Where Child Care Is Serious Business
Stacy Kim’s goal, once she earns her doctorate in early childhood education, is to conduct research on child care issues for business leaders and policy makers.
She already has much of the background needed to do that. Kim was one of 17 students who graduated last May from the Early Childhood Education Master’s Degree Program, a joint project between the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and Wharton.
“While child care has a lot to do with child development and psychology, it has also become an issue for the business community,” says Kim. The growing increase in working women in society corresponds with an increase in businesses willing to support various kinds of child care benefits and programs, she notes.
That means a need for education students who understand the accounting, marketing and management skills required to run a corporate daycare center, for example, or operate a resource and referral service. Although graduate students in the Early Children Education program receive their degree from GSE, they take courses at Wharton in entrepreneurship and organization, human resource management, marketing and finance, among other subjects.
“We want to give our students a background in business administration and policy so they will be equipped to work with companies in designing programs to support their employees, including child care, job-sharing, flextime and maternity leave,” says Joan Goodman, professor of education at GSE and director of the early childhood education program. “Ours is a unique approach. No one else is integrating business and early childhood education in the same way.”
Graduates of the two-year program also do consulting work with corporations on child care issues and, like Kim, conduct research into policy issues.
Her master’s degree has allowed Kim to talk the language of both educational/social service organizations as well as employers. “You have to think like a business person to succeed,” she says. “You have to know not only the importance of quality care but how many children you need in your center to stay profitable.
“Since taking these courses, I have come to recognize that work/life, child care and family issues are much more complex and contradictory than I thought,” adds Kim, who graduated from Northwestern University in 1990 with a degree in human development and social policy. “There are no easy answers. The program has taught me instead how to ask very good questions.”
Quick Study
On Jan. 17, 31 members of the South African Tri-partite Alliance — including the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions — came to campus for courses on issues familiar to any student of emerging markets: the role of a central bank, how to attract foreign investment, job development and privatization.
This unique 10-day program, developed by Wharton’s Snider Entrepreneurial Center and the Emerging Economies Program, was created to provide South Africa’s new leadership with the kind of training it will need to formulate policy and nurture a market economy. Eighteen Wharton professors offered a “global tour” of management, marketing, finance, technology and public policy, among other topics.
Three more sessions — each presented to 30 South African leaders — are scheduled to take place over the next 15 months.
Thouron Scholars Head for U.K.
Two of this year’s six Thouron Awards — prestigious fellowships that promote better understanding between the U. S. and U.K. by providing fellowships for students from both countries — went to dual degree students at Wharton.
Joshua Schultz, W’96, C’96, is majoring in international relations and finance. He has applied to an international relations program at Cambridge University, and is considering a career in either investment banking or consulting.
Schultz has studied abroad in Prague and several cities in Israel. At Wharton he was a member of the varsity diving team, the debate team and the Dean’s Advisory Board.
Staci Standen, W’96, SEAS’96, will graduate this spring from the five-year Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology where she has majored in finance and mechanical engineering. She is applying to programs at Cambridge and Loughborough Universities.
Standen says she wants more practical knowledge in the design side of engineering, and is interested eventually in business management within an engineering design firm. She was on the Penn gymnastics team for four years.
The Thouron fellowship, established in 1960 by Sir John Thouron and the late Lady Thouron, covers tuition, room, board and expenses for travel and cultural enrichment. Thouron Scholars are chosen for academic excellence as well as leadership and global perspective.
Conference Agendas: Business Opportunity in India and Latin America
Two conferences organized this spring by Wharton students offered unique forums to debate the future of rapidly changing global marketplaces.
“India, Opportunity of the 21st Century” was the theme of an inaugural conference March 22 presented by the Wharton-India Economic Forum. Speakers included the chairmen and/or managing directors of Reliance Industries Ltd., Jardine Fleming India, Indian Petrochemicals Corp. Ltd., Emerson Electric Asia Pacific, the Export Import Bank of India, and the Industrial Credit and Investment Corp. of India Ltd., among others. Discussion centered on the major economic and political forces shaping the business environment in India today.
“Partnership in the 21st Century” highlighted the fifth annual Latin American Conference held on April 19. Among the speakers were Jorge Paulo Lehman, chairman, Banco Garantia; Jaime Gilinski, president, Bancol; and Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos, chairman, Grupo Apoyo. Panelists and guests, including business leaders, government officials and students, addressed such topics as the current climate of the financial markets, the fading of international borders in the areas of information and technology, and the convergence of consumer markets.
Chair Honors Whitney M. Young, Jr.
With the establishment of the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Professorship in January, Wharton became the first leading business school to name a faculty position in honor of an African- American. The professorship will be used to help attract outstanding scholars to Wharton who are committed to promoting the extension of educational and economic opportunity for all citizens.
The endowed chair is named in honor of Whitney M. Young, Jr., civil rights leader and executive director of the National Urban League from 1961 until his death in 1971.
A $1.25 million fundraising effort was initiated by a group of alumni and students in 1989. Since that time, African-American students, alumni and friends of the School have raised $650,000 toward the creation of the chair. Proceeds of $200,000 from the annual Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Conference, sponsored by the Wharton African-American Association, have also helped to fund the effort. Other contributions were generated from corporate and foundation grants including those from the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Foundation, the General Mills Foundation, Ford Motor Company, American Express, Arco Chemical Company, CS First Boston, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. In all, contributions were received from more than 300 individuals and corporations.
“The chair will have monumental significance in the recruitment and matriculation of students,” says Omowale Crenshaw, WG’96. Crenshaw was director of this year’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Conference, whose theme was “Creating Wealth in the African Diaspora Through Education, Entrepreneurship and Community Action.”
The 20th Annual Wharton Follies Presents “Mission: Improbable”
Plot summary: The nameless, faceless dean of a competing business school hires Ruth Less and her sidekick Clark — two employees from Robbers & Crooks, LLP — to infiltrate Wharton and sabotage its number one ranking.
The diabolical duo carry out their assignment with well-planned attacks on admissions, the ethics module, resume writing, the computer system, alumni affairs, recruiting and the MBA social scene. With each sinister plot twist comes the trademark “Mission Impossible” music as hapless Wharton students try to understand why no one is e-mailing them, hiring them, or worse — dating them.
Who is the nameless, faceless dean? (We don’t know, but we can guess.) Does Robbers & Crooks succeed? (Of course not.) They are foiled by the likes of Slick (a.k.a. the Slick-man, the Slickmeister, the Slick-o-rama, a shameless schmoozer who conned his way into Wharton and majors in golf, undergrads and free recruiting dinners); Sherman Patton Eisenhower MacArthur, III (a.k.a. Ace, a Navy pilot looking to make it big in banking), and Hillary, loving wife and mother, MBA student, member of the Director’s List, president of the WGA and PTA and recently elected to City Council.
But enough havoc is wreaked along the way to inspire a medley of songs, dances and irreverent jibes at the Wharton experience.
There are such tunes as “Unrecruitable,” (after “Unforgettable,” by Natalie and Nat King Cole), “How I Waste My Time,” (after “For the Longest Time,” by Billy Joel), and “Super-Registration,” (after “Super-cali-fragi-listic,” from Mary Poppins).
There is the medical team sent in to resuscitate a damaged computer; the students who bring a burlap bag to carry away free food samples from a recruiter’s table; the ragtag band of abused, confused Wharton students raising the Wharton flag as they battle against unseen destructive forces, and a skit modeled after Pulp Fiction, with two individuals debating the philosophical underpinnings of a “steak with cheese”.
What’s more, there is both romance and redemption, plus heartwarming reassurance in the end that sabotaging Wharton is, indeed, “Mission Impossible.”
$10 Million Donated for Undergraduate Scholarships
A $10 million gift to endow undergraduate scholarships at Wharton was donated this year by William Meiklejohn, W’42, and his wife Louise Meiklejohn, of Laguna Hills, Ca.
It is the largest gift to undergraduate financial aid in Penn’s history.
“We are particularly appreciative of the Meiklejohns’ generous gift and the opportunity it provides for Wharton to continue to attract the finest undergraduate business students from all around the world,” notes Wharton Dean Thomas P. Gerrity.
More than 60 percent of Penn’s current freshman class of 2,350 receive some form of financial aid.
Meiklejohn, who retired from the Northrop Corp. as manufacturing control coordinator in 1970, graduated from Wharton with a degree in accounting. Before her retirement, Louise Meiklejohn was employed by the Orange County Superintendent of School’s Office. A previous gift from the Meiklejohns to Penn included support for athletics. Meiklejohn, an avid sports fan, was a member of the Penn wrestling team.
Campus News
– Vice president Al Gore kicked off Penn’s 50th anniversary celebration of the world’s first all-electronic computer — ENIAC — during a visit to campus on Feb. 14.
The celebration for ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) will span 18 months and bring together computing pioneers, scholars, business leaders, scientists and technology advocates for a series of events focused on the birth of modern computing. The program includes symposia, hands-on demonstrations of new electronic technologies, art exhibits and other events.
ENIAC, the product of Penn inventors John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, was originally commissioned to calculate ballistics tables during World War II. It weighed 30 tons and occupied a room that measured 30 x 50 feet.
– Companies seeking first- or second-year MBA students with specific skills or experiences can take advantage of Wharton’s Rapid Resumé Service, offered free by the School’s Career Development & Placement Office (CD&P).
CD&P will search for candidates by area of career interest, language proficiency, prior work experience, and/or undergraduate concentration, among other criteria. Searches for summer positions or full-time employment are limited to 30 resumés, and can usually be done in a few days.
Two examples of recent searches: Second-year MBA students who speak Portuguese; and German-speaking first-year MBA students who have health care backgrounds.
For information, call (215) 898-3595, or fax to (215) 898-4449.
– Wharton junior Johnathan Seeg and College junior Abby Close received the prestigious 1996 Howard R. Swearer national Student Humanitarian Award in February for creating an environmental education program at Shaw Middle School in West Philadelphia. The two students took three academically-based community services courses last year in order to better their understanding of both technical issues — such as the effect of lead poisoning — and theoretical issues.
The award includes a $1,500 cash prize to supplement the students’ educational initiative at Shaw.
