News update:

This past couple of weeks have been quiet on ALSBTALK which is likely a
reflection of the world in academe focussing on the new term/semester. I
can report that the first of the Regionals for this year, Rocky
Mountain, was held in Vail and was a great success. Vail is, of course,
a most congenial location. The Rocky Mountain membership is lively and
papers and discussion were of a uniformly high quality. One of those
meetings where you come away genuinely refreshed and happy to have heard
new and interesting ideas.

The executive committee will be meeting in mid-October in Columbus, Ohio
to continue its work on strategic planning. We will be joined by
several  members from the local alsb community who have generously
agreed to participate and, we hope, challenge us with new ideas and
vision. It is all too easy to get locked into a given path. Jim
Highsmith will be leading the exercise and taking over from the
excellent earlier work of Peter Shedd. If anyone has any particularly
pressing issues that they believe should be considered could they please
pass them on either to myself or Jim ([log in to unmask]) or any other
member of the committee.

I am going to use this opportunity to pass on some web sites that I was
sent in response to my request for information about e-commerce law.
This question got such a response in terms both of offers of help but,
equally  importantly perhaps, statements of interest, that maybe it is
time for someone to think of a more coordinated method of disseminating
information about e-commerce law. In the meantime, and with the
permission of those who very kindly passed these sites and/or outlines
on to me, here is what I was given:

-  from John Bagby
http://www2.smeal.psu.edu/courses/blaw445.bagby/e-Commrc.html
-  from Steve Salbu
See attachment below
- from Jane Mallor (via Laura Ginger) www.bus.indiana.edu/mallor/l350
and
www.bus.indiana.edu/mallor/l514.

Finally, Rick Coffinberger passed on this piece from the Chronicle of
Higher Education (Sept 20) which you may have missed and makes an
interesting discussion piece:

"A glance at the fall issue of "The Public Interest": Why business
schools are bad for business

Business schools aren't teaching ethics to students, writes Marianne M.
Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State
University's College of Business. But Ms. Jennings isn't demanding new
ethics classes; she calls for a renewed sense in the traditional
business curriculum of the role of ethics in capitalism. While
liberal-arts professors have always shown contempt for business, she
notes, disdain for values among business professors is distressing. "The
result has been an ongoing transformation of the business curriculum,"
tainted by "the rise of multiculturalism, political correctness, radical
feminism, and postmodernism," she argues. The new curriculum emphasizes
diversity, globalization, conflicting values, and technology at the
expense of fundamental subject areas such as accounting, finance,
management, marketing, and business law, she writes. Students are
offered little of intellectual or moral substance," she notes, "no texts
or programs that help them understand the role of business in society or
their personal role in its success as managers with integrity." The
curriculum breeds students with mixed-up values -- "they equate ethics
not with right or wrong but with correct views on social and political
issues" -- and ultimately may lead to business malpractice. "That
businesses cheat" is a given for students, and "they are cynically
resigned to participation," she concludes. The journal does not have a
World-Wide Web site but may be found at many libraries and newsstands."

More in a couple of weeks.

Sally Gunz