeling to our students.

The "Software Review" column takes a look at a new statistical package. Jack Yurkiewicz, Pace University, reviews NCSS Jr., a free product which can be downloaded from the Web, and compares it to the commercial version of NCSS. In "From The Bookshelf," Andrew Ruppel, University of Virginia, discusses the current offerings in the P/OM textbook market, including both casebooks and several introductory texts.

Although not a regular feature, we are pleased to have an article by the editor of Decision Sciences. Lee Krajewski, University of Notre Dame, provides a review of recent journal operations, introduces new associate editors, discusses plans for moving to four issues per year for the journal, and issues a call for reviewers.

As always, I hope you will find this issue to be both informative and enjoyable. If you have any suggestions for improvements in Decision Line or for features that you would like to see in the future, contact me at trakes@vt.edu, or Hal Jacobs at hjacobs@ gsu.edu.

Have a great summer!

*****************************************************************

DR. TERRY R. RAKES is a professor of management science, Department of Management Science, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He holds a B.S. in IEOR, M.B.A., and a Ph.D. in management science from VPI&SU. He is the coauthor of Management Science: An Introduction, and author or coauthor of articles in Management Science, Decision Sciences, Annals of OR, European Journal of OR, Operations Research Letters, International Journal of Production Research, and others. He has received several teaching awards, and is currently the president- elect of the Academy of Teaching Excellence at VPI&SU. In addition to serving as editor of Decision Line, he has served the Institute as program chair, treasurer, vice president, track chair, and as a member of numerous committees.