RICHARDSON, Texas (Dec. 15, 2003) — The chief counsel of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, a former U.S. secretary of labor and a former CEO of the accounting firm Deloitte will lead the list of speakers at a day-long seminar Tuesday, Jan. 20, at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) focusing on the implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for senior officers and directors of publicly traded companies.

David A. Donohoe, Nasdaq's chief counsel and associate vice president, will serve as keynote speaker for   "Compliance and Beyond:   Restoring Public Trust by Building an Effective Organization," the first in a series of seminars on the topic being sponsored by the UTD School of Management's Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance (IECG).   Other featured speakers for the Jan. 20 event will be former U.S. Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin and retired Deloitte CEO and Chairman J. Michael Cook.   The seminar will be held in the School of Management Building on the UTD campus.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which creates new far-reaching challenges for people involved in corporate governance, was passed by Congress in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom debacles, in part   to bolster public confidence in the nation's capital markets.    It imposes new duties — as well as significant penalties for non-compliance — on public companies and their executives, directors, auditors, attorneys and securities analysts.

IECG Director Dr. Constantine Konstans, who is also a UTD professor of accounting and information management, said the institute's seminars are designed to help participants find solutions to specific issues related to the new rules for the corporate governance system.

"Our seminars address the need for creating systems of corporate governance that value and reward ethical, competent, selfless behavior in an organization's leaders," Konstans explained.   "The sessions are designed to move beyond basic compliance issues to explore how continued investment in governance processes can increase the value of the organization to its stakeholders."

School of Management Dean Hasan Pirkul added that today's corporate directors and senior officers "are under closer scrutiny than ever by regulators, investors and the general public, all demanding a higher level of competence in matters of corporate operations, finance and administration.   At the same time, these constituents are also demanding heightened standards of ethical behavior.   The focus of IECG's programs and research initiatives is on enhancing the abilities of corporate directors and senior officers both to protect and promote stakeholders' interests, in an effective and ethical manner."

As one of only 30 education programs for corporate directors in the nation accredited by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), IECG's seminars are designated as official ISS "Preferred Boardroom Education Programs."   Programs with such designation offer director participants special continuing education credits.

The seminar series is co-sponsored by four IECG strategic partners -- Bank One Corporation; Deloitte; Haynes and Boone, LLP; and Marsh, Inc.   

Reservations are now being taken for the Jan. 20 session.   The cost of each seminar in the series is $995.   Registration information is available at 972-883-2204 or http://som.utdallas.edu/iecg/.   IECG's next seminar, "Financial Statement Analysis," is scheduled for May 6.

About The UTD School of Management
The School of Management is the largest of UTD's seven schools, with an enrollment that has increased 92 per cent over the last seven years to more than 4,300 students. The school's new, 204,000-square-foot building — featuring classrooms with state-of-the-art audio and visual equipment, wireless connectivity, video-conferencing facilities, a computer lab, faculty offices, meeting rooms and an executive education center — opened last summer.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls about 13,700 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's web site at www.utdallas.edu.