Jesse Harper Award

In the fall of 1994, Rider received a $1.83 million bequest from the estate of Lois A. Harper establishing the endowed professorships in memory of her husband, a 1949 graduate. The purpose of these professorships is to enhance teaching at the University’s business college and improve the instructional program through professional development of its faculty.

Over the years other Harper projects have resulted in new initiatives and stronger, more creative programs including health care, global business, small business and entrepreneurship, Minding Our Business, enhanced use of technology, and the integrated business/science curriculum.  Review a recent year to see which talented professor was a Harper recipient:

2003
May 20,2003 
Leadership skill-building and teaching enterprise integration more effectively across the curriculum form the basis of Rider University’s 2003-2004 Jesse H. Harper Professorship awards.

The Harper Professors are Dr. Steven Lorenzet of Robbinsville, assistant professor of management and human resources, for a project that focuses on identifying how leadership and interpersonal skills can be taught, and Dr. Lauren Eder of Hopewell, associate professor of computer information systems, for a project that will provide the business faculty the skill and resources to teach enterprise integration better.

Lorenzet’s project will identify how leadership and interpersonal skills can be taught and what pedagogical support and training are necessary for CBA faculty teaching these skills. He will also identify methodology needed to assess the level and success of skill learning by business students. He intends to build on work of the CBA’s Leadership Task Force and support development of the Center for Leadership Studies and Service.

Eder’s project will provide CBA faculty with teaching resources necessary to more effectively integrate enterprise resource planning (ERP) across multiple disciplines. As a result, students will be better prepared for career success through experiential learning focused on how information, money and materials move across the enterprise. Eder will seek long-term partnerships with technology-based businesses such as SAP to further sustain and strengthen this effort.
Drs. Lorenzet and Eder are the 20th and 21st faculty members to receive Harper Professorships since the first awards were made in 1995.

2002
June 4, 2002
Rider University's College of Business Administration (CBA) has awarded two Jesse H. Harper Professorships for projects that are vastly different, but which ultimately are supportive of student needs in the classroom.

The two recipients for 2002-2003 are Dr. Mitchell Ratner of Glenside, Pa., associate professor of finance, for a faculty foreign study tour to Prague, and Dr. Gerald Klein of Elkins Park, Pa., associate professor of management, for a project on working effectively with student disabilities.

Given the global nature of business today, Ratner thinks it is essential for faculty members to further expand and integrate international issues into their courses. "Enabling our students to participate in the rapidly changing global marketplace is a key element in the CBA mission statement," Ratner said.

The goal of his project is to provide an experiential learning opportunity to ten faculty members to observe international business in Europe. The one-week trip to Prague during the 2003 spring break will include meeting with high-level operating officers of multinational and local corporations, touring plants and facilities, government visits, academic lectures, and roundtable discussions.

"The faculty will gain a deeper understanding of European culture, economy, business practices, and insights," said Ratner, a specialist in financial markets and international finance. "Ultimately, the students will be the beneficiaries of the enhanced internationalization of courses."

In his project proposal, Klein explains that faculty in colleges and universities can expect to encounter students in their sections having physical, learning, psychiatric and other disabilities. He notes that studies indicate that about 10 percent of students have one or more disabilities.

He seeks the Harper support for personal development to enable him to provide students with disabilities with successful course experiences, and to quickly link any student with a need to campus student support services, whose staff is an important source of assistance for students with known or undiagnosed disabilities.

Klein, who specializes in organizational behavior, hopes to develop tools that will encourage students with disabilities to make themselves known early in a course, permit students to evaluate themselves in relation to common disabilities, and permit instructors to identify students who may have an undiagnosed disability.
He plans to share his acquired knowledge with business school faculty and staff through a workshop, to become a CBA faculty resource, and to develop scholarly work from his study.

2001
Thursday, May 3, 2001
The Rider University College of Business Administration (CBA) recently announced its Jesse H. Harper Endowed Professorships for the 2001-2002 academic year will go to Larry Prober of Voorhees, associate professor of accounting, and Ilene Goldberg of Yardley, Pa., associate professor of business policy and environment.
Prober's project seeks to establish an integrated undergraduate business core curriculum for the University.

"There has been an ongoing change in the way companies operate," Prober said. "Now employees with various areas of expertise work together on team projects. As a result, there is a need for people to have more in-depth knowledge of other disciplines and their relationship to one another. In the past, for example, accounting focused on financial statements. Now accountants have a much broader role in the organization. It could involve the development of strategic objectives and how to create new measures in marketing or quality to help achieve those objectives."

There is a need for students to understand how disciplines such as finance, management, accounting, marketing, and other areas impact together in certain types of decisions. Rider has integrated courses in its MBA curricula, but there is a need for this functional integration of courses to occur on the undergraduate level according to Prober.
"These changes are important because many courses at the undergraduate level also provide the foundation for further study at the graduate level," Prober added. "It is essential that undergraduate programs reflect these developments and meet the requirements of sophisticated problem solving."

Prober will examine undergraduate curricula of universities that have begun this process and then recommend ways that the CBA can best implement change. He plans for faculty professional development in teaching integrated business courses.

There is an immediate and growing demand for graduates with business and science backgrounds as well. In 1998, New Jersey's pharmaceutical and medical technology industries contributed more than $8.5 billion to the state's economy and employed more than 60,000 people. Recruiters are asking for people with dual backgrounds.
In her project, Goldberg will develop integrated business and science courses and programming for the benefit of students in the CBA and the College of Liberal Arts, Education and Science. Last year interested business and science faculty formed the Business/Science Alliance (BSA) to develop plans for business and science integration.
Goldberg's project is designed to enhance and expand the work of the BSA, particularly with respect to development of team-taught courses.

This fall, Goldberg will coordinate a team-teaching approach to one of the biology courses for non-science majors. Goldberg and her CBA colleagues will work with Jim Riggs, professor of biology, to fully integrate the course. Riggs will discuss the biology of heart disease, America's number one killer. Business faculty will teach portions of the course for a week as it relates to their discipline. Their topics could include, for example, the finance, marketing, or other business principles of the pharmaceutical industry.

"The cooperation of business and science faculty on this project is exciting and important because the demand exists for integrated instruction," Goldberg said. "I will be coordinating the guest faculty segments of Dr. Riggs' course. We have a lot of work ahead of us this summer to be ready for the fall course offering. This course will serve as a model for additional team-taught courses which integrate business and science."

The project will also focus upon involvement of the business community with the Business/Science Association. Last year, the Science Advisory Board, which is comprised of prominent alumni and leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, became involved in the BSA initiative. Plans call for expanded outreach to the business community, including Rider's Business Advisory Board, also composed of prominent alumni and business leaders.
Goldberg will also arrange for interested faculty to attend conferences to promote integration of business and science issues in their courses. For example, faculty will be invited to attend conferences sponsored by the American Society of Law and Medicine, an interdisciplinary organization that includes educators, physicians, attorneys, ethicists, hospital and public administrators, risk managers, pharmacists, students, and others.