LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- An economic analysis of drugs and crime in New York City, an examination of the Asian crisis on emerging markets, an enhancement of global business programs, and a study of higher education marketing are the projects Rider University College of Business Administration's Davis Fellows will undertake for 1998-99.

The new Davis Fellows are Drs. Hope Corman (left) of Princeton, professor of economics; Christine Lentz (right) of Yardley, PA, associate professor of management; Larry Newman of Holland, PA, associate professor of marketing; and David Suk of Lawrenceville, associate professor of finance.

The Davis Fellowship program, now in its seventh year, allows business professors to enhance on-going research, move into a new area of intellectual activity, or develop professionally in an area other than research. Students are the ultimate beneficiaries.

In 1983, Norman S. Davis, a 1908 Rider graduate, gave a gift of Bucks County, PA, farmland to Rider. Rider sold that land in 1988 for $4.43 million. One of the by-products of these funds is this fellowship program to sustain professional growth of the business faculty. Recipients receive awards up to $10,000 for their projects.

As a Davis Fellow, Dr. Corman will extend previous work she and Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado-Denver, conducted on the economics of crime and the relationship between drug use and crime. They plan to update their data set -- a monthly time series of crime, arrests, drug use indicators, and economic conditions in New York City from 1970 to 1990.

They will extend this data through 1996. Dr. Corman said that extending the data set will allow them to analyze the relationships among the variables during the downturn in the crime/drug use cycle which began around 1990.

Dr. Lentz's project will focus on providing enhancements to Rider's global business programs. One category will be the development, publishing, and distribution of materials about the major to current and prospective students. A second category will be the coordination of a panel discussion on international business ethics for both the Rider and business communities. The third area will be the design of an experiential learning module on international business negotiations to be incorporated into an international management course.

Dr. Newman (left) will study to what extent presidents of four-year higher education institutions in the U.S. have understood the marketing concept of positioning and how do institutional mission and strategic planning impact on the development of an institution's positioning statement. His main goal is to produce information that will facilitate an assessment of the extent to which the elements and purposes of positioning, as prescribed in marketing literature, are present among these institutions and to compare the perspective of presidents to that of enrollment and admissions professionals.

Dr. Suk (right)will examine the major events of currency depreciation in Asia in 1997 and their respective spillover effects of the currency devaluation of Thailand, the Phillipines, Indonesia, and Korea.

He will also study the efficiency of emerging markets by comparing the size and length of the spillover effects of these events. He hopes his research, and paper, will provide a clear understanding of the spillover effects among emerging markets. This, he says, will help many analysts, investors, and observers to better assess the current Asian crisis.

The College of Business Administration offers undergraduate majors in accounting, actuarial science, advertising, business administration, computer information systems, finance, global business, human resource management, management and organizational behavior, and marketing. There are also Master of Business Administration and Master of Accountancy programs. Both the undergraduate and graduate programs in the CBA are accredited by AACSB International -- The International Association for Management Education. Rider is one of only five colleges in New Jersey and among 23 percent nationally to hold that distinction.