By TILISHA T. ALEXANDER

Staff Writer

Last month, Dr. Charlotte Stephens, an associate professor of computer information systems and analysis, gave a lecture in France.

Stephens was invited to speak at a meeting of the French affiliate of the Association for Information Systems at Toulouse University on Feb. 27-28.

"My responsibility was to recruit members of AIS [from France] to become members of the International Academy for Information Management because there are not a lot of members in that area," Stephens said.

"IAIM is a regional special interest group consisting of 4,000 university professors that mainly focuses on collaborating ideas to get the best tools to train students in the computer information systems field."

Stephens said she was selected to attend the meeting by other regional directors and professors.

"This visit was to also allow professors at the University of Toulouse to observe getting good ideas from other universities to help their program," Stephens said.

Stephens said she used the experience from her winter 2004 CIS 450 class to show what students were doing at Tech.

"The students were very impressed with CIS majors at Tech," Stephens said.

"They applauded the student's performance because they could not believe it was an undergraduate class."

Greg Placke, a senior CIS major, said the class allowed him to understand how it will be once he gets into the real world.

"It is amazing that we are only an undergraduate class, but the graduate students at Toulouse University believe we produce work like professionals," Placke said.

Stephens said she met with Jean Francoise Verde, director of the graduate school at Toulouse, to discuss student and faculty exchange programs from France to Louisiana.

Shirley P. Reagan, dean of the College of Administration and Business and a professor, said she was delighted Stephens was able to participate.

"Her participation brought recognition to Tech and she was able to produce more knowledge in our college curriculum," Reagan said. "What she has gained has a positive impact in classroom instruction. The students and the college can benefit from the active involvement of these events."