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DSI Election Special FeatureThe two candidates for the position of DSI president-elect—Maling Ebrahimpour of the University of South Florida and Soumen Ghosh of the Georgia Institute of Technology—provide their vision statements for the 2012 election of officers. Maling Ebrahimpour
DSI has afforded me a full range of opportunities for service, from reviewing papers annually for various conferences to organizing the historic 2009 Annual Meeting as the program chair for the Institute's 40th anniversary in New Orleans. I had hands-on experience of almost every function and activities of DSI. My involvement with the Institute's functioning has not been limited to the parent Institute level, but has extended to regional subdivisions as well. I have served the Northeast Region at various levels, including as president of NEDSI. Why is this important for you to know? I think you should know that my focus is on DSI and there is no other organization to which I devote my time. DSI and its members helped me to grow to be a successful academician. I would like DSI to continue to be a beacon of hope for doctoral students. I would like DSI to be a place where we can disseminate our latest scholarly work and have scholarly discussions about different ideas and research topics. I want DSI to grow as a haven to which we come frequently and eagerly, for renewal and intellectual nourishment, sustained by the fellowship of old friends and new. My vision for DSI is for it to be an organization of choice for scholars in the field of decision sciences from around the world who want to share their research work and want to learn from others. I envision DSI as an organization that attracts young as well as seasoned researchers. This is an ambitious goal that requires a flow of new ideas and a rethinking of who we are and how we can serve our current constituencies while attracting new ones. The world has changed and so must we. Our past successes will not guarantee our future growth. We need to identify what is required to make DSI sustain and grow. In many cases, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We can use successful and best practices from other organizations and implement them in ours. I would like to capitalize on the very qualities of DSI that make it attractive to our members: the cordial nature of DSI members; involvement of young professionals in the Institute; emphasis in the Institute on global issues; and the Institute as an organization that values not only specialization, but also multidisciplinary inquiry. Please allow me to elaborate on what I mean. DSI was, has always been, and remains today the most welcoming organization I know. Its members are most cordial and supportive of one another. It is a place where one can freely share her or his latest ideas and receive constructive advice on how to make a project better and ready for publication. We need to nurture this single unique trait and make it a market-winning point to attract fellow researchers. DSI is an excellent organization to join to start your professional life. However, we need to involve our young members, who are at the start of their careers, across geography in a more meaningful ways, in all affairs of DSI. We do a great job with running such programs as the New Faculty Development Consortium, but we do not develop follow-up activities. Why not have one or more positions on DSI's Board designated for young professionals? I believe having young professionals involved who are in their early stage of their careers will be very beneficial to DSI. First, the Board will know the real needs of this group of constituencies rather than guessing them. Thus, we will be able to provide services and products that are specifically desired and will attract these individuals to DSI. Second, by serving as Board members, these individuals will get to know the inner working of DSI early and be ready to take over additional duties. Furthermore, these young professionals are much more technology savvy than most of us were at the early stages of our professional life. We need to be at the cutting edge, and I believe having them involved will change the nature of DSI for better and will not only sustain the organization, but also make it thrive. If you look at the planet Earth from a distance, you will see no lines identifying boundaries of countries. DSI and its members should look at the world the same way. While we speak different languages, we get together for a common purpose. In our specific case, it is our research, interest in networking, and a few other tangibles and intangibles that bring us together. We need to look at DSI (ourselves) differently. Do we want to be a U.S.-centric organization with international activities or global organization? I believe the very nature of this organization lends itself to be a global organization. Change is difficult and changing ourselves from a more regional view to global view is difficult. Previous and current wise leaders of DSI have started the process of crafting DSI as a global organization. However, much work is ahead of us and is needed to make DSI a truly global organization. Decision making by its very nature cuts across many disciplines. We are a multidisciplinary organization. However, at the same time most of our colleagues write works based on their primary area of expertise and knowledge of a specific area. They are heavily influenced by the requirements set by their institutions for advancement in their workplace. To be truly at the forefront as a multidisciplinary organization, we need to re-evaluate ourselves and discover new ways to encourage multidisciplinary research that helps our membership to not only advance their research but their career as well. These are the issues that will serve as my platform if I am honored by being elected by membership as the president of DSI. Maling Ebrahimpour
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I joined the Decision Sciences Institute nearly three decades ago. The Institute was then known as the American Institute of Decisions Sciences. At the start of my professional career in academics, little did I imagine that this organization was to become the primary focus of my professional activities and the Institute was to become my professional home! I joined several other organizations. However, after merely a couple of years, it was evident to me that I would devote my professional life to DSI. DSI helped me to grow professionally, find great many friends and colleagues, and channeled my research throughout its evolutionary process. DSI is a friendly organization where professional colleagues help you to crystalize and nurture an idea, and provide you with creative advice and energy to make your work better. DSI has continued to help my professional growth. At DSI, I have become acquainted with other professionals like me and have continued to learn from gurus in our disciplines.