Author Archives: EGareis

An interesting article entitled “Multicultural Critical Theory. At B-School” appeared in the New York Times this week. The article reports that, although business schools were found “too vocational” as far back as 1959, they are only now starting to change curricula. “Many of the changes are moving business schools into territory more traditionally associated with the liberal arts: multidisciplinary approaches, an understanding of global and historical context and perspectives, a greater focus on leadership and social responsibility and . . . learning how to think critically.” John J. Fernandes, president of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, predicts that in 10 years, 75 percent of schools will have made changes that focus on “the creation of more sustainable leaders.”

The Princeton Review has once again named Baruch College as one of the best 371 colleges in America. The report also features 62 rankings lists on topics including “Professors Get High Marks,” “Class Discussions Encouraged,” and “Most Beautiful Campus.” Each rankings lists presents the top and the bottom 20 colleges. With Baruch’s status as most diverse college, it would be nice to see it among the top-20 in the category “Race/Class Interactions”: http://www.princetonreview.com/schoollist.aspx?type=r&id=723&RDN=1 But we are not part of this list.

Maybe it’s a tall order for the most diverse college in the nation to also be one with lots of race and class interaction? But why not?

A 2005 article in The Ticker lamented that students at Baruch are “divided by race” (i.e., that clubs and friendship circles are largely monocultural and that there is too little intercultural/interethnic interaction): http://www.theticker.org/2.10634/divided-by-race-1.1417125

While there is something to be said for the protective comfort that in-groups can provide, we should do better. But how?

It’s football season . . . which reminds me of an interesting study. In it, Guadagno, Sundie, Asher, and Cialdini (2006) presented football statistics to groups of students-some were fans with extensive knowledge of the sport, some were unfamiliar with its intricacies. The premise was for students to act as recruiters and judge which players would be promising prospects for the team. The stats (yards gained, touchdowns, etc.) were presented in three different formats to the “recruiters:” typed lists of numbers, printed graphs, and animated graphs on presentation slides (e.g., bar graphs where individual bars appear consecutively instead of all at once). The researchers found that animated statistics were more persuasive than typed summaries or printed graphs. While the effect was more pronounced for audience members who were unfamiliar with football stats, even the experts found animated graphs most effective for highlighting performance.

I have since incorporated the topic of graph animation into one of my courses in international communication and find it enhances student presentations. The assignment is to compare two countries in an area of interest (e.g., education performance, income distribution, air quality) and investigate the reasons for performance difference. Students start by selecting a topic-either from a list I provide, or by consulting newspapers, almanacs, and statistical Web sites for additional ideas. For instance, last semester, a student, Alena, selected the topic “vacation time” from the example list I provided in class. She checked a statistical Web site, www.nationmaster.com, and other online sources for preliminary information and then decided to compare the United States and Germany. Not to promote European ideas ;-), but Germans are getting an average of three times as many days of paid vacation as U.S. Americans. Alena then conducted research using the library’s databases and interviewing an exchange student from Germany. In the end, Alena determined that the factors contributing to longer vacations in Germany include a higher rate of unionization and a more pronounced value placed on leisure.

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