trouble launching from application menu

[scholzilla]

I haven't been able to get a program (matlab) to launch from the alias I've created for it in my applications menu. The launcher simply launches the splash screen for the program without actually opening the program. Using term, on the other hand, I can type in the same path that I defined in the app. menu dialog and this launches *both* the splash screen and the program. Any ideas about why I can get this to work via term but not via the applications menu?

thanks