Kansas City, Mo.-area
Universities to offer
medical MBA program
by Donna Gehrke.White
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
January 9, 2001
Rockhurst University and the
University of Health Sciences Col
lege of Osteopathic Medicine plan
to offer an MBA program for medi
cal students beginning in June.
Officials with the two Kansas
City universities said medical stu
dents would be able to earn a
Rockhurst MBA degree along with
a doctor of osteopathic medicine
degree from the University of
Health Sciences.
The classes will be at Rockhurst,
a Jesuit university just east of
Troost Avenue on Rockhurst Road.
A growing number of physicians
have sought MBA degrees in re
cent, .years as the nation's health
Divorced father must
pay half of sons'
tuition, court says
by Billy O'Keefe
TNIS Campus
Januar) 6, 2001
Divorced father Roger Zenn is re
sponsible for pay ing half of his sons'
college tuition and fees, a New Jersey
appeals court ruled this week.
A panel of three judges ruled that
Zenn must pay half of son David's tu
ition at George Washington University
in Washington, D.C., and further ruled
that the New Jersey dentist must do
the same for younger son Jacob, pres
ently a senior in high school.
Counsel for Roger Zenn argued that
the father was not trying to skirt re
sponsibility, hut that he felt his son's
choice of . s chool w as more than he
bargained for.
With fees, a year of tuition at GWV
costs roughly 531,000, court records
show. Zenn's lawyer, Stephen E.
Samnick, argued that his client should
only have to pay around $6,500, or
roughly halt the cost of tuition and fees
for in-state students at Rutgers Univer-
Web music still a free-for-all, users vow
by Lou Carlozo
Chicago Trikme
.lanuary 6,'_(1111
By his own account. 20-v ear-old
Bradley Coleman. a junior at Rutgers
University in New Jersey, is a clean
cut college kid. "I'm a very moral per
son,'' he said. "I never steal. I don't
gossip. Him evet... -
Mention the Internet -- music in par
ticular -- anti the computer-science
nujor dishes a guilt-riddled confes
sion: "I'm a die-hard pirate on the
Net.
Coleman has downloaded nearly
2,000 free songs in the form of MP3s
-- musical files that can be sent from
one computer to another, much like e
mail. He plucked a good chunk of
those cuts from Napster, a service that
allows its users to trade music with
out paying a cent.
And while Napster is the most
prominent target of the record
industry's anti-piracy efforts on the
Internet (and, indeed, the subject of a
pending merger with a record com
pany), it is but one of many places
where people can go for free music.
And trying to shutter them all, in
dustry experts say, is like playing a no
win game of virtual whack-a-mole:
Pound away at one site and another
one (or 10) will pop up somewhere
else.
"It's obvious that things like Napster
will continue forever and it's impos
sible to try to control them," said Shel
lac guitarist and Chicago-based re
cording engineer Steve Albini. "I have
absolutely no complaint with Napster
and other protocols for exchanging
music. They are free exchanges.
There's absolutely no money in
volved. To my ears, it's as harmless
care reimbursement systems have
become more complex.
Karen Pletz, president of the Uni
versity of Health Sciences, said fac
ulty from the two universities had
been formulating the medical MBA
program for about three years.
"We want to provide our physi
cians in the 21st century the ability
to manage in a business sense, as
well as to be highly competent in a
medical sense," Pletz said. Busi
ness training will help physicians
become leaders in the health care
field, she added.
Bill Bassett, deputy director of
Rockhurst's health care leadership
program, said Rockhurst planned to
expand the medical MBA program
and make it more widely available
in coming years.
city in Camden), N.J.
While in the stages of a 1989 di
vorce, "lean and former wife Carol
Finger agreed in writing to evenly di
ide payments for their children's col
lege education.
But nine years later, when David be
gan looking at colleges, Samnick sent
a letter to Finger's lawyers stating that
his client, in hopes of eliminating any
legal wrangling, would simply pay
half of Rutgers' asking price.
In the end, the panel ruled that as
long as the immey is there, there is no
reason for the older Zenn to go hack
On his word.
"Obviously, the parties' ability to
pay is a critical factor in the selection
of a colic :lie, - read the decision.
"However. unless the parties other
wise agree, selection of a college for
a child of the marriage should not he
governed by an artificial hottom line...
A decision to appeal the case has
vet to he announced hut is under con-
sideratiim
as making a cassette copy to trade \\ ith
a Friend
i\lhini raises a key distinction that
separates Napster and its ilk from the
traditional "pirates - or bootleggers: no
one, it seems. makes any from money
harterimi music via the Web.
But record-industry hea‘ yweights,
translating all of that free song traffic
into lust income, see the piracy ques
tion in entirely opposite terms, and they
are still trying to shut down Napster in
federal court for copyright infringe
ment.
Meanwhile Coleman. like many
Napster users, admits mixed emotions
over his downloading jones. "I would
never steal so much as a Tootsie Roll
in real life," he said. "But the Internet
is all about getting something for noth
ing..
And it is that Webhead manifesto --
"something for nothing" -- that prom
ises to keep the Internet's free music
suppliers operating well after Napster
either closes or morphs into a subscrip-
Lion service
"The thing that really (ticks) me off
about this Napster thing is that they are
thieves, period," said Michael Greene,
president of the National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences. "People
think they're ripping off the record
companies, and who minds ripping
them off? Maybe what they don't rec
ognize is when they (use Napster), the
artists, the studios, the engineers -- the
entire food chain that's involved in this
-- is harmed. And we've got to sensi
tize people to that fact."
Still, Greene acknowledges that the
record industry has created a lot of ill
will over the last two decades by over
charging consumers for mediocre CDs
-- and that free music sites, legal or no,
are likely here to stay.
I\fArl'i:ol\f AL cit-/:\lvf - P - US NE"WS
Winter 2001: A tale of 2 regions
by Billy O'Keefe
TMS Campus
As if there weren't enough
reasons for students to love
winter break
With an inventory rollout that
would put any department More
to shame, this equal opportu
nity winter season has provided
Americans with lavish amounts
of snow, ice and colder than
cold temperatures.
After enjoying a string of win
ters with sparse snowfall and
mild temperatures, some part of
the country have seen their
cold-weather immunity disap
pear like the mercury in their
thermometers.
For most students, howevei
winter break came just in time.
Instead of shoveling a path
from the dorm to the lecture
hall or cheating death on icy
highways, students could stay
inside, sleep late, and kick hack
while Mother Nature cleaned
up the mess she made.
Chat is, if she doesn't knock out
your pokver in the proec
We were fortunate in that the
storms came just as stt
were finishing finals, - sivs
Roger Williams, vice chancel
lor for university relations at the
University of Arkansas, which
kicks off its second semester
this week. "Still, sonic students
actually came hack toward the
end of last week, because the
campus had electricity, and a lot
of places, including much of
Little Rock, did not.'
While the southern United
States may not be known for its
chilling winds and buckets of
snow, a good chunk of ihe re
gion felt the wrath of winter
through a pan of crippling ice
storms, which left c.loicip, ul
people homeless and , ;cores
more with property damage and
no power.
says (hat Ili Sh)1111‘,.
and the hitterlv cold cattier
that accompanied them, pun
ished less-prepared areas like
Fayetteville that much mre.
This is not ('hictwo: Ik‘
said. "We're not iiccusioined to
this, and there is not neatly as
cuttiLg oil a lizard's tail: he'll
Just grow another one. Greene said.
"I don't think we should spend a
whole lot of money trying to come up
with secure digital music. It'll just get
hacked. What we've got to do is gRe
Napster founder Shawn Fanning
consumers more value for their money Now" on MP3.com last year. His record
and give people six or seven good cuts label, Warner Brothers, pulled the plug
on aCD instead of loading it up with after a few days.
good an infrastructure to remedy
he situation
A few degrees up north, in
Markato, Minn., the snow and the
cold are just settling in for the long
winL!r ahead. 13ut that, according
to Karen Wright, director of me
dia relations at Minnesota State
University, is just fine.
"The snow, for us to close,
would have to he absolutely cata-
strophic, - she says.
Students up north aren't invin
cible. and even they are no match
for icy roads or blistering wind
chill temperatures, which can sink
as low as 90 degrees below zero.
Cold winters, however, are a
way of life at MSU. And accord
ing to Wright, students attending
school up north know that snow,
and lots of it, comes with the terri
tory.
"We expect it, and we have such
a hue system of snowplows and
salting that we're constantly on top
o f it, she says. "We might have
to cancel events here and there, but
even that is very, very rare."
C;v,e in point: MSU's wintertime
commencement ceremony, which
honors students who graduated
While it may be shocking to students in Arkansas and Texas, the snow is nothing new for Kong Thao, left,
and Acha Yang, shown here helping their St. Paul, Minn., neighbors by shoveling snow out of an alley.
tiller indict ial
What the music moguls seem to over
look is that free music, somewhere
down the line, can translate into a big
payoll. Such was the logic when Toni
Petty gas e out his single "Free Girl
following the summer or fall 2000
semesters. As temperatures took
a nosedive, calls poured in from
parents and would-be graduates,
some of whom most likely wanted
to know how long, not if, the cer
emony would he postponed.
But the show, like the snow,
must go on
"We have a lot of parents and
family who travel from far away
to attend the ceremony, and we
can't just call it off," Wright says.
"So we went on as normal. And
while we lost a few people be
cause of the weather, we had an
extremely respectable turnout."
Asked how tier counterparts to
the south might handle
Minnesota's annual freeze, Wright
laughs
"That's funny," she says. "If
some schools in the south get an
so much as an inch of snow, they
close down.'
Unfortunately for a large chunk
of the south, it wasn't snow, but
ice, that slowed things to a crawl.
"It's been very tough in this part
of the country," says Williams,
who adds that parts of Oklahoma,
Texas and southern Missouri were
But some 150,000 people down
loaded the song -- meaning that Petty
can target merchandising efforts di
rectly to those listeners. It's also likely
that he picked up thousands of new
(and record-buying) fans in the pro
cess.
For a more old-fashioned example,
consider the Grateful Dead, a band that
not only allowed but encouraged fans
to make unauthorized "bootleg" re
cordings of all its live concerts.
Years of tape swapping spread the
band's renown and won it one of the
most loyal followings in rock history.
A key element in those cases is that the
artists themselves authorized the give
aways. Anti-Napster acts such as
Metallica argue that it amounts to pi
racy when others do the giving away
on a grand scale, without permission.
Still, it's equally possible that prior to
suing Napster, Metallica benefited
from free exposure on the exchange.
"I have bought some artists' CDs
that I had never heard of, all because
of the free service on Napster," said Sh
annon Biehl, 22, a college student from
Rockingham, N.C. "You only have to
download what you want and if some
thing is trashy, you can delete it."
Like many Napster fans, Biehl fears
that if another free site gets a lot of
publicity and traffic, "the greedy,
money-grubbing record companies
will go after them." Yet a big reason
free music will continue on the Internet
is that unlike Napster, exchanges such
as Freenet and Gnutella operate with
out central server computers. That
means they cannot be intercepted and
silenced by authorities.
However, such freedom (or at least
free music) comes with other costs:
time and frustration. Near gridlock
conditions often await visitors to
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2001
equally taken by surprise. "It's
been brutal by comparison. Unusu
ally cold."
But with the exception of one fi
nal exam day that had to be re
scheduled for the Sunday before
break, UA has gotten through the
storms with little damage. Schools
everywhere benefited from the
good timing of winter break,
which ends just as temperatures
return to normal and sizeable por
tions of the snow and mice melt
"Our finals were complete the
clay before the first storm," says
Smiley Snipes, coordinator of uni
versity communications at Arkan
sas State University. "Offices were
closed down for a day and a half,
but other than that, we've been
lucky. Students should have no
trouble returning to campus.''
Of course, all the good timing
in the world can't save schools
from that other weather-related
problem: the gas hill.
"We're paying twice as much,
about S 2 million, for heat this
year," says Wright. "That hurts.
But that's a whole other story."
Gnutella, and learning the ropes of the
service is much harder than on Napster.
"The saving grace is that those sys
tems are very cumbersome and don't
work very well," said entertainment at
torney Owen Sloane, who has repre
sented artists including Elton John and
Fleetwood Mac. "But that's not for long.
Technology moves so quickly, and it's
so easy to get a college or high school
kid who develops something and it
spreads like wild fire."
What's more, new Internet pirates can
easily evade the grasp of authorities by
setting up operations outside the U.S..
Still, the question remains what moti
vation there might be in it, other than
the love of music itself. Despite all the
publicity and a user base of some 38
million, Napster had yet to make any
money before it announced a partner
ship with German media giant
Bertelsmann AG in October.
Whether that alliance takes effect de
pends on the federal court decision,
which could be announced any day
now. Win or lose, it's the end of free
music on Napster -- though definitely
not the end of free music on the Web.
Loyal as he is to Napster, Coleman said
he would leave in search of free songs
elsewhere "in a heartbeat."
Millions of others will likely join him,
and where there is demand, Coleman
believes, suppliers will soon follow,
whether or not there's money to be
made.
"The reason that the record compa
nies went after Napster and no one else
is because Napster does it the best,"
Coleman said. "I would have done ex
actly the same -- go after the main one,
not the small fry. However, they should
know that someone else will fill the
void."