Bosnian professors exchange knowledge at UD

John Kmetz (right), faculty director of the Lerner College’s international programs, with professors Mugdim Pasic (left) and Aziz Sunje from the Sarjevo Graduate School of Business

4:10 p.m., April 15, 2005--When asked why he chose to take on an extra workload and teach in the Sarajevo Graduate School of Business, a joint venture with UD and its Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, Mugdim Pasic said, “I saw it as a chance to work with U.S. professors, do research together, teach together.”

Pasic is an assistant professor of management at the University of Sarajevo. He and Aziz Sunje, associate professor of organizational behavior, are the first to conduct research at UD this semester as part of the Faculty Development Program called for in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreement that funded the graduate school, the only one of its kind in Bosnia.

Under the program, each Sarajevo faculty member teaching in the graduate school will spend four-five weeks collaborating with UD professors until 2008 when the USAID grant is completed.

Pasic said administrators at the University of Sarajevo are determined that the graduate school will be self-sustaining when the grant expires, and the exchange program will continue.

Pasic arrived at UD in March. He flew back to Bosnia April 11, but will return in mid-June. Sunje remains on campus until the end of April.

On Friday, April 8, Pasic and his UD colleague Bill Gehrlein, professor of business administration, made a presentation to the college dispelling the widely accepted concept that the centroid method of facility location, or the need to locate close to customers and appropriate labor sources, optimizes costs.

Pasic (left) and William Gehrlein, professor of business administration at UD, use a prop to demonstrate the results of their joint research project.

John Kmetz, faculty director of the college’s international programs, lauded the work done by Pasic and Gehrlein. “This paper is the first research effort to come from our USAID program in Bosnia, and [it yielded] a groundbreaking finding which will necessitate rewriting coverage of the centroid method in textbooks in the field. It is a direct result of the interaction between the authors through the course they jointly taught in Sarajevo this past fall semester,” Kmetz said.

Sunje is working with Richard Weiss and Yasmine Kor, associate and assistant professors of business administration, respectively. Weiss and Kor specialize in organizational management and are collaborating with Sunje on research examining the lumber industry and the relationship between strategic management and performance.

Pasic did postgraduate work at UCLA, and Sunje, who was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Michigan, taught at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

“The UD campus is beautiful. I’ve taken many pictures of the campus to show my family. We feel very much at home here,” Pasic said.

Sunje agreed. “UD is a really fine University, and we are proud to be part of this program and to be here,” he said.

Article by Barbara Garrison
Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson and Duane Perry

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.