Release Date: Wednesday, August 4, 1999

PATRICK McKEOWN NAMED HEAD OF NEW DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT UGA'S TERRY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

ATHENS, Ga. — Patrick G. McKeown has been picked to head the newly established Department of Management Information Systems at the University of Georgia, announced Terry College of Business Dean P. George Benson.

McKeown has been on the business faculty at UGA since 1976. He has written more than 30 textbooks in the areas of management science and information systems and published more than 40 research articles. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"The new MIS department gives us the flexibility and focus to better serve our students and the state in this time of explosive growth in information technology," Benson said. "Pat McKeown's wealth of experience makes him exactly the right person to lead our growing emphasis in information technology in the Terry College of Business."

McKeown was a Fulbright Scholar in Portugal in 1998, where he taught an MBA course in electronic commerce at the Lisbon campus of the Catholic University of Portugal. In 1997, he was given the Distinguished Service Award by the Terry College for his success in acquiring grants for the college, as well as enhancing computer literacy through computer projects in non-computer courses.

The new MIS department was approved in May by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. MIS is one of the Terry College's most popular majors due to high demand for techno-savvy graduates in the job market. As recently as a year ago, the MIS major had grown to 500 undergraduates, and almost 200 MIS majors graduated from the Terry College this past year.

"Establishing management information systems as a separate department gives us the flexibility to work with our students and other units on campus to help address the governor's mandate that the University System produce more technically trained graduates," McKeown said.

The MIS professors who will comprise the new department have been part of the Department of Management. By this fall, the department will have grown to 12 faculty members and about 10 doctoral students, McKeown said.

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