Dear Fellow Alumni:
As I write, the world has just emerged from a holiday week marred by the overwhelming tragedy in Asia. The earthquake and tsunamis caused untold tens of billions of dollars in damage and unprecedented loss of life. It reminded us that Mother Nature, ultimately, can wreak much more havoc than the worst of the terrorists, and in equally unpredictable ways.
But inside the tragedy, something incredible. Billions in donations. Extraordinary volunteer efforts. Our nation’s efforts organized on a nonpartisan basis. The business community energized to help. In many cases, Wharton grads stepping up in leading these efforts. Our hearts go out to those, including some of our graduates and their families, who were impacted by this horrific event.
The tragedy caused me to think more about the role that a leading institution like Wharton plays on the world stage. Earlier this year, Penn’s new President, Amy Guttman, declared that one of her major priorities will be strengthening the University’s engagements both locally and worldwide.
Even before Dr. Guttman’s arrival, Wharton Dean Pat Harker has been all about extending the Wharton brand globally. During his tenure the School has launched Knowledge@Wharton (now with over 400,000 subscribers worldwide and translated into many languages) and Wharton School Publishing. He has personally traveled extensively throughout the world. Our global alumni conferences each spring are tremendous hits. Wharton’s student body has an increasingly international flavor. Wharton professors appear more regularly on foreign media.
But what is the message we wish our alumni to deliver as they look to assist in improving Wharton’s already solid place in the global community? Simply, we seek for Wharton to be known as a thought and knowledge leader and a leader in the pursuit of ethics and integrity in business. OK, maybe I should have said THE thought and knowledge leader and THE leader in the pursuit of ethics and integrity in business. Despite sometimes real and substantial cultural differences throughout the world, ultimately, business is business. For each of us to maximize the ultimate long-term benefit we obtain from our Wharton education and degree, it is incumbent on us all to carry the flag, spread the word, wear the shirts and be proud, wherever we sit in the world, to have been trained at the finest institution of management education there is.
In my next (and final) report as Chairman, I will provide a summary of the achievements of our Alumni Association Board and hopes for the future as we come closer to the celebration of Wharton’s 125th anniversary in 2006.
As always, if you are currently an active member of Wharton’s alumni network, thank you for your dedication. If you are interested in getting involved and would like to find out more information about volunteer opportunities, please contact the Alumni Affairs office at alumni.affairs@wharton.upenn.edu. There are many ways in which you can make a difference. Start by going to wave.wharton.upenn.eduto find a Wharton alumni club in your region or your area of interest.
Please feel free to call or e-mail me directly with any questions. Thank you for your support of the Wharton Alumni Association.
Sincerely,
David N. Feldman, Esq., W’82, L’85
Chairman, Wharton
Alumni Association dfeldman@feldmanweinstein.com
Club Spotlight
The Wharton Club of Atlanta: Get Into the Mix
To many people, Atlanta conjures up literary images of a provincial “Old South” of Scarlet O’Hara and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind or Charlie Croker in Tom Wolfe’s more recent work, A Man in Full. The reality is that the explosive growth that the city has experienced over the past 10 years has created a much more diverse, dynamic, forward-looking and sophisticated cultural mix. Among those leading the charge is Penn alumna and Philadelphia native Shirley Franklin, the city’s mayor, who has helped make Atlanta one of the leading cities for the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies.
The Wharton Club of Atlanta, led by Bruce Hauptfuhrer, WG’94, Michael Hronchek, WG’98, and other Wharton alumni, continues to project a very strong presence in the local community. Over the past several years, many of Wharton’s leading lights, including Dean Patrick Harker, Jeremy Siegel, Richard Shell, Michael Useem, Jerry Wind and Peter Linneman have kept local alumni apprised of their thought leadership with visits to Atlanta.
The centerpiece of the Club’s current programming is the Wharton-Kellogg-INSEAD Breakfast Speaker Series. This monthly program, started by dual Penn/Wharton degree holder, Cameron Adair, C’69, WG’70, features distinguished and dynamic speakers from the business, academic and civic arenas. Managing through partnerships has been a central facet for the club over the past decade. In the mid 1990s, Bruce Hauptfuhrer was instrumental in the formation of the Atlanta Business School Alliance, which more formally pooled programming opportunities for alumni of leading business schools. To ensure that Wharton alums had a channel for contributing their business skills to local non-profits, Andrew Feiler, W’84, created Community Consulting Teams, in which alumni from a broad range of business schools now participate. These opportunities, combined with additional ones from TeamIvy—a consortium of Ivy League alumni clubs—present local alumni with a very rich and expansive mix of educational, networking, social, cultural and athletic opportunities with Wharton alumni and the broader community.
If you plan to be in Atlanta, be sure to visit Wharton’s online club directory at www.wharton.upenn.edu/alumni/clubs/ and click on The Wharton Club of Atlanta link to find out about upcoming events.
Wharton Follies Reunion Planned
To coincide with the 125th anniversary of the founding of The Wharton School and the 30th anniversary of the Wharton Follies in 2006, the School is planning a Follies Reunion for participants (cast, crew, orchestra, writers, business staff, etc.) involved in all Follies performances to date!
In order to contact everyone involved, we need your help. First, we need to assemble a complete list of all students involved in Follies from 1976 through 1989. If you have saved your program from that time period, please contact us (see e-mail address below). Also, if you were involved in the Follies, please contact us and tell us what year(s) you were involved and how you participated.
We will soon be forming a Follies Reunion Committee to help coordinate this event. As such, we are seeking two people from each production to be the “class coordinators” for that year’s Follies. (Most of the coordinating will be done via phone and e-mail and should not take up too much time.)
Those of us involved in The Wharton Follies know that it was the most memorable part of our Wharton lives and many of our long-lasting friendships have come out of that experience. Help us relive the memories and get reacquainted with long lost friends by making this reunion a success!
If you have old programs, participated in any Follies productions, or if you want to be a “class coordinator” for this great event, please contact Joel Serebransky (Follies ’84 & ’85) at joel_serebransky@acml.com or Wharton Alumni Affairs at alumni.affairs@wharton. upenn.edu. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in 2006!
For complete information and calendar updates, visit www.wharton.upenn.edu/alumni/ and select “Alumni Event Calendar” from the menu on the left.
