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(May 29, 2008 ) Special Report Is TM's Research Quality Only Skin Deep? An Investigative Series on CoB Faculty Research Credentials A number of readers were surprised to learn how highly ranked Tourism Management faculty Cherylynn Becker and Catherin Price are in the various Google Scholar cites reports here at USMNEWS.NET. The most recent of these showed that both Becker and Price rank among the CoB's Top 10 when it comes to GS cites to solo-authored research. Some readers were left looking for "the rub" after reading this most recent report.

(July 21, 2008) Special Report Traveling to the Top of TM An Investigative Series on CoB Faculty Research Credentials A USMNEWS.net reader recently commented that the list of CoB faculty who have exited the CoB since 2003 contains the names The story of "the greatest ever" in tourism management is an interesting one. To begin, the business school at USM adopted the tourism management department in 2003, after former USM President, Shelby Thames, fired about 10 University deans and reorganized the University. When the reorganization went through, about five TM faculty joined the CoB.1 In those early days, then-MGT & MKT chair, Alvin Williams, assumed the title interim chair for TM. A search for a permanent replacement was launched immediately. After a year-long search, sources say that Williams attempted to hire Cherylynn Becker from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. A coalition of central administrators, along with TM faculty Joe Hutchinson, blocked the hiring of Becker (for undisclosed reasons).

(February 12, 2009) What did Doty & Becker do to TM? More on How the CoB’s TM Program was Devastated under Harold DotyLike in the waning days of a petty dictatorship, former CoB dean Harold Doty’s final days atop USM’s College of Business were spent oddly – in this case sending e-mails to USM’s central administration about “mental health concerns” and “racism.” The Doty-Farhang Niroomand administration of the CoB was spiraling out of control by the spring of 2007, and then-USM provost Jay Grimes recognized it. Just 41 days prior to Doty’s eventual “resignation,” Grimes wrote to Doty demanding that Doty stand before the USM Executive Cabinet and account for the demise of various pieces of USM’s b-school.

(March 4, 2009) Special Report Sorry Lot An Investigative Report on CoB Attendance on the Council of Chairs Our earlier Special Report entitled Too Cool for School focused on the administrative service dereliction of EFIB chairman George Carter. That particular Special Report indicated that Carter attended only 22.2% of the meetings of USM’s Council of Chairs occurring from 11-Aug-05 to 4-May-06. Combined with tourism management chair Cheri Becker’s lackluster attendance record of just 66.7%, CoB chairs (Carter and Becker) attended only 44.4% of the 2005-06 CoC meetings.