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FACULTY AND COLLEGE NEWS
Fuller Named Kays
Distinguished Professor
Mark A. Fuller, professor
and chair of the Department
of Management Information
Systems, has been named to the
Philip L. Kays Distinguished
Professorship in MIS.
The Kays professorship was
established in 2000 by WSU
business alumni Pete and
Mary Guay and named in
honor of her father, a native of
Yakima, Washington. In 1965,
Philip Kays moved his family
to Spokane, where he served as
Mark Fuller
general manager of the Roundup Company, which was
acquired by Fred Meyer, Inc. It was there, say the Guays,
that Kays saw “how computers would make an impact on
business then and in the future.” He died in 1981.
“The Kays Professor is someone who will study and
bring the latest in technology to the MIS classrooms
through leading-edge content and training experiences,
and we believe that Mark Fuller excels in fulfilling those
requirements,” says associate dean David Whidbee.
Fuller has been on the WSU faculty since 2000 and has
led the MIS department since 2002. He was promoted to
full professor in 2006.
“It’s a privilege to be honored by the College in this
way,” says Fuller. “The Kays Professorship in MIS is
particularly significant to me, since I know both donors
and am aware of how deeply they care about WSU. This
professorship has a great legacy as well, having been held
by former CB dean Len Jessup in the past.”
Fuller received his doctorate in MIS from the University
of Arizona in 1993. Before joining WSU, he held positions
at Baylor University and the Helsinki School of Economics
and Business Administration in Finland.
His research—which has focused on the topics of
virtual teamwork, technology supported learning, and
e-commerce—has appeared in leading MIS journals,
including Management Information Systems Quarterly,
Information Systems Research, Decision Support System, and
the Journal of Management Information Systems. His recent
work has focused on trust-building technologies embedded
in computer interfaces (such as the Web) and on the
factors that influence successful virtual teamwork.
Fuller has received awards for teaching, where his interests
include MBA and executive education, information
systems management and strategy, electronic commerce,
and project management. He recently played a lead role
in redesigning the undergraduate MIS curriculum at WSU
(see story on page 24), and codesigned the MIS doctorate
program course sequence to leverage the faculty’s specialization
in behavioral research.
CB Faculty in the News
John Nofsinger
Associate Professor, Finance
Excerpted from “How to Make a Million.” Lankford,
Kimberly; Clark, Jane Bennet; O’Neill, Sean;
Kosnett, Jeffery. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
May 2006.
Other ways to safeguard your assets:
Stocks and bonds. Avoid the temptation to morph
from a patient, diversified investor into a master
of the universe. “When you’re on top, you might
attribute too much of your success to skill and
become overconfident,” says John Nofsinger, a
finance professor at Washington State University and
author of Investment Blunders of the Rich and Famous.
Just because you have the means to invest in a hedge
fund or an exotic tax shelter doesn’t mean you
should do it, says Nofsinger. Traditional stocks, bonds
and mutual funds or a separately managed account
run by an investment adviser all work just fine.
Glenn Crellin
Director, Washington Center for Real Estate
Research
Excerpted from “Land values jumped inside urban
boundaries.” Crellin, Glenn. Puget Sound Business
Journal. March 24, 2006.
In the 12 years I have been the director of the
Washington Center for Real Estate Research, we have
become best known for analyses of housing markets
and housing affordability, but issues of concern to
business, especially commercial real estate analyses, are
never far from view.
This is especially true in our policy analysis work,
which has focused on growth management, occasionally
in conjunction with other policy impacts. One
study is particularly relevant. It was a study funded
in 2002 by the National Association of Realtors to
estimate the impacts on real estate values of implementation
of the Endangered Species Act.
As our center undertook this project, we felt it was
important to not evaluate the Endangered Species Act
in a vacuum. Rather, that legislation would interact
with state initiatives which might also impact property
values.
44 WSU College of Business