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StateWide
Compiled by Robin Sinckler
ODU Offers E-Commerce Degrees
E-commerce is changing the way the world does business, and Old Dominion University (ODU) is preparing students to work and compete in the fast-growing field. Beginning this fall, ODU's College of Business and Public Administration joins a select few institu-tions in offering degree programs in electronic commerce. The uni-versity will offer a graduate degree in e-commerce and will become one of only five institutions in the country to offer an undergraduate degree in the field. The B.S. and M.S. programs will cover the use of technology in business management and e-commerce fundamentals such as supply chain management, programming with C++ and information systems, legal issues, data mining, marketing on the Internet, and the economics of e-commerce.
Distinctive characteristics of the Old Dominion program are its E-Commerce Computer Lab and Center, where area industry will work with students and faculty to test and develop e-commerce infrastructure, and its Career Advantage Program, which provides internships for students enrolled in e-commerce. "Old Dominion will be on the cusp of one of the most fundamental changes in business operations and strategy that has occurred since World War II," said President James V. Koch, adding that "in 10 years, e-commerce majors will be as common as computer science majors are today."
One Good Turn Deserves Another: Sweet Briar's Nature Sanctuary Is Almost Complete
Sweet Briar College's Williams Creek Natural Area Preserve is one step closer to completion. A recent gift of land to the college by John L. Patteson Jr., an Amherst resident, will help expand the nature sanctuary to its natural boundary lines. "Donating this land is an opportunity to give back to people who have helped us," said Patteson, whose son, Brian, now an ornithologist, "got his start" by working in the preserve with a Sweet Briar professor, who in turn asked Patteson for the land.
The Williams Preserve is located near the U.S. 29 bypass and County Road 663. Its soil gives life to orchids, wildflowers, rare plants, and hickory and beech wood trees that are 150 years old. The living laboratory provides Sweet Briar ecology students with the opportunity to observe rare plants and forest growth in all its stages. It is becoming even more precious as urban sprawl encroaches, threatening wildlife habitats and the ecosystem.
Can Ethics Focus Curb Cheating?
The notion among professors that students who cheated in high school will cheat in college is being challenged. A new large-scale study is showing that holding students to higher standards deters cheating and plagiarism in college. Students cheat in high school in part because they think everyone else does, explains Gary Pavela, director of judicial programs and student ethical conduct at the University of Maryland. They can change their behavior for the better when they are presented with ethical responsibilities, such as adhering to traditional honor codes and policing cheating peers.
The research shows that institutions with honor codes have some of the lowest rates of cheating. The penalties for infractions can be severe--students who break their written pledge that they will not cheat risk expulsion. The traditional code largely disappeared in the 1960s, and today, less than one percent of the country's 3,500 colleges and universities have one.
UVA Professor Recognized as a "Lawyer of the Century"
Jeffrey O'Connell, a law profes-sor at the University of Virginia, has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of its "Lawyers of the Century" for his research and writings on tort reform. The magazine lauded O'Connell and coauthor Robert Keeton, a former Harvard University law professor, for "inventing" no-fault auto insurance, which made the insurance claims process simpler and eased the burden on taxpayers and court systems by eliminating lawyers, judges, and juries from the auto insurance claims process.
O'Connell lectures internationally and has written numerous books and articles on tort and insurance law. He received Guggenheim fellowships in 1973 and 1979, and in 1992 received the Robert B. McKay Award for Tort and Insurance Scholarship from the American Bar Association. At the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1980, O'Connell is the Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law.
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