College Park, Md. December 5, 2006 The University of Marylands Robert H. Smith School of Business is posting a last call for nominations for the schools 2007 Smith Leadership and Excellence Awards by the Dec. 14 deadline for submission. The annual awards, which pay tribute to business leaders and organizations that have made a significant and positive impact in the mid-Atlantic region, will be presented in four categories: Business Excellence, Leaders for the Digital Economy, Leadership Excellence, and Public Excellence.

The Smith School is pleased to announce the Top 15 % Teaching Award recipients for 2005-06. The Top 15% Teaching Awards are based on faculty performance during the previous academic year, consisting of fall semester, winter semester, spring semester, and summer semester sessions I and II, in that order.

Smith students had the opportunity to hear from an expert in the field of ethics in advertising Wednesday, November 08, 2006. Lesley Fair, senior attorney at the Federal Trade Commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection, gave a talk titled, The Truth About False Advertising: Why Ethical Marketing Isn't an Oxymoron. Fair introduced her discussion by giving examples of consumer behavior in response to false advertising. When a company receives a complaint letter there are an average of nine people who know about that complaint, according to some studies, she said.

Robert Colson, partner at Grant Thornton LLP, spoke to an auditorium of accounting students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business on Thursday, October 24 about the business of ethics and morality. He was the second speaker in the Business Ethics Lecture Series held at Smith. An accountant by day, Colsons interests range from ecology to fly fishing. His work experience spans several decades and includes stints in academia, the nonprofit world, and multinational corporations.

Smith faculty members brought the Smith Schools thought leadership to Europe in a series of workshops Tuesday, October 3 at the 16th Zrich MBA Congress. Rhonda Reger, professor of management and organization, Gurdip Bakshi, professor of finance, Judy Frels, senior director of custom programs, and Rob Sheehan, academic director for executive MBA and executive degree programs, were among thought leaders presenting at the conference, which focused on leading management issues.

In the past few years, Americans have come to learn that security initiatives are expensive and, many times, unsuccessful. However, high cost security is more than a government issue, it is also an important business issue. In a digital economy, businesses must work hard to keep client and employee information safe and private. Unfortunately many businesses spend millions of dollars on security initiatives that never deliver the promised results.

Stories concerning cybersecurity issues are now common in the news media. Articles addressing the theft of laptop computers with entire confidential databases have topped the list in recent months. The need to protect the nations infrastructure, a large part of which is controlled by computer networks, has also been the subject of many recent news stories and government reports. In response to the stories and reports, computer security experts have been working hard to develop all sorts of technical solutions to prevent, or at least quickly detect and correct, cybersecurity breaches.

Drs. Lawrence A. Gordon and Martin P. Loeb are part of the academic team from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business who assist the Computer Security Institute (CSI) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with their Annual Computer Crime and Security Survey.

For several years an international group of researchers interested in the intersection of economics and information security have been holding a Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS). The Fifth Workshop (June 26-28, 2006) was held at the University of Cambridge, UK, and close to 100 people (a combination of academician and practitioners) attended. The previous four workshops were held at the following universities: Harvard (2005), Minnesota (2004), Maryland (2003), and UC-Berkeley (2002).

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is excited to announce some favorite books in the "10th Annual Top-10 Summer Reading List for Business Leaders" for 2013, as recommended by members of its faculty and staff.