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In the News
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Week of 28 January 2000 |
Vol. III, No. 21 |
In the News
As the nation honored Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS'55, Hon.'59) and the principles he preached, some educators express concern that schoolchildren may not be learning these principles. Karen Bohlin, director of the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at SED says on CBS's The Early Show January 17, "I think the mission of character education is to help all educators -- parents, teachers, coaches -- recognize that education is in and of itself inescapably a moral enterprise, and that the twin goal of education is the character development and the intellectual development of students. It's not one without the other."
"Massachusetts has the world's most expensive health care," says Alan Sager, an SPH professor of health care economics, in the January 9 Boston Herald. "We spend three times as much as the Western European average, yet they cover everyone and live longer." In the article, about Harvard Pilgrim Health Care's financial crisis, Sager continues, "We can do it with the money we've got. We just need to cut out the waste, squeeze out the fat, and recycle it as bone and muscle."
According to Alan Michel, SMG professor of finance and economics, in the January 20 Upside.com, the merger of Time Warner and America Online may not be an ideal match. "One doesn't necessarily need to buy the company. When you buy the company, you get things you don't need," he says. Michel, who has studied such mergers, thinks AOL might have tried another model: "Partnerships just link the parts that are of strategic value."
News that a cyber-terrorist held 300,000 customer credit card files hostage and then published them on the Internet when his demands weren't met may dampen enthusiasm for e-commerce. Bruce Weinberg, SMG assistant marketing professor, says in the Boston Globe January 11, "Holy cow! I'm pretty optimistic about e-commerce in general, but this gives me pause." Weinberg has been doing all his shopping online lately as part of a study of e-commerce. "The key to this whole thing working is trust and this is a big breach of trust," he says.
"I feel very strongly that our admission is not based on how someone packages him- or herself or markets him- or herself," says Kelly Walter, acting director of admissions, in a January 9 New York Times article. Reacting to increasing reliance on personal college advisors to groom prospective students, Walter adds, "The primary basis of any admission is the student's academic achievement, what they've done in the classroom. No one can present that better than the school, the teachers that know the students, and their guidance counselors."
"In the News" is compiled by Alexander Crouch in the Office of Public Relations.