|
Continued from previous page
Webber also says that the change
in management techniques over the
last 30 years "was definitely related to
the culture change in the late '60s and
'70s, when respect for authority
declined so much. We never had a
counterrevolution here at Wharton,
but there was less willingness to
accept the word from on high. Even
in business today, the most common
form of influence is persuasion, not
expert power or authority or coercive
power. The manager today has to have
the ability to persuade."
With the winding down of the
Vietnam War, the resignation of
President Nixon, and the Arab oil
embargo of 1973, American students
learned that "American omnipotence
was an illusion," Webber says. "The
whole anti-business orientation of the
early '70s began to evaporate rapidly
as people discovered that the U.S. had
to pay attention to economic activity.
The result was a sharp expansion
of students' interest in business and
management."
Racial awareness
The counterculture era also saw
African Americans
begin to seek admission
to colleges in
greater numbers. Two African-American
students, Fountain and
Milton Irvin, WG'74, worked together
with other MBA students to form
the Whitney M. Young Jr. Memorial
Conference, named for a former executive
director of the National Urban
League. The annual event, designed
to bring students and business leaders
together, has evolved from a half-day
lecture series to one of the largest
student-run business conferences in
the country.
"We founded Whitney Young at a
time when there was tension between
African-American students and the
administration," says Irvin, who today
is the executive director responsible
for recruiting, training, and professional
development for the fixed-income
department at UBS Warburg
in Stamford, CT. "There was no rallying
point for African-American
students at that
point. We were new to the
world of business."
Irvin first thought of
majoring in labor relations
but switched to finance
when it became clear that
most of his peers were doing
so. He was so new to business that
he had never heard of many of the
most prominent names in capitalism.
"Three weeks into the school year, I see
everyone running toward the auditorium,"
he recalls. "They said, 'Gus Levy
from Goldman Sachs is here.' I said,
'Who's Gus Levy and who's Goldman
Sachs?' A student looked at me and
said, 'If you don't know, you shouldn't
be here.'"
Irvin made it a point to learn what
job opportunities were available for
a person with a degree in finance and
was later offered a summer job by
Goldman.
Becoming adjusted
Irvin was not the only student
to feel out of place. Barrie was
accepted at Wharton immediately
after receiving an undergraduate
degree in painting from Penn. "I basically went
to Wharton because I liked
business but didn't have a
firm plan."
Barrie, now a media relations
consultant working with
Colgate University and Hamilton
College in upstate New York, also had
to work extra hard at her studies because
she held a demanding job as the first
manager of Philadanco, an African-American
dance company in West
Philadelphia. "Once I got to Wharton,
I didn't have enough money to make it
through, and my father hadn't committed
to lifelong support," she says. Today
Philadanco is a multimillion-dollar
enterprise.
|
