Release Date: Monday, February 5, 2001

TERRY COLLEGE'S GEORGE BENSON NAMED FELLOW OF THE DECISION SCIENCES INSTITUTE

ATHENS, Ga. — P. George Benson, dean of the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, was named a fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute at the organization's 2000 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

As the highest honor awarded by DSI, the designation has been given to fewer than 100 men and women in the group's history. It is awarded to the institute's active supporters for outstanding contributions in the field of decision sciences.

Benson was singled out for his many contributions in the teaching of managerial statistics and decision sciences; for his influential work in the ongoing series of professional conferences called "Making Statistics More Effective in Schools of Business;" for his research contributions in forecasting and probability assessment; and for co-authoring one of the leading textbooks in business statistics. The book has been used by nearly 500,000 students over the past 22 years. Prentice Hall published the eighth edition of Statistics for Business and Economics last September.

Benson, who also holds the Simon S. Selig Jr. Chair for Economic Growth and a faculty appointment in the Department of Management, has been active in the Decision Sciences Institute for 25 years. He is the fifth current or emeritus faculty member of the Terry College to be named a DSI fellow.

Benson became dean of the Terry College in 1998, following five years as dean of the business school at Rutgers University and 17 years as a decision sciences faculty member at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. At Rutgers, Benson led the merger of the three business schools on the Newark and New Brunswick campuses; established executive MBA programs in Beijing and Singapore; and started off-campus, part-time MBA programs, including one in partnership with Merrill Lynch at their corporate campus near Princeton, New Jersey. In 1996, Business News New Jersey named Benson one of the "Top 100 Business People in New Jersey." At Minnesota, he taught statistics, quality management, and decision analysis, and from 1983 to 1988 was head of the Decision Sciences Area.

In 1997, Benson was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to a three-year term as one of nine national judges for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Baldrige Award recognizes the highest achievements in performance excellence by U.S. companies.

Benson is a native of Lewisburg, Pa., and the son of Anna Louise McDowell and the late Professor Paul Benson of Bucknell University. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Bucknell University, did graduate work in operations research in the engineering school at New York University, and received a doctorate in decision sciences from the University of Florida.

In addition to DSI, he is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS), the American Statistical Association, the American Society for Quality, and the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

Other current or former UGA faculty members who are fellows of the Decision Sciences Institute are William Beranek, K. Roscoe Davis, John Neter and Betty J. Whitten.

The Decision Sciences Institute is an interdisciplinary academic organization dedicated to advancing the educational practice and science of business decisions. The Institute provides international forums for presenting and sharing research in the study of business decision processes. Established in 1969, DSI's membership now exceeds 3,500.

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