Topic: Miller College of Business

November 2, 2009

Ball State's Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER), the research division of the Miller College of Business, came away with three of the seven awards given Oct. 20 at the 63rd annual Conference of the Association for University Business and Economic Research (AUBER) in Austin, Texas.

Earning 2009 Awards for Excellence in Publications were CBER's interactive online county profile data system, promotional materials for an open house and the online report "Local Government Reform in Indiana."

Criteria for judging the publications included layout, design, production, writing, editing, composition, content and overall quality.

"These awards are a strong testament to the outstanding professional work done by our staff," said CBER director Michael Hicks. "The award-winning projects are part of CBER's strategic plan to provide government and business leaders across the state and nation with highly valued research that assists them in making important decisions on a variety of economic issues. Many Ball State faculty also benefit from CBER's work in their own research projects."

Jim Kurre, former AUBER president who oversaw the judging process, noted that the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business also received three awards, making it the first time that two universities from the same state have won six of the organization's seven awards.

"The state of Indiana nearly made a clean sweep of the award categories," Kurre said. "This is unprecedented in my experience. Indiana can be justly proud of its two premier business research centers."

In 2008, AUBER honored CBER's "2008 State of the Industry Report for Manufacturing and Logistics" and the accompanying "2008 Manufacturing Report Card" for using electronic means to convey diverse economic information to a wide audience.