DENTON (UNT), Texas —Jack Becker and Leon Kappelman, faculty members in the University of North Texas College of Business, were recognized as fellows for the DFW Chapter of the Society for Information Management at the Oct. 7 meeting. Both professors teach in the Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences. Becker joined SIM in 1988 as the first academic member of the DFW chapter. He has served as the membership chairperson and vice president of the chapter and serves on several other committees. The connections Becker has made while a member of SIM have given him opportunities to have dozens of chief information officers from the Dallas-Fort Worth area speak to his classes.
Kappelman, a member of SIM for 18 years, founded the SIM Y2K working group and the SIM Enterprise Architecture Working Group and has served on several other committees for SIM. He has been a perennial speaker for conferences and meetings and conducted research and negotiated contracts on behalf of the SIM organization. Kappelman attributes his ability to raise over $2.5 million in research contracts for UNT to the recognition that he gained through his volunteer work with SIM.
About SIM’s DFW chapter:
The DFW chapter of SIM has more than 250 members, including senior information managers, from more than 160 local industry organizations, government agencies and universities. SIM holds monthly meetings that offer members an opportunity to discuss important managerial and technical issues and concerns with their peers.
The SIM DFW area chapter values its relationships with local universities and information systems research centers. Five percent of the DFW chapter's membership is intended for university professors. SIM DFW gives out scholarships totaling $6,000 to information systems majors at UNT, Baylor University, Southern Methodist University and Texas Christian University.
About the UNT College of Business:
With more than 5,600 students, the UNT College of Business is one of the largest business schools in the nation and has been continuously accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International since 1961.
The college has 112 full-time faculty members and offers 17 undergraduate degrees, 24 master’s degrees and 10 graduate certificate programs. Five centers and institutes in the college create synergy among scholarship, research and teaching. Classes take place in the180,000-square-foot Business Leadership Building, which opened in 2011.
Students enhance their learning experience through student organizations, study abroad programs, internships and the Professional Leadership Program to develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in today's technological and global business environment.