Business school grads face
uncertain future
By Christine Tatum
College Press Exchange
CHICAGO (CPX) - Students walk
ing out of business school these days
are learning the hard way that what
goes up must come down, including
fat-cat salaries, signing bonuses and
any expectations of getting them.
In the past few years, newly minted
MBAs have had it good. Make that
really good. Starting salaries for 1997
graduates of the top 50 business
schools as ranked by U.S. News &
World Report averaged $64,550, with
graduates of the most elite schools
getting offers of more than $BO,OOO.
And that was just the beginning.
Many new graduates doubled their
salaries by negotiating a signing bo
nus, a guaranteed bonus after one year
of service, reimbursement for tuition
and a company car.
It’s a gravy train that many b-school
students and administrators say is
chugging at less than full steam. De
spite reports from firms insisting that
hiring levels will remain about the
same as last year, recent financial cri
sis in world markets, layoffs at big
name businesses like Merrill Lynch
and dramatic fluctuations in the Dow
have combined to make this year’s job
prospects for MBAs less bountiful
and bright. Certainly not helping mat
ters are predictions that corporate
America will continue in 1999 to dis
card workers at a rate not seen in the
last five years.
“We’ve had a reality check in the
global financial markets," said Glenn
Sykes, director of MBA career ser
vices for the University of Chicago’s
graduate school of business. "The
market is still very strong but it has
created uncertainty. We won’t see the
growth we did from ’97 to '98."
Michigan student, 20,
dies
By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DETROIT- For the fourth time in four
months, a young person has died af
ter drinking alcohol near a Michigan
college campus. Adriane Allen, a
20-year-old Ferris State University
sophomore from Williainston, Mich.,
fell from her third-floor apartment
around midnight Thursday and died
Friday. Big Rapids police said Allen
had been drinking. Police said they
are investigating the accident and how
Allen obtained the alcohol. She was
under the legal drinking age of 21.
Allen was alone in her bedroom in
a downtown Big Rapids apartment
building that is popular with students.
Around midnight, a person in another
room heard crashing glass, ran into
Allen’s bedroom and discovered that
she had fallen to the sidewalk, police
said. Allen was taken to Spectrum
Health Downtown Campus in Grand
Rapids, where she was found to have
severe head and internal injuries.
Her parents arrived at the hospital
before she died at 3:05 p.m. Friday,
but she never regained consciousness,
said Tim Bulson, hospital spokesman.
The cause of death, as well as her
blood-alcohol level, are pending the
results of an autopsy today, Bulson
said. “We are very saddened by the
Quiz-show addict goes to
head of class
College Press Exchange
LONDON (CPX)- The things some
people will do to get on television.
Hoping for a chance to appear on a
popular game show called “Univer
sity Challenge,” Lance Haward, a 62-
year-old self-described quiz-show
addict, recently enrolled in Open Uni
versity, a nonresidential college in
England for adult students of all ages.
Haward said a love for learning also
Though companies are still showing
up on campuses, it's no secret that
many, particularly those specializing
in investment banking and many types
of consulting, are granting fewer in
terviews. As a result, many students
are quick to accept offers, rather than
holding out for a few. “There’s been
a boon in the market that has been
sustained for a pretty long time,” said
Daniel Nagy, assistant dean of Duke
University’s Fuqua School of Busi
ness. “Companies have been hiring so
many people for so long that eventu
ally they were going to have to start
scaling back.”
“There is still a very good job mar
ket out there for MBAs,” he added.
"But it has changed in terms of who
is and is not hiring. Like everything
else in life, people are going to have
to adjust and adapt.” The manufactur
ing, information technology and phar
maceutical industries are hiring like
mad, but if the depression that’s hit
ting banking and consulting contin
ues or worsens, competition is ex
pected to stiffen there, too. “There’s
definitely going to be a ripple effect
to contend with," Nagy said. And
that’s all the more reason for b-school
candidates to avidly pursue getting
into the nation’s top programs, Sykes
said. “Where you go will have a tre
mendous impact on the value you
have in the work place,” he said.
For students at top-tier schools,
worries aren’t so much about unem
ployment as salaries and perks. For
example, the general mood among
students at the University of Chicago
is that they will be hired, but perhaps
not by their first pick and not with the
lavish signing bonus they had hoped
tor, said one recent MBA grad who
wished to remain anonymous. "It
could be trouble for people in schools
in 3-story fall
situation and are investigating it,” said
Ferris State President William
Sederburg. "Though it didn't occur on
campus, we remain extremely con
cerned, and the entire campus com
munity extends its sympathy to her
family.
Michigan campuses have reeled
from a string of deaths this school
year: On Oct. 16, Courtney Cantor,
18, died after she fell from the win
dow of her.sixth-floor dormitory room
at the University of Michigan. Police
said she had been drinking at a frater
nity party the evening before. Her
blood alcohol level was 0.059. A
blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent is
considered intoxicated for adults.
Cantor was found to have traces of
the alcohol-enhancing drug known as
GHB in her body, but police and pros
ecutors cannot determine how it got
On Nov. 5, Michigan State Univer
sity student Bradley McCue died of
alcohol poisoning after drinking 24
shots to celebrate his 21st birthday.
His blood alcohol level was 0.4. On
Dec. 12, Allan Hewer, 24, died of al
cohol poisoning. His blood alcohol
level was 0.40. Although Hewer was
not a Ferris State student at the time,
he died following a party at the Delta
Zeta sorority house there. He had been
drinking before he arrived at the party.
Spurred by increasing concern
motivated his decision to study clas
sical Greek.
“Let’s just say I was killing two birds
with one stone,” he told the Associ-
ated Press,
Haward, an education law consultant,
has appeared on about a dozen game
shows, including “Mastermind” and
“Sale of the Century.”
“I like to avoid the more vulgar
game shows, and ‘University Chal
lenge’ was about the only one left I
National Cam
that aren t in the top 20,” the gradu
ate said. “The top firms are pulling
back, so people are taking lower of
fers. That of course is going to feed
down. If you weren’t the pick of the
litter before and the people who were
are taking the jobs you wanted, well,
that’s not good news.”
Indeed, students aiming to walk out
of school and into an office at one of
the big-gun firms on Wall Street are
increasingly disappointed this year,
said Roxanne Hory, director of career
management at Northwestern
University’s Kellogg Graduate
School of Management. "Some of
those folks have been forced to re
think their professional priorities and
lifestyle,” she said. “They’re having
to set their sights lower.”
Many new MBAs have said they
and their friends have been glad to do
just that. “A lot of people are looking
for a strategy position that doesn’t
travel and is in a city they like,” said
Troy Ihlanfeldt, who graduated from
Kellogg last year. "People are not so
attracted to a firm’s brand name as
they used to be. I think they are very
interested in hearing what else is out
there.”
Just what else is out there remains
uncertain. The real hiring picture
won’t be clear until the recruiting pro
cess winds down later this month.
Many biz-school applicants are hing
ing on the results before committing
their time and money to pursue a
graduate degree.
“I can’t help but be nervous,” said
Wendy Peterson, a graduate of Cali
fornia Polytechnic Slate University at
San Luis Obispo who is now consid
ering heading back to school for an
MBA. "Where am I going to be in
three years? A hundred grand in debt
and unemployed ? I hope not.”
about underage and binge drinking,
the presidents of Michigan's 15 pub
lic universities are holding a confer
ence on campus drinking Feb. 2 in
Lansing. The conference was planned
before Allen’s death. “This is well
beyond the talking stage,” said Glen
Stevens, executive director of the
Presidents' Council, State Universi
ties of Michigan. “We are very much
at the action level and very much en
couraged by the campus response.”
The council maintains that the so
lution extends beyond campuses. As
pects to be addressed include the re
sponse of surrounding communities,
the role of parents and the drinking
habits students develop before com
ing to college. "As a result of the
recent tragedies, I think the university
community has faced these issues
much more directly than in the past,”
Mevens said.
Ferris State will be even more ag
gressive about making students aware
of the alcohol counseling and educa
tion programs available on campus,
said Ted Halm, news services man
ager. The programs include a manda
tory class for new students that cov
ers alcohol issues, as well as sexual
assault and HIV/AIDS. The univer
sity also sponsors alcohol awareness
events and alcohol-free activities.
really wanted to go on, especially as
I had missed out on it when I was a
student,” said Haward, who graduated
in 1957, five years before the show
went on the air.
Haward handily made the Open
University team, which, with his help,
recently defeated Lancaster Univer
sity. Haward and his teammates are
scheduled to match wits with Oxford
University next.
us News
Princeton President wants
to end Nude Olympics
By Christine Tatum
College Press Exchange
PRINCETON, N.J. (CPX) - The
“Nude Olympics,” a long-standing
tradition at Princeton University in
which students run naked through the
semester’s first snowfall, should stop
before someone gets killed, the
university’s president says.
In a letter printed in the student
newspaper. President Harold Shapiro
said the university is considering ban
ning the event after six students were
hospitalized with severe alcohol poi-
soning and four more were treated at
the university’s student health center
following the latest raucous running
on Jan. 8. “This past weekend’s ex
perience provided a grave reminder
of the serious risks that the Nude
Olympics pose to our students’ health
and safety, largely because of the ex
cessive and indiscriminate use of al
cohol,” Shapiro wrote. “Moreover,
several of the college masters report
behavior that was truly disgraceful
and unacceptable.”
The decades-old tradition is one of
Princeton’s most notorious. At mid
night, hundreds of students gather to
watch the sophomore class run naked
through a central, ice-covered court
yard while music blares from adjacent
dormitory windows. About 350 stu
dents bared all, and hundreds more
clamored to watch on Friday, but what
started out as tun and exhilarating
Court says VMI successful in assimilation of
female students
College Press Exchange
LEXINGTON, Va. (CPX) - The Vir
ginia Military Institute is off the hook
for now. A federal appeals court ruled
Jan. 15 that the nation's oldest state
supported military college has suc
cessfully assimilated women into its
student body.
U.S. District Court Judge Jackson
L. Kiser dismissed a 9-year-old law
suit against VMl’s males-only admis
sions policy. Kiser ruled that the state
New GI Bill would pay
College Press Exchange
WASHINGTON (CPX) - A congres
sional commission is proposing a new
GI Bill that would pay full tuition and
all book costs at any college for four
years if the recipient agrees to spend
the same amount of time in the mili
tary.
The Commission on service mem
bers and Veterans Transition Assis
tance said the new plan would replace
the existing program, which covers
only 36 months of educational costs -
capped at $528 a month - for military
personnel who have served three
LSU Assistant Professor claims
Associate Dean spanked her
College Press Exchange
BATON ROUGE, La. (CPX) - An
assistant professor at Louisiana State
University has filed suit against the
school, charging that an associate
dean pulled her onto his lap and
spanked her while chanting, “You’re
a bad girl.” Another associate dean,
Ronald Garay, confirmed the accusa
tion Sunday, The Chronicle of Higher
Education reported.
Dianne H. Piper, an assistant pro
fessor of mass communication, claims
the Jan. 12 incident happened while
she was talking to Richard Nelson, an
associate dean of the university’s
Manship School of Mass Communi
cations, about a chance for her to lec
ture for a year at Indiana University.
Piper, 43, said the conversation took
quickly got out of hand, many stu
dents said.
Anna Levy-Warren, 19, said she ran
with her friends wearing nothing but
shoes, socks, a hat, body glitter and a
tiger, the school’s mascot, painted on
her back. While making her way
through the courtyard, she said she
saw a man peeing on a woman, an
other man masturbating, a couple hav
ing sex, men groping women, drunk
students drifting in and out of con
sciousness and several people slip
ping on the ice and snow. “I was in a
nudist mosh-pit grabbing desperately
at arms and shoulders to keep myself
from being trampled," she wrote to
the student newspaper, the Daily
Princetonian.
Some students said Friday's run
was emotionally painful as well. “Was
it class unity when a guy in one of
my classes was hurt after a spectator
yelled out obnoxious comments about
his physique, and a woman cried and
pledged to lose weight because two
of her male friends told her that she
had put on too many pounds since
freshman year?” Jen Jennings, presi
dent of the class of 2000 wrote to the
newspaper. "A combination of mob
culture and a couple of inches of snow
apparently give us the license to nor
malize behavior that we would other
wise not tolerate: sexual harassment,
rape and threats to our lives with
blood-alcohol levels over .25, just so
we can loosen up enough to take off
our clothes.”
and institute have “successfully for
mulated, adopted and implemented a
plan" that gives women equal access
and treatment as guaranteed by the
14th Amendment. Kiser said the Jus
tice Department, which brought the
suit against the school, has filed no
objections to the measures VMI has
taken to incorporate women into its
Corps of Cadets. The department has
30 days to respond to the ruling.
In June 1996, the U.S. Supreme
Court ordered VMI to accept women
years on active duty. Service mem
bers must pay $1,200 to take advan
tage of the current system, but under
the new plan they wouldn’t have to
pay any initial fees. In addition to full
tuition and books, recipients also
would get a monthly stipend of $4OO.
An estimated 70 percent of all ac
tive personnel meeting the new
proposal’s requirements would take
advantage of it, compared with the
33.7 percent who participate in the
existing program, a spokesman for the
commission said. The new plan likely
would increase the number of people
who leave the military and seek higher
a turn for the worse as she tried to
defend the length of time she would
be gone from her LSU post.
Piper’s lawsuit alleges that Nelson
spanked her while Garay “sat idly by,
watching and laughing.” Garay told
the Chronicle that was "not at all the
case.” He said he witnessed the inci
dent, which “was something that hap
pened so fast that no one could have
reacted to it.” “I think I reacted as
anyone would have, just in total
shock,” Garay said. “The incident did
happen.”
Nelson, who has agreed to step
down from his position while the
charges are being investigated, has
said he is “totally innocent of any
sexual or racial harassment" and un
der strict orders from the university
not to discuss the case. But according
to news reports, his wife, Valoie,
University officials at the scene said
they, too, were shocked and dismayed
by the display. "I can’t go back to the
Nude Olympics after this," College
Master David Carrasco told the
Princetonian. “I felt a sense of shame.
I think many people there felt
ashamed." Nevertheless, many stu-
dents want the event to continue,
claiming that it is an important oppor
tunity to bond and soak up the col
lege experience with classmates.
"1 look like an idiot trying to de
fend people’s right to run around na
ked, but if students see this as a tradi
tion, the administration needs to do
anything possible to make it safe,”
said student body president-elect
Spencer Merriweather.
University officials have tried to
regulate the event in the past few years
by working with student organizers
and barring photographers and tele
vision cameras. The university also
added security, extra lighting and
emergency personnel to make the run
safer for students.
As far as Shapiro is concerned, the
efforts have tailed. He has asked the
university’s dean of students and a
group of faculty, students and staff to
study the event over the next several
weeks and come up with options for
preventing this tragedy before it hap
pens.” Shapiro said he wants to re
solve the issue with university trust
ees early in the spring semester.
or give up its state funding. The next
year, the institute admitted 31 female
cadets. Of those women accepted, 2.3
made it through their first year. Now,
48 women. 26 freshmen and 2?
sophomores, are among the institute’s
1,250 students.
“We’ll continue to monitor this situ
ation,” said Col. Michael Strickler,
VMl’s public relations director. “It’s
not just a year-and-a-half process.”
full tuition
education and the number of high
school graduates who recognize the
service as a means to getting a col
lege diploma. The new plan would
also make it possible for more mili
tary personnel to attend private
schools, which can be very expensive.
The new program would cost about
$483 million to run the first year. That
cost is projected to rise to $l.B bil
lion by the fifth year. The House Com
mittee on Veterans Affairs has sched
uled a hearing on Feb. 23 to examine
the proposal.
called the Chronicle and the Associ
ated Press to say the charges against
her husband are “totally false.” Valoie
Nelson also said her husband was try
ing only to pat Piper on the back when
she “fell on him.”
Piper’s suit alleges that Nelson had
made several sexual comments and
advances toward her and that he once
told her the only reason LSU hired her
was because she is black. The suit,
filed against both the university and
Nelson, seeks unspecified damages.
University officials said they would
not discuss pending litigation.