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NACRA Newsletter F2011
NACRA Newsletter F2011
NACRA Newsletter
Editor: Carol J. Cumber, Ph.D. Dept. of Economics Scobey 504 South Dakota State University Brookings, SD 57007 (605) 688-4849 carol.cumber@sdstate.edu
Sunny skies, warm weather and friendly people set the stage for a successful 2011 NACRA Conference in San Antonio, TX October 13-15. Our conference home was at the lovely St. Anthony Hotel, near the famed River walk. Highlights of the program included: ing technology, storytelling & business education, integrating cases, and research methodology & theory building Dinner at the Texas Land & Cattle Company Restaurant followed by the music production San Antonio Rose Live at the Aztec Theater Awards galore, including a new $10,000 CMA corporate governance case competition Tupper Cawsey being honored as our newest NACRA Fellow An opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make new friends
We look forward to another great meeting at the Boston Quincy Marriott in Quincy, MA, October 25-27, 2012. Be sure to come, and bring a colleague.or two!
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NACRA made some major progress during the past couple of years. We had so many peoples help, visibly and invisibly, for which I am grateful. Thank you all. Below is just a sample of these accomplishments. 1) Grew NACRAs membership: in addition to organic growth, there is some compelling evidence that we have truly globalized our organization. Please see the membership statistics in Table 1 below; some of these statistics may surprise you!
3-Year period
USA
Canada
Asia/ Pacific
Europe
TOTAL
2009-2011 2006-2008
Please get active or encourage a colleagues to continue building NACRA: become a track chair or board member! Join us at the upcoming regional case writing conferences and see you at NACRA in Boston, 2012!
Armand Gilinsky, Outgoing NACRA President 7) 4) 5) 2) 3)
51 36 17
59 10 4
49 22 17
18 12 6
2003-2005
6)
Thanks again to Vi Narapareddy (Program Chair), Marlene Reed (Local Arrangements), and Marilyn Taylor (Proceedings) who collectively put in several person-years to make the San Antonio conference a success!
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Submitted by Kathryn Savage
Please join us on October Canada will fund a $10,000 award for the best case presented in 25-27, 2012 for the NAthe Corporate Governance Track. Please consult the website at CRA Annual Meeting. www.nacra.net for updates on the conference program and specific details for case submission. The 2012 meeting will be held at the Boston Quincy As a NACRA member, you can access newsletters online and Marriott in Quincy, Mas- will receive various e-mail updates regarding the conference. sachusetts. I encourage you to share this information with your non-member There are multiple reasons colleagues who are interested in case writing. The roundtable to put this conference on format depends upon a critical mass of case writers and teachyour list--the Boston ersall of us benefit as conference participation grows. Quincy Marriott is an
upscale property with spacious guestrooms, a sauna, fitness center, indoor pool, and meeting facilities that are perfect for the NACRA meeting. The hotel is centrally located; with easy access to Boston, Quincy, and Cape Cod should you decide to extend your stay before or after the conference. My own experience at the NACRA Annual Meetings reinforces my belief that the conference represents an unparalleled opportunity for a case author to get valuable input and direction from individuals who have taught, written, and published cases in their discipline. For the 2012 meeting, cases and symposia proposals have a deadline of June 30, and embryo cases have a deadline of September 1. As in 2011, the Certified Management Accountants of Alberta,
NACRA Membership
Hello NACRA Friends, We had a great conference in San Antonio and I really enjoyed meeting many first time NACRA attendeeswe certainly hope you all come back to NACRA 2012 in Boston. Our membership continues to become much more geographically diverse and I think we as an Association need to embrace the growing Internationalization of NACRA going forward. Here is a snapshot of membership trends over the last 5 + years: Membership Trends from our membership lists online: 2007 (Keystone, Co) 2008 (Durham, NH) 2009 (Santa Cruz, CA) 2010 (Gatlinburg, TN) 2011 (San Antonio, TX) 2012 (Boston, MA) 171 260 319 284 220to date 141to date Tell your colleagues about NACRA! Chad Carson NACRA VP of Membership
One last important note regarding your membership status: In order to participate in 2011 royalties from your CRJ cases that have been adopted and purchased by others, you MUST be a paid member by December 1, 2011. To Join NACRA go to www.nacra.net and click the JOIN NOW button.
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Past NACRA President Becky Morris reminds us to remember the la mode while in San Antonio!
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Editors Note: When case writers come together, we talk about our passion for the case method, both in relation to writing and teaching. We also discuss the importance of spreading the word to bring new case writers into the fold. That inevitably le ads to a conversation about whether or not case research counts for promotion and tenure. With that in mind, Armand Gilinsky, immediate past-president of NACRA, shares his story and encourages you to do the same.
help correct errors of fact and data in the early case drafts, take notes during the Here's what my experience has been with initial classroom tests, and make correccases and tenure committees, and you all tions to the draft of the case and IM durare welcome to share your stories with ing the final editing process before jourour VP Communications/Newsletter edi- nal or textbook submission (or during the tor Carol Cumber revision and resubmission phase for jourcarol.cumber@sdstate.edu for an upnals). And they mostly took me up on it! coming issue. And it's based upon some At that time, our School of Business and advice that Marilyn Taylor may or may Economics was getting ready for AACSB not recall giving me on the deck of the initial accreditation and many senior facDelta Queen many years ago at a NAulty had not published in a long while (if CRA conference in Lexington KY/ ever). So, co-authoring a published case Cincinnati OH. was a home run for them, and for me, at least a "double," as now some members When I first came on the scene at Sono- of the tenure committee understood what ma State University, no one was writing was involved in the process of crafting a cases nor using cases much except as publishable case and teaching note. Oth"end of the chapter" vignettes. Profs ers soon asked if they could work with would play the "sage on the stage" and me and get involved and (of course) pubanalyze the case vignettes for students. I lished. was alone in using textbook cases to create dialogues in both capstone strategy and entrepreneurship/small business courses. Our new Dean was receptive to promoting case writing, but he had very little sway over the department and school tenure committees. My first tenure review was a mess, because the department committee for some reason omitted my personal statement consisting of teaching philosophy and how my case research program had begun to provide content as well as provide extraordinary learning experiences for students. OK gang,
necessarily "friendly" with the business school. I invited this faculty member to come to my class and do a peer evaluation. Many of my colleagues warned me not to do this. The prof watched me lead a dialogue with 50 students on the "Robin Hood" case and even got deeply involved in the discussion. After class, the prof. came to me and ask if I might do a case study on a community non-profit organization co-founded by himself, his wife, and another political science professor. I received tenure and promotion to full professor; the non-profit case was eventually published in the Case Research Journal and several textbooks; royalties that I receive (or at least can identify) from that case are sent to the non-profit each year as my annual donation. Since then I have given several case writing and case teaching "professional development" (brown-bag lunch) workshops for our business school faculty. In case you all were wondering, Marilyn Taylors advice to me was to "play the politics of inclusion when you are writing cases get colleagues and the community involved." Thanks! That worked.
My "aha" moment came when I decided to write cases about local organizations and ask the chairs of both department and school tenure committees to participate as co-authors on two separate case projects. I invited these senior faculty members to participate in the field interviews,
At the university level, however, it was a bit more complicated, as the then chair of the university tenure committee was a long-time faculty member from the political science department and a person not
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Congratulations to the recipients of our fifth round of $10,000 Case Research Grants! Last year NACRAs Board decided to allo cate up to $10,000 for one case research grant and to allocate up to $10,000 for travel grants to encourage doctoral students, MBA students, and undergraduates to submit a case and attend our meetings. Remember that these grants are possible because of the royalties earned by cases YOU publish in the Case Research Journal and YOU adopt for use in your classes. Thank you for helping us support excellence in case research and foster the development of the next generation of case researchers through our travel grants. We hope that by inspiring these scholars and supporting the expenses of their work we will help demonstrate the importance and credibility of case research to all of our constituents.
The Role of Institutional Environment in the Transfer of Best We received three requests for NACRA Travel Grants and all Practices in Cross- Border Inter-firm Networks: The Case of three were accepted. The following individuals received these Miratech Lviv and Rusbitex grants: Principal investigator: Ekaterina Turkina, Assistant Professor, Department of International Business, HEC Montreal; visiting professor at Political Science Department, McGill University Ekaterina Turkina attended the 2011 meeting in San Antonio to review her initial progress reports with the grant review committee. She will present results of their research at the 2012 meeting in Boston.
For a number of years, NACRA has had three corporate governance awards provided by McMaster University and designed for use in its Governors College program. This year, the Certified Management Accountants (CMA) of Alberta introduced a new award which utilized cases submitted and presented at the NACRA annual meeting. The new award was for $10,000. The cases nominated for this award were reviewed by NACRA reviewers as well as CMA and Governors College reviewers.
The winners are: CMA Alberta Award Apple Boards Steve Jobs Dilemma -Debapratim Purkayastha, IBS Hyderabad Governors College Awards First Place Winner Lehman Brothers - Randall Harris, California State University at Stanislaus Honourable Mention Ferris Valley Foods Company: Corporate Social Responsibility and Reentry - Nancy Levenburg, Grand Valley State University and Lisa Eshbach, Ferris State University Getting Ready to Retire: Planning for the Future at Bridge Adult Service Centre -Gina Grandy and Rhin Stewart, Mount Allison University
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Submitted by J. David Hunger
Editors note: Guest columnist J. David Hunger is Professor Emeritus, Iowa State University, Strategic Management Scholar in Residence, St. Johns University/College of St. Benedict, and a Past -President of both NACRA and Society for Case Research . Recently, two articles written by David Glenn questioned the value of business education: The B-School Blahs, New York Times Education Life, April 17, 2011 and Business Educators Struggle to Put Students to Work, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2011. Glenn, a senior writer for The Chronicle covering teaching and curriculum, pointed out that even though business majors accounted for one out of five majors in the U.S., they spent the least amount of time preparing for class (only 11 hours per week) and scored the lowest on writing and reasoning skills. The emphasis by business schools on group projects/papers (primarily due to large class sizes and the increasing focus on research over teaching in faculty P&T decisions) has led to lower writing and reasoning skills. One 2003 study found that business professors have been steadily reducing the math and analyticthinking requirements in their courses as they increased requirements related to computer and group presentations. Such criticisms of business education are nothing new. A 1979 survey by Hunger and Wheelen of deans, personnel executives, and MBA directors (An Assessment of Undergraduate Business Education in the United States, McIntire School of Commerce Foundation, University of Virginia, 1980) found the primary objective of business education to be developing problem-solving and analytical abilities. The leading weaknesses of business bachelors degree graduates: They were perceived to be immature and impractical (39%), lacked communication skills oral and written (29%), and had a narrow orientation (10%). According to the survey, the top training need of business bachelors degree graduates for combined initial and long-term job success was writing. Interestingly, the top perceived strength of business bachelors degree graduates was their knowledge of basic business principles and concepts.
The Role of Cases in Business Education All of us who use cases in the classroom are aware of their value in developing analytical and communication skills. Unlike the usual lecture/ discussion teaching model so prevalent in American higher education, the case method encourages students to deal with an actual business situation. Since many of our cases emphasize a decision point and a protagonist with whom students can identify, the student is put into the position of having to make a decision and propose a solution. Written and oral case analyses generally demand that a student not only analyze the case situation, but also chose one alternative out of many. Welldeveloped communication skills are essential if a written or oral analysis is to be persuasive - crucial for effective decision-making in the real world. Since these benefits of the case method are generally known and accepted in most business schools, why are our students still criticized for their poor writing and analytical skills? Why do we continue to emphasize the lecture/discussion method of teaching when its primary rationale is the efficient teaching of principles and concepts something that our students already excel in learning? (continued on page 9)
According to the survey, the top training need of business bachelors degree graduates for combined initial and long-term job success was writing.
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We should push for more case method teaching throughout the business curriculum, not just the capstone strategy class.
Conclusion Given the need for business students to acquire more communication and reasoning skills, the case method seems a very
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Launching a campaign to educate deans, department chairs, and doctoral students as to the scholarly rigor involved with case research Continuing to build strong strategic alliances with key academic organizations that offer potential synergistic benefits, both in North America and abroad Fostering continued support for students to submit cases and attend our conference through travel grants Working with the Case Research Journal to continue to explore new opportunities for special issues and ways in which we can get more of our cases into classrooms around the world Introducing a new case teaching award called the Jeff Ellis Excellence in Case Teaching Award that will recognize case teaching performance in the classroom Some of these may surely be lofty goals, but with the strength the NACRA membership working with me, Im confident well achieve great things in the coming year. Dont just watch from the sidelinesget involvedbecome a track chair, board member , reviewer for CRJ, etc. Contact me or one of the officers to let us know how you want to get involved. I look forward to seeing you ALL in Boston next year!!!
Regional Associations
Southeastern Case Research Association (SECRA)Feb 16-18, 2012, Myrtle Beach, SC Program Chair: Lindsey Morrow Hamil, hamillm@musc.edu President, Susan Peters, speters@fmarion.edu www.secra.org Southwest Case Research Association (SWCRA)Feb 29-Mar 1, 2012, New Orleans, LA Program Chair: Irfan Ahmed, irfanahmed.shsu.edu President: Rodney Vandeveer, vandevee@purdu.edu www.swcrahome.org Western Casewriters Association (WCA) March 22, 2012, La Jolla, CA Program Chair: Leslie Goldgehn, lesliegoldgehn@gmail.com www.westerncasewriters.org President: Duane Helleloid, duane.helleloid@business.und.edu CASE AssociationMay 9-12, 2012, Philadelphia, PA Program Chair: David Desplaces, desplacesd@cofe.edu President: Peggy Naumes, margaret.naumes@unh.edu
www.caseweb.org/index.php
Latin American Case Research Association (ALAC) May 30-31; June 1, 2012 Santiago, Chile Program Chair: Sergio Olavarrieta, solavar@unegocios.cl President: Camilo Mejia, cmejia@uninorte.edu.co www.gda.itesm.mx/cic Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) June 9-12, 1012, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada Division Chair: Janice Foley, Janice.Foley@uregina.ca www.busi.mun.ca/asac2012/ Midwest Society of Case Research (SCR)March 21-23, 2011, Chicago, IL Program Chair: Karen Berger, SCRChicago@gmail.com www.sfcr.org/
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Submitted by Jyoti Bachani
Editors Note: This is the third in a series of newsletter articles that highlight our regionally affiliated associations.
The Western Casewriters Association (WCA) was formed in 1989 by by Dick Eisenbeis, at the Western Academy of Management (WAM). Since then, the association has convened an annual case-writing conference in association with the annual WAM conference. The conference attracts newcomers as well as loyal regulars who welcome and mentor the newcomers.
initiatives as they can hit the ground running with the basic conference information and calls readily updated and available. Past participants can contribute to marketing the organization to their colleagues by referring them to the permanent website. At the 2010 conference in Hawaii, then President Stephen McGuire initiated published proceedings and awards for best case and best student case mentored by faculty. He also initiated discussions about potentially starting a new peer reviewed journal. At the 2011 Meeting, held in Victoria BC, under President Issam Ghazzawi, the proposal to launch a new online journal for the organization was passed.
In recent years, there has been an effort to revitalize and renew the organization. At the twentieth annual conference, held in Midway, Utah, in March 2009, then President Jyoti Bachani, asked Joan Winn to share some of the histoThe current President Duane ry of the organization Helleloid reports that, WCA with the participants. had a very successful conferDuring the coffee break, ence in Victoria, BC, on March Joan made a quick 24, 2011. Twenty cases were V. Sheshan, Steve McGuire, a WCA participant, Jim Spee, Jyoti phone call to Dick Eipresented, with authors from all Bachani at the WCA conference in Midway, Utah, 2009 senbeis to get some speover the Western states, as well cifics that she shared during her impromptu presentation during the business meeting. At that meeting, it was decided that West- as Nova Scotia, Turkey, Washington DC, and Hawaii. The WCA ern Casewriters should have a permanent website. Jyoti Bachani also decided to launch a new online journal, with the first issue is grateful to her colleague Barry Eckhouse of Saint Marys Col- coming out sometime in the next year. Steve McGuire lege of California for generously providing the expertise and re- (smcguir@exchange.calstatela.edu) will be the editor. Keep an eye out for the call for submissions to the journal, as well as the sources needed to build, host and maintain www.westercasewriters.org. Prior to this, there were attempts to call for next years conference on March 22, 2012, in La Jolla, California. Leslie Goldgehn (goldgehnl@usfca.edu) will be have WCA websites at the Presidents host universities every year. The first one was created by Jeff Shay for the conference in program chair. As always, submission guidelines and conference Missoula, Montana, and then it moved every year. Recreation and information will be provided at www.westerncasewriters.org. redesign of the website every year was problematic as valuable WCA Introduces New Journal! information was lost and there were invariable delays in getting approvals from the Universities to host it every year. By having a The new peer reviewed online journal will be called The Journal permanent home, the WCA website has created one centralized of Case Inquiry and Research. In Steves words, it is described as place to have archives, history and call for cases and information follows: about the conference and organizational activities in one place, where it is always available. The institutional memory is The Journal of Case Research and Inquiry (JCRI) is a publicastrengthened and the community is growing stronger. It also altion of the Western Casewriters Association lows the incoming officers to focus their energy on pursuing new (Continued on page 12)
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The growth in WCA has also led to closer ties with NACRA and other regional associations, as well as efforts at the national level. Jyoti Bachani initiated and organized case-based professional develop2. JCRI open source availability policy ment workshops at the Academy of Management meetings in Montreal in 2010 and Cases, notes, and articles are available again in San Antonio in 2011. Colleagues online at www.jcri.org at no cost to infrom NACRA, Eastern and Southwestern structors and students at state and nonCase writers associations as well as Euprofit educational institutions, who shall be granted the right to reproduce them for rope joined in supporting these workshops that have been sponsored by the Research educational purposes. The journal shall Methods and Management Education Diencourage instructors to include in their course syllabi links to the JCRI website so vision of the Academy of Management. The participants at these workshops rated that students can easily access cases, 1. Scope of Journal these to be 4.7 on a 5 point scale, with 5 notes, and articles. being the best. There are plans being disThe journal publishes cases that address For reproductions for commercial purpos- cussed for an All Academy Symposium significant contemporary and perennial es in textbooks or elsewhere, authors shall for this years Academy meetings, with issues faced by organizations and manag- retain all rights. Vijaya Narapareddy ers in the areas of business and public and Mikael Sonderadministration, nonprofit management, The call for cases for the new journal is gaard as the lead and social entrepreneurship. All cases are now in circulation (contact Steve at smcorganizers. accompanied by instructor manuals (IMs) guir@exchange.calstatela.edu).
NACRA Signs New Distribution Agreement with Harvard Business School Publishing!
Submitted by Deborah Ettington
We are pleased to report that NACRA has signed a contract with our newest distribution partner, Harvard Business School Publishing. We know from the case usage survey we conducted last year that many of our members use Harvard cases and the HBSP website for their courses, and this agreement will make it easier to adopt CRJ cases along with others through the Harvard site. If you visit http://hbsp.harvard.edu/ and search on NACRA you will see the list of cases currently on the site (about 30). We have sent most cases from Volumes 28-30 (2008-10), and will add newer cases after expiration of the one-year exclusive period we grant XanEdu as the publisher of the CRJ. Harvard is willing to consider including older cases with strong market potential, so if you use an older CRJ case in your course and would like to adopt it through Harvard, please contact Debbie Ettington, Editor, Case Research Journal (dettington@nacra.net). To adopt our newest cases, XanEdu remains our exclusive distributor for one year in recognition of their role in publishing the CRJ (http://www.xanedu.com). Older NACRA cases can be accessed through XanEdu or our other distributors: ECCH ( http:// www.ecch.com), Laurier Institute ( http://www.wlu.ca), McGraw-Hill (http://catalogs.mhhe.com), Pearson (http:// www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com), and Study.net (https://www.study.net.) Note that teaching notes can be reviewed online by registered instructors at most of these sites. You may also contact Susan Peters, VP Case Marketing, directly for permission to reprint in course packs ( SPeters@fmarion.edu).
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Submitted by Deborah Ettington
Reach (wide distribution through XanEdu, publisher of the CRJ, and after one year through our other distribution partners including ECCH, Laurier Institute, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Study.net, and most recently, Harvard Business Publishing. In addition, CRJ cases are reprinted in textbooks and course packs. How can you help? Show CRJ cases and especially the IMs to your colleagues, especially those on P&T committees. Adopt them yourself for your courses. Suggest them to your favorite textbook author. Let us know if you have other ideas! Reviewing for CRJ One of the first things I appreciated about CRJ as a case author was the timely and developmental review process. Last year our average time from submission to author feedback was 51 days, beating our 60day target. We are all indebted to our reviewers who invest considerable time and thought in this often thankless job. We need more reviewers of this caliber, so if youre not already receiving review requests from me, please let me know and Ill sign you up! Seeing other reviewer comments is a great way to improve your own case writing, as well as to give back when you have benefited from the time invested by others in your work. While we appreciate the efforts of all reviewers, we recognized five individuals for especially outstanding work this year, based on nominations from Tupper and the associate and guest editors. These folks received the very fashionable CRJ denim shirt, and our sincere appreciation: Katherine Breward, Tom Hinthorne, Lynda Livingston, Susan Sieloff, and Gerald Weinstein. We also wrote a note to their deans recognizing their outstanding contributions. Submitting to CRJ Of course outstanding journals start with outstanding submissions. I hope the energy I witnessed at the roundtables in San Antonio will soon translate into cases revised and submitted to the CRJ. In addition to submitting your own case, you can help by encouraging the authors you met at your roundtable to submit theirs- maybe even make a pact to follow-up with each other until you do it! I should mention that we recognize not all conference cases fit the CRJs editorial emphasis on decision-focused cases grounded in primary research. We can consider truly outstanding cases that are more analytical or based on secondary research, but these are not our specialty. Feel free to contact me to discuss exceptions. Hopefully your roundtable discussants also let you know about other journal outlets, and the route of sending your case directly to textbooks, if the CRJ is not the target for you. Wherever you distribute it, dont let it decay in your desk drawer. And keep writing, with next years conference in Boston in mind.
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Submitted by Carol Cumber
TIM SINGLETON
Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame 2011 Inductee
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Submitted by Susan Peters
All cases published in the Case Research Journal also have a brief abstract on NACRAs Webpage (www.nacra.net). These listings are also searchable to help you find the case easily.
a. Cases presented at the conference, but not published in the CRJ are not in these databases. Sometimes, if the authors are not
pursuing publication (in CRJ or elsewhere), they are willing to grant permissions for the case. Please contact the Vice President of Case Marketing for assistance.
b. If the case was in the CRJ, remember that Xanedu currently has a one-year exclusive agreement. c. And, if all else fails, please contact the NACRA Vice President of Marketing.
NACRA Vice President Case Marketing: Susan D. Peters, PhD. Forrest S. William Professor of Entrepreneurship Francis Marion University PO Box 100547 Florence, SC 29505 Phone: 843 661 1102 Fax: 843 661 1118 e-mail: speters@fmarion.edu
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Thank You!
In addition to NACRAs heartfelt Thank-you to everyone who made the October 2012 conference in San Antonio, TX a success, NACRA would like to especially make note of the support of the University of Denver, which subsidized the flash drives on which the NACRA Proceedings were recorded, Baylor University, which provided conference bags, the University of New Hampshire, which houses the NACRA Archives, and the University of MissouriKansas City, for their support with development of the NACRA Proceedings.
Photo Credits:
Peggy Naumes, Carol Cumber, Becky Morris, Kathy Savage, Melby Photography, Jeff Shay, Armand Gilinsky, University of Denver, Baylor University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Francis Marion University, San Antonio Visitors Bureau, Quincy, MA Visitors Bureau, Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame, Tim Singleton.
NACRA Newsletter
The NACRA Newsletter is published twice yearly by the North American Case Research Association. Please send announcements and article suggestions to NACRA VP-Communications/Newsletter Editor Carol Cumber at carol.cumber@sdstate.edu.