Although last year's Board, professional staff, coordinators and committees moved the Institute closer toward realizing our objectives, there is more to be done. Throughout the year, I would like to use some of this and other "Presidents' Letters" to discuss each of the priorities above, the rationale for its inclusion in our "top five list," and report what has already been accomplished, as well as plans for our immediate future.

The first priority listed, Increased attention to the Institute's role in improving instructional competencies within the decision sciences, is motivated by the long-term interest of our membership in pedagogical issues, innovative instruction, and the use of technology in the classroom, as well as by the recent demands for more integration of the core curricula for both the undergraduate business and MBA degrees (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 4, 1991). Since its inception, the Institute has been committed to quality research, teaching, and practice. Its mission statement emphasizes that the Institute provides a "forum for presentation and discussion of innovative teaching; a forum for examining the most recent application of computers to instruction; recognition of teaching excellence; and curriculum innovation." Twenty-six years of sustained interest in instruction on all degree levels should place us among the leaders and pioneers in the field!

It is gratifying that the increased attention to teaching is, in very large part, internally motivated because of our desire to teach well in today's environment, while at the same time spending some of our energy on research and service to provide solutions to business problems. Our motivation is not merely to answer recent calls from our constituencies for assessment of learning outcomes or for accountability of time spent on undergraduate instruction. Although sometimes it may not be clear who our constituencies are (students, taxpayers, legislators, etc.), or what our product is (educated/trained students, knowledge, etc.), we know that the day for higher levels of assessment and accountability are here for some of us and will arrive in the near future for others.

It is interesting to note the numbers of our members who have participated in the Institute's Instructional Innovation Award Competition and presented papers on the use of technology in the classroom, pedagogy, and other related topics. Some of these participants are among the most productive and creative researchers in some of our most prestigious business schools. Our members have been vitally interested in teaching long before any state legislator introduced a bill to require more accountability, or a higher percentage of faculty time devoted to teaching (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 1995), or before the publication of Impostors in the Temple, The Closing of the American Mind, The Growth of the American Research University, How Professors Play the Cat Guarding the Cream, Profscam, The Moral Collapse of the University, Balancing the Responsibilities of the Professoriate, Up the University, Scholarship Re-Considered, The Moral Collapse of the University, and other such books. (A more complete bibliography is available upon request.) It is paradoxical to me that, at the very time institutions are most criticized for the quality of undergraduate education at our universities, the demand for undergraduate degrees granted by these same universities is at an all-time high.

Although the Decision Sciences Institute has been a leader among professional organizations in promoting and advocating excellence in teaching, we know that we must continue to encourage our faculties. Many of our faculty members are struggling to balance the responsibilities of the scholarship, which includes teaching, research and service. While preparing this letter, I was reminded again of how difficult this balancing act is at some of our universities, and how much we as individuals and the Institute need to support our members in their efforts. I called a friend whom I know to be both an award-winning teacher and a good researcher at a large state university to ask him to serve on a committee of the Institute.

I began to build my case for such a request by saying, "I hope that you will have the time to serve because we need your expertise on this committee."

This scholarly colleague (with a very busy schedule) replied, "Surely I have the time because, according to my legislature, I work only six hours a week!"

Although we both laughed, we were not laughing with joy. I believe we laughed to give each other support. Both of us know that for some reason, the academic community has not communicated effectively how our faculties work hard at many tasks and manage to do them well, although there are many demands on their time.

For several days after the conversation I thought often about the need to encourage and support our colleagues who elect to designate teaching as an important professional priority. While none of us want to, and can afford to, neglect the other responsibilities of our profession, the cur-rent environment calls for us to become more effective and proficient in educating our students. One way our members can accomplish this is to learn from each other by sharing what works well for us in our classrooms. For years the Institute has provided the forum for this type of sharing. However, I believe we need to do more; it is both timely and appropriate that the Board recently adopted the priority of increased attention to the Institute's role in improving instructional competencies. The 1995-1996 Board's decision to institutionalize the degree-focused programs demonstrates the Institute's commitment to increased instructional competencies at all degree levels.

The Institute is very fortunate to have an excellent group of faculty members responsible for the degree-focused programs. Anne Koehler (chair of the degree-focused programs), David Olson (coordinator of the Ph.D. degree-focused program), Dave Christy and Ron Shiffler (co-coordinators of the undergraduate degree-focused program), and Norm Chervany and Tom Howard (co-coordinators of the MBA degree-focused program) are responsible for the design and presentation of these programs. The ultimate goal of each program is to improve learning outcomes at all levels.

After talking with Anne Koehler about the sessions being planned for the Academic Administrators Workshop (coordinated by George Heitmann) and the Curricular Issues Theme (degree-focused programs) for the 1996 Annual Meeting and with Lori Franz about her plans for an AACSB Town Meeting, I am convinced that these sessions will generate the same level of interest as the MBA Mini-conference at the 1995 Annual Meeting in Boston. You will recall that in these sessions there was standing-room-only! I encourage you to allocate time to these events and ask that you encourage your faculty and administrators who are responsible for the degree programs in your school to attend with you.