Wharton Faculty Take on Financial Crisis

A Teach-In on the Crisis Draws More Than 1,000

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bailed out by the Fed; Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy; AIG was on the brink of ruin; and the Dow Jones dropped 500 points in one day. With the still-unfolding turmoil in the financial markets on September 16, Wharton students packed a one thousand- seat auditorium to hear Wharton Professors Jeremy Siegel, Richard Herring, Franklin Allen, and Joseph Gyourko take on the issues. MBA students Jennifer Akpapuna and William Hodge, co-presidents of Wharton Graduate Association’s Finance Club, helped moderate the discussion. The event was well covered by the press, including CBS3, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and BusinessWeek.com.

Knowledge@Wharton Publishes a Special Issue

Earlier in the day, Knowledge@Wharton taped a panel discussion with Professors Susan Wachter, Richard Herring and Franklin Allen for a special issue that focused on the Wall Street crisis and its global repercussions.

New Deputy Vice Dean of Student Life to Develop Young Alumni Program

B. Kembrel Jones joins Wharton in a new position of Deputy Vice Dean of Student Life in the Graduate Division. Jones will oversee all co-curricular student activities in the MBA Program including student clubs, conferences, and speaker series. In addition, he will build and manage, in conjunction with the Director of Alumni Affairs, a new Young Alumni Program aimed at engaging alumni in the first five years of their post-MBA careers.

Jones served most recently as the vice president for institutional advancement at Savannah College of Art and Design. Before that, for over six years, he worked at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, serving first as assistant dean and then as associate dean of fulltime MBA Programs. Jones received a bachelor’s degree in marketing and organizational management at University of North Alabama, a master and a doctor of education degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, and an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory.

Wharton and Penn Law Introduce Accelerated JD/MBA Program

Wharton and Penn Law School have created a fully integrated three-year JD/MBA program — the first of its kind among elite business and law schools. “From corporate scandals and globalization to crises in the housing and credit markets, there is an obvious need for people with advanced training in the law to be highly skilled in business,” Michael A. Fitts, Penn Law School dean, said.

The new program will target potential applicants with two years of work experience, especially in finance, who are entrepreneurs, or are planning careers in investment banking, private equity, and related fields. The three-year JD/MBA program is expected to enroll about 20 students each year, beginning in September 2009.

Executive Education Partners With Penn Vet School in a First-of-Its-Kind Program

Wharton Executive Education is developing a leadership program in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine — one that will enable veterinarians to influence some of the most critical health issues of the future, such as recent scares with SARS and avian flu. The executive program, which will run June 7-12, 2009, will prepare veterinarians in positions of leadership to have a bigger impact on public health issues and health care organizations.

Says Kathy Pearson, the academic director of the program for Wharton Executive Education,“Unlike competitor programs, the focus of this program is not on managing a practice. It is for veterinarians who make decisions on a broad scale and who hold positions of senior leadership within their respective organizations — be it pharmaceutical, association, education, VMG, government, international, or other.” The program is the brainchild of former Vet Dean Alan Kelly and current Vet Dean Joan C. Hendricks, who approached Wharton with the idea of a five-day joint program following the success of a workshop on leadership in veterinary medicine. Three quarters of the curriculum is focused on leadership, communication, and business, and the remainder on the state of veterinary practice.

Says Dean Hendricks,“Veterinarians are committed to both animals and the people who care for them, and want to be health partners for disease control, but right now, they don’t always invite vets to discussions of major health issues like avian flu. Vets have enormous amounts of knowledge to offer, and this program is about helping them to share it and be heard.”

Wharton Interactive Media Initiative Launched With $1 Million Gift

Wharton’s strength in interactive media will be expanded through the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (WIMI). The research endeavor has been created and supported through a $1 million gift from alumnus Art Bilger, W’75, and his wife, Dahlia. WIMI aims to capitalize on Wharton’s longstanding strength in conducting data driven research — its goal is to apply it to decision making to help companies in the media industry to monetize interactive data. Wharton professors Eric Bradlow and

Peter Fader are spearheading this initiative, which will focus on knowledge creation and dissemination, industry collaboration, new courses and other student-related activities, along with alumni networking opportunities. WIMI will include an annual conference, job placement assistance for students and alumni, the creation of an advisory board, and a prestigious prize for collaborative research in the field of interactive media. Art Bilger is a member of Wharton’s Board of Overseers and a Managing Member of Shelter Capital Partners, LLC, a Southern California-based private investment fund.

Undergraduates Explore Global Business Practices in Milan and Seoul

As part of Wharton International Program, undergraduate students, pictured above in Milan, visited businesses in Korea and Italy. “We learned that 93.9% of Italian businesses have less than 10 employees,” said Dianne He, W’09, “At Parmigiano Reggiano, we saw how a large conglomerate brought together different businesses. It was very interesting to see so many small companies collaborating in the production process.”

The Korea trip included meetings with representatives of Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motors, Hyundai Heavy Industries, SK Telecom, and Hana Financial Group, as well as a brief trip to North Korea to visit a Hyundai factory.

200+ Wharton MBAs Build a Playground

Working with the Wissahickon Charter School and KaBOOM!, more than 200 first-year MBA students constructed a playground in Northeast Philadelphia. Randall Weisenburger, WG’87 provided funding for the project. Together they fulfilled the vision of local children who had drawn their “dream playgrounds” in the planning stage of the project.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, W’79, stopped by the construction site to offer encouragement and thanks to the day’s “build captains.” Weisenburger, Executive Vice President and CFO of Omnicom Group, Inc., spearheaded and partially funded the project, after having approached Wharton professor Mike Useem with the idea.

“This involved teamwork and bonding as a class, while giving back to the community,” said Wharton Deputy Vice Dean Peggy Bishop Lane. “With projects like this as part of the MBA experience, our graduates leave Wharton with a sense of community embedded in them.”

Lawrence Zicklin Welcomes New MBA Class

On July 21 Lawrence Zicklin, WG’59, welcomed the class of new students at the MBA Student Convocation. The 800-member class is among Wharton’s strongest and most international, averaging 715 on the GMAT with six years of experience and including students from 72 countries.

It is also one of the most diverse in experience, counting among its ranks film producers, professional athletes, artists, teachers, doctors, veterans, entrepreneurs, and professionals from microfinance, non-profits, private equity, energy, and the Peace Corps, as well as Wharton’s traditional strongholds of finance and consulting. Zicklin is one of the business community’s strongest voices in support of ethical practices.

Formerly chairman and chief executive officer of the investment firm Neuberger Berman, Zicklin has taught business ethics at New York University and at the Wharton School. In 1997, he endowed Wharton’s Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research, which sponsors and disseminates leading edge scholarship on such critical topics as global business ethics, corporate governance, social contracts, deception, disclosure, bribery, and corruption.