LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Rider University's College of Business Administration (CBA) has announced the 1997-98 recipients of its Davis Fellowships, an enrichment program for faculty pursuing significant research and development projects in business fields. Recipients receive awards up to $10,000 for their projects.

The new Davis Fellows are Drs. Jie Ding of Princeton, assistant professor of management sciences; Benjamin Eichhorn of Cherry Hill, associate professor of management sciences; Dr. Ilhan Meric of Vorhees, professor of finance; Ira Sprotzer of Belle Mead, associate professor of business policy and environment, and Zaher Zantout of Bristol, PA, associate professor of finance.

The Davis Fellowship program, now in its sixth year, allows business professors 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 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 the professional growth of the business faculty.

As a Davis Fellow, Ding will investigate ways of applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to designing robust and high quality products and manufacturing processes. Application of DEA to data from designed experiments will help designers and engineers determine optimal combinations and levels of influential factors in product and process design. This is new research. It is believed no published research exists that links DEA and experimental design.

Eichhorn and Meric will team to study the changes in the financial characteristics of European Community (EC) firms over time to determine if EC membership and integration have caused the financial characteristics of firms in EC countries to become similar. Their projects will be the first to study the impact of economic integration on the financial characteristics of firms.

Sprotzer will use his fellowship for professional development in the teaching of business ethics. He will review undergraduate and MBA curricula to determine to what extent business ethics are covered and attend a course in business ethics offered by the Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute for the advancement of Ethics. He will also purchase resource material to use in the teaching of business ethics.

Zantout will examine the long-term operating and financial performance of the 50 companies identified by Mergerstat Review as the most aggressive U.S. participants in the takeovers and restructuring activity of the 1980s as they changed their corporate strategy from one of diversification of the 1960s to focus in the 1980s, and then to forming strategic alliances in the 1990s.

The CBA is one of four colleges in New Jersey to hold American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International) accreditation and among 23 percent nationally who hold AACSB International accreditation. The College offers undergraduate majors in accounting, business policy and environment, computer information systems, economics, finance, management and human resources, management sciences, marketing, and global business (a new major beginning fall 1997). It also offers Master of Business Administration and Master of Accountancy programs.

Rider University is an independent, co-educational, non-sectarian institution with a 353-acre campus in Lawrenceville, NJ, and a 23-acre campus in Princeton, NJ. The University offers 57 undergraduate programs and 15 graduate programs in business, liberal arts, science, education, and music. Ninety-five percent of Rider's faculty members hold doctorate or other appropriate advanced degrees. U.S. News and World Report has again ranked Rider in the top tier of northern universities based on the quality of its programs.