Business Wire, August 16, 2010, Monday

Copyright 2010 Business Wire, Inc.
Business Wire

August 16, 2010, Monday

Prominent Labor and Employment Attorney Barry A. Hartstein Joins Littler Mendelson's Chicago Office

BODY:
Littler Mendelson, P.C. (Littler), the nation's largest employment and labor law firm representing management, announced today that Barry A. Hartstein, an attorney widely respected for his work on behalf of employers, has joined the firm. Hartstein, former Managing Partner for the Chicago office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, will be a shareholder in Littler's Chicago office.

Hartstein has earned a national reputation for his work, a career that includes more than 30 years of counseling and representing employers in a broad range of employment law matters. He also has extensive experience as a litigator and has defended employers around the country in individual and class action claims, as well as wage and hour collective actions. Hartstein is a frequent writer, commentator and lecturer on workplace issues.

"We are extremely fortunate to welcome an attorney as highly regarded and talented as Barry Hartstein to the Litt-ler team," said Marko Mrkonich, president and managing director of the firm. "With over three decades of experience in employment law representation and litigation, he will be an invaluable resource for both his colleagues and our clients. Barry embodies the skills and motivation on which the firm is built."

Hartstein has served in a leadership role for many years in the American Bar Association's Labor and Employment Law Section, including his longstanding role as Co-Chair of the Liaison Committee with the EEOC in Chicago and pre-vious position as Management Co-Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee, one of the Section's largest committees. He also has served in a leadership role with Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as a member of the Dean's Advisory Board, the Board of Directors of the Scheinman Institute for Dispute Resolution and Executive Committee for the ILR School's Alumni Association, recently completing his term as President of the Association.

"Barry is a valuable addition to our office," said Frederick Schwartz, office managing shareholder of Littler's Chi-cago office. "His outstanding reputation as an attorney, coupled with his market and employment law expertise, will strengthen our ability to service our clients in not only the Chicago area, but the Midwest region as well."

He has been honored based on his inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, and the Leading Lawyers Network. In June 2010 Hartstein also was honored as one of the "Top 100 Most Powerful Employment Attorneys" in Human Resource Executive and Lawdragon. In 1999, Hartstein was inducted into the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, which recognizes leaders in the field of labor and employment law.

"I am thrilled to be joining the country's largest labor and employment law firm with the ability to service clients virtually anywhere in the U.S., aside from what I expect to be an expanding practice around the globe," Hartstein said. "I also look forward to expanding my practice in the region and around the country and providing clients with the unique platform that distinguishes Littler."

Hartstein received his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law and his B.S. from Cornell University. He is admitted to practice in Illinois and California.
About Littler Mendelson

With more than 750 attorneys and 49 offices, Littler Mendelson is the largest U.S.-based law firm exclusively de-voted to representing management in employment and labor law matters. As the only U.S. member of the Ius Laboris global alliance, Littler has extensive resources to address the needs of multi-national clients, from navigating interna-tional employment laws and labor relations issues to applying corporate policies worldwide. Established in 1942, the Firm has litigated, mediated and negotiated some of the most influential employment law cases and labor contracts on record. For more information, visit littler.com .

CONTACT: Formula
Audrey Sahl, 212-219-0321
sahl@formulapr.com

URL: http://www.businesswire.com

LOAD-DATE: August 17, 2010

CNN, August 16, 2010, Monday

CNN

August 16, 2010, Monday

CNN

The tricky path forward for Michelle Obama

By John Blake, CNN
August 16, 2010 1:16 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- To some she is a self-made woman and a global superstar.

To critics she's an "angry black woman" ashamed of her country.

Now she's been called a modern-day Marie Antoinette.

What role will history ultimately assign to Michelle Obama? It depends on the choices she makes during the tricky road ahead, some say.

The nation's first lady was recently criticized for being insensitive when she took a luxury trip to Spain with the economy still recovering from a brutal recession. During her husband's campaign, she was depicted as an Afro-sporting terrorist on a magazine cover and called a bitter, unpatriotic woman for saying she was proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

First ladies have come under fire for everything from their words to their choice of clothes and china. But Obama's role as the nation's first African-American first lady adds a racial layer to the microscopic scrutiny her predecessors endured.

Some of the criticism may be driven by partisan politics. But others say the attacks are rooted in white resentment of the "uppity Negro." They say there is no precedent for a Michelle Obama: a wealthy, independent black woman representing America who is not an entertainer.

"There are so many white people who are not used to seeing a black woman in this position," says Aminah Hanan, a Chicago blogger and managing editor of MichelleObamawatch.com. "She's the face of America, and they can't process it."

Others, though, say recent complaints about her behavior have nothing to do with race. Sue Thompson, a corporate consultant and blogger at EtiquetteDog.com, says Obama's vacation choice makes her come off "as defiant and to-hell-with-you".

The gold standard for all contemporary first ladies is arguably Eleanor Roosevelt, who defied traditional roles assigned to women, but also knew how to connect with ordinary Americans during another time of economic turmoil, the Great Depression.

"She went into the coal mines, she visited farmers, she visited people in relief lines and was photographed doing this," says Gwyneth Williams, a professor of political science at Webster University in Missouri who specializes in gender issues in politics.

"She had been involved in social activism before she was even married, and pushed some aspects of the New Deal on her own."

Why we focus on her arms

Roosevelt, though, didn't face a 24-hour news cycle in which talk radio, bloggers and partisan news shows are primed to assail Obama.

Obama's challenge, some scholars suggest, is preventing her opponents from turning her strengths into weaknesses. One of Obama's strengths is her vitality.

Since she hit the national stage, much of the press has focused on her toned, athletic arms. Other widely distributed photos highlight her physicality as well: her height, her ease at skipping rope and running with kids.

Obama may be the most athletic first lady the country has seen. This is jarring to some people who are accustomed to older and more demure first ladies, says Laura Hertzog, director of diversity and inclusion programs at Cornell University in New York.

"Mrs. Bush's style was a more subdued, traditional one," Hertzog says. "Mrs. Obama's youthfulness and glamour may seem dissonant with the public's image of what a first lady looks like, particularly in the minds of older members of society."

Obama's independence can also alienate some.

It is big part of her story. She is a self-made woman who rose from a working-class background to become an Ivy League grad and hospital administrator who made good money, all before she met her husband.

Obama's independence annoys some people, who think the first lady should not be too vital, says blogger Hanan.

Hanan says people were offended that Obama didn't have a poll done beforehand to see how her trip to Spain would play with the American public like the Clintons once did. Nor did she find it necessary to be with her husband on his birthday.

"It's like an unforgivable crime: How dare you be comfortable in your own skin and chart your own course?" Hanan says. "She's not asking someone if I can take my daughter to Spain. She didn't take a poll. She just went."

The 'uppity Negro' syndrome

Obama, though, isn't the only first lady to be criticized for being too glitzy during hard economic times, says Webster University's Williams.

When President Reagan assumed office in 1980, Nancy Reagan was accused of being a "glamorous spendthrift" by the press because she bought new White House china, reportedly worth $1 million, during a recession.

The first lady blunted the criticism with a clever comeback.

"At a dinner that involved the press, she put on second-hand clothes and sang the song, 'Second Hand Rose,'" Williams says. "That really defused the criticism."

Williams says she believes some of the criticism of Obama's trip to Spain is driven by something else: the stereotype of the "uppity Negro."

The uppity Negro is a derogatory term for a black person who doesn't know his or her supposed place. During segregation, for example, black landowners in the South who amassed too much wealth or status were sometimes considered "uppity" and driven out of town or murdered.

Williams says some right-wing critics have long tried to portray President Obama as an elitist. Calling his wife Marie Antoinette, the reviled 18th century queen of France who reportedly said the poor should eat cake (when they had no bread), pushes racial and class buttons.

"A lot of the right-wing story is trying to paint Obama as a king or a dictator and this fits into that," Williams says. "And with some people, you can't divorce the stereotype of the 'uppity black person,' with the 'who does she think she is' black person."

Why some women thought Obama 'rocked it' in Spain

RELATED TOPICS
Michelle Obama
Eleanor Roosevelt
For some black women, Obama is an inspirational figure. They love that she took a luxury vacation in Spain because it shatters myths about black women.

One blogger at MichelleHux.com says there are four stereotypes that define black women in many American's eyes: the mammy, the matriarch, the welfare mother, and the Jezebel.

But Obama's Spain trip transformed her into a black Jackie-O.

"The response from black women who saw the pictures in Spain was, 'She's awesome; the sister is rocking it,' '' says Danielle Belton, a blogger at blacksnob.com, an irreverent site that takes on racial issues and is written by a former journalist.

Belton says few white, or for that matter black, Americans have seen public images of an intelligent and wealthy black woman jet-setting to Europe who isn't an entertainer.

"All of our lives, we watched white woman, men and celebrities experience that. But we haven't seen a black woman on that scale," Belton says. "It's so empowering. It's like we all won."

Cornell's Hertzog says Obama has also tried to fit into the more demure, traditional roles assigned to first ladies.

She's taken on issues like childhood obesity, exercise, nutrition and support of military families -- all "care taking initiatives."

"When, on her trip to Spain, she was presented more fully as the striking, smart, powerful woman that she is, this may have triggered feelings of discomfort in those who, consciously or not, wanted her to stay in the caretaker box," Hertzog says.

No matter what Obama does, she won't satisfy critics, says Belton.

"Even if she decided to be low-key and retire to the White House and knit, people will say, 'What is she doing knitting and why isn't she out there talking to the people?' " Belton says. "She can't win."

'It's sheer political insensitivity.'

She can win if she just shows more sensitivity, others say.

They say Obama deserved the criticism for her trip to Spain, and that it had nothing to do with race.

Thompson, the consultant and blogger, says Obama is oblivious to her constituency, as is her husband.

"Race has nothing to do with it," Thompson says. "Everybody and their brother complained about how well Nancy Reagan dressed when her husband was president, and about the designers and moguls with whom she hung out who were their friends. It seemed insensitive when so many were struggling. It was. It is."

Rachel Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool," says she's heard from people who voted for Obama "and adore them" but think the first lady's Spain trip was wrong. She says there's a growing disconnect between the Obamas and the American public.

"This trip is that watershed moment where one finds it hard to understand what could possibly have motivated Michelle to take such a lavish trip during such a continued down time," she says. "You just don't want to see your leader and spouse spending in a really indecorous manner when you're scrounging to get your kid a pair of back-to-school pants."

Weingarten doesn't buy the argument that people aren't accustomed to seeing wealthy black women on the public stage.

"We're more than used to seeing Oprah, one of the most influential black women around, spending in ways most of us can't imagine," she says.

But comparing Obama to Oprah misses the mark, says Williams, the political scientist who specializes in first lady history.

Oprah represents herself -- Obama, America.

The Plain Dealer, August 15, 2010, Sunday

The Plain Dealer

August 15, 2010, Sunday

The Plain Dealer

They're known as 'the 99ers,' and their numbers are growing in Ohio and nationwide

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- About 15,000 Ohioans didn't get a penny when Congress extended unemployment benefits.

They are people like Ramona Walker of Cleveland and Bill and Norma Zapotechne of Oberlin -- people who have been jobless so long they've already used up all 99 weeks of their unemployment checks.

They're known as "the 99ers." After two years or more without jobs, they say they're losing a critical safety net at a time when finding work is still agonizingly difficult.

The result: a growing legion of people -- many of them older, many once middle class -- who are exhausting their benefits. It's a wave that threatens to besiege social services and leave the government grasping for answers.

Just last week, a series of reports concluded that the economic recovery is slowing, with consumer spending and hiring at a trickle. And with elections coming, there is little interest on Capitol Hill to undertake a major new stimulus effort.

Three weeks ago, after a contentious debate, Congress voted to continue extended unemployment benefits until November. People out of work are entitled to 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits, and the federal government provides up to 73 weeks of extended benefits after that.

Continuing the program meant that more people would get help, but it did nothing to change how long each person gets benefits. It's still 99 weeks.

Ramona Walker, for example, couldn't imagine being unemployed for even six months when she was laid off as an accounting clerk at KeyBank in 2008.

"I thought in three months I would have been back in the door somewhere," she said.

On Aug. 3 she became a 99er. For the first time in the 17 years she has owned her house, Walker fears losing it.

Bill Zapotechne spent 20 years working long-term contract assignments as a quality assurance consultant in manufacturing.

"When I would get through with one job, there would always be a couple waiting," he said.

But after he completed his last assignment in 2008, more offers never came. In August, Zapotechne became a 99er. His wife, Norma, laid off as a licensed practical nurse, is also a 99er. The couple lost their home to foreclosure more than a year ago. Now with no income and their savings and retirement spent, they have had to apply for welfare.

"It's very humbling -- very close to humiliating," Bill Zapotechne said.

The plight of the 99ers serves as a reminder of just how long the nation -- especially hard-hit states like Ohio -- has struggled with high unemployment.

Ohio's jobless rate began to rise in 2008 before skyrocketing in 2009 and spending much of the time in the 10 percent range since then.

The current 99ers were at the beginning of the trend of mass layoffs. As the months progress, their numbers are projected to swell.

In January, only 168 people had maxed out their benefits. In August, the number is projected to be 7,000, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

No longer middle class

Many of those people -- like Walker and the Zapotechnes -- were part of a middle class who never thought they would live so meagerly. Like many, they had known occasional lean times, but poverty . . . that was something different.

Walker said she has always preached the value of hard work to her 17-year-old daughter, and now she cannot serve as a role model.

"I want to set an example for my daughter," she said. "I want to work. I tell her it is important to work."

But long-term unemployment is forcing many former middle-class members onto programs for the poor, according to figures from the Cuyahoga County Department of Employment and Family Services. The most dramatic increases in people receiving food stamps between June 2008 and June 2010 have been in solidly middle-class suburbs: Brecksville up 62 percent, Chagrin Falls up 55 percent, Solon up nearly 592 percent and Westlake up 64 percent.

Statewide, many agencies expect their caseloads to rise as the number of 99ers increases, said Benjamin Johnson, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Cuyahoga officials expect more people to enroll in multiple programs, said director Joe Gaunter. For example, people receiving food stamps may qualify for cash benefits once they become 99ers.

Longer benefits proposed

Nationally, 99ers have lobbied Congress to expand benefits by 20 weeks, to 119 weeks in Ohio and other high-unemployment states.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan recently introduced a bill to do that. Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is among the co-sponsors. The bill also would cut taxes for businesses that hire people who have been looking for work the longest.

"These tough economic times have made it difficult for thousands of out-of-work Ohioans to pay their mortgages and put food on the table for their families," Brown said in a news release."

Republican U.S. Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio has not commented on the legislation. In general, his office said, he would favor a bill encouraging an "economic environment that will provide jobs rather than extending or creating benefits that future generations cannot afford."

Rea Hederman, assistant director of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis, agreed that the emphasis should be on creating jobs, not extending benefits. Congress should consider lowering corporate tax rates, he said.

"Businesses will invest more, expand more and hire more," he said.

Extension just encourages dependence, Hederman said.

"Empirical evidence is pretty strong that the longer unemployment benefits last, the longer people will remain unemployed," he said. "People will be less apt to take the first job."

The 99ers said they have sent out countless resumes and gone to interviews that resulted in no job offers. Walker resents that anyone would even suggest she is avoiding work.

"I have had people say: 'Just get something. Go to McDonald's,' " she said. "McDonald's isn't hiring. People have to walk in your shoes before they just open their mouth and say: 'Take something.' "

Walker and Zapotechne both said they favor the Stabenow legislation. Still, they saw it as only a temporary solution.

"I would be very interested, but it is not going to make a lot of difference if there are no jobs," Zapotechne said.

He said Congress should focus on a manufacturing policy aimed at making domestic companies competitive. He also wants to see more money for creating small businesses.

Age is another hurdle

Walker and the Zapotechnes also face another hurdle: their ages. Walker is 51, and Bill Zapotechne will be 55 this month. His wife is 58. They worked in two of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy: financial services and manufacturing.

Linda Barrington, managing director of Cornell University's Institute for Compensation Studies and an expert on labor force composition and market trends, said the nature of this recession caught many such workers off-guard. Recessions traditionally had affected people over 50 less than other groups, partly because they had seniority.

True, their jobless rates are still lower than the national average and substantially lower than workers in their 20s. The U.S. unemployment rate for July was 9.5 percent, but only 6.9 percent for workers over 55. For 20- to 24-year-olds, it was 15.6 percent. Jobless rates for workers over 55 rarely went above 5 percent in the past, Barrington said.

But because of economic restructuring, the economy shed jobs that older workers might have held on to through seniority. Many of those jobs will never return.

Barrington said the best option for 99ers and other long-term unemployed is to get retrained. If that isn't an option, they should consider volunteer activities that would give them skills needed to freshen a r sum .

Unable to land another job in banking, Walker is interested in switching to something in the medical field. She has looked at programs for pharmacy technicians and medical billing, but tuition-free ones are difficult to get into.

The Zapotechnes also intend to get retrained. One recent afternoon, their college-age son was helping them fill out financial aid forms to help pay for a medical billing program.

"It seems to be where the future is," Bill Zapotechne said.

Collecting unemployment in Ohio

If you've lost your job or want to be ready for such a setback, here are some key facts about collecting unemployment benefits.

The Question: Who is eligible?

The Answer: Most employees who lose their jobs through no fault of their own are eligible to receive unemployment benefits. You're out of luck if you were fired for misconduct or quit without cause on your own. Generally, anyone who worked full time over the course of a year, which is called a base period, probably will qualify.

You must have worked at least 20 weeks in the base period, which is typically the first four of the last five quarters. You must have earned at least $213 on average each week to qualify for benefits. For more information, go to jfs.ohio.gov/unemp_comp_faq/index.stm.

The Question: What is the maximum weekly check?

The Answer: Unemployed workers can receive a maximum of $375 for an adult with no dependents and $508 for an adult with three or more dependents.

The Question: How long can a person receive benefits?

The Answer: Regular unemployment benefits are typically 26 weeks, but during the recession, Congress added 53 weeks of extended benefits, plus 20 more weeks in Ohio and other states with high unemployment. The extended benefits were interrupted briefly in June, but Congress last month reinstated them until Nov. 27.

The Question: How does a person file?

The Answer: You can file a new claim online at unemployment.ohio.gov/ or by phone at 1-877-OHIOJOB (644-6562). The phone lines are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Claimants must file weekly.

Ohio residents who commute to work in another state should file for benefits where their employers are situated, not where they live.

SOURCES: Ohio Department of Job and Family Services; Associated Press


News researcher Jo Ellen Corrigan contributed to this story.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: operkins@plaind.com, 216-999-4868
Related topics: 99ers, business, economy, jobless benefits, metro news, ohio unemployment, politics, unemployment

The Bismarck Tribune, August 15, 2010, Sunday

Copyright 2010 The Bismarck Tribune, a division of Lee Enterprises
All Rights Reserved
The Bismarck Tribune

August 15, 2010, Sunday

Laborers' union to rejoin AFL-CIO

BODY:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Laborers' International Union has agreed to rejoin the AFL-CIO, sparking hopes that a once-splintered labor movement is moving closer to reuniting under a single umbrella.

"We are very excited that the labor movement is headed toward becoming more unified just as we need it the most," said Richard Trumka, president of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, on Friday in a statement issued to The Associated Press.

Laborers spokesman David Miller declined to confirm the decision, but said leaders of the 800,000-member union representing construction workers would have more to say after a meeting on Sunday. Trumka told the AFL-CIO's ex-ecutive council last week that the move would become final in October.

The Laborers and five other unions bolted from the federation in 2005 in a bitter dispute that damaged the AFL-CIO's political heft and sapped millions in dues from its budget.

Led by Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern, the breakaway unions formed the rival Change to Win federation amid complaints that the AFL-CIO wasn't doing enough to organize new workers and halt the steady decline in union membership and influence.

Trumka has made a major push for unity since he was named AFL-CIO president last September, rekindling closer relationships with SEIU, the Teamsters, the United Food & Commercial Workers and the United Farm Workers - the four remaining Change to Win members.

The Laborers are the second union to come back to the AFL-CIO.

Last year, the union of hotel, restaurant and clothing workers known as UNITE HERE also rejoined.

While Change to Win has helped its unions become more sophisticated and aggressive in organizing drives, critics say it never became a viable challenger to the 55-year-old AFL-CIO as a new model for organized labor.

"It's an organization that never really got off the ground," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the Univer-sity of California, Santa Barbara. "Everything Change to Win did could have been done inside the AFL-CIO."

Stern retired as president of the SEIU earlier this year. This week, his top lieutenant, Anna Burger, left her posts as head of Change to Win and as secretary-treasurer of SEIU.
Spokeswoman Amy Weiss said the point of Change to Win was not to create a mirror image of the AFL-CIO.

"Change to Win has enabled its member unions to strategize and coordinate in new ways, and its critical early en-dorsement of Barack Obama helped set the stage for the general election," Weiss said.

Lichtenstein said Change to Win was mostly a vehicle for Stern, whose brash ideas clashed with leaders at the AFL-CIO. He predicted that "it's only a matter of time" before the remaining breakaway unions fall back into the fold.

But the four remaining unions in Change to Win have given no indication they are ready to make that move yet. SEIU's new president, Mary Kay Henry, has steered clear of such talk, saying her union and others have shown they can coordinate on political campaigns and labor's legislative agenda without being part of the same federation.

"Whether they reaffiliate or not, everyone is trying to make peace and go forward and unite as a labor movement," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. "We may see one federation at some point, but right now there's an effort to be one labor movement."

LOAD-DATE: August 16, 2010

Businessweek, August 12, 2010, Thursday

Businessweek

August 12, 2010, Thursday

Businessweek

Business School: Hotbed of Narcissism?
Posted by: Louis Lavelle on August 12, 2010

The rap against b-school students for some time now has been that they’re self-centered people focused on money who will stop at nothing, including cheating, to advance their own interests. Like most sweeping generalizations that one is probably wrong almost as often as it’s right.

Now comes some new research that suggests that the generalization has more than a dash of truth to it. The study, presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Montreal, was authored by four researchers from Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Jim Westerman, Jacqueline Bergman, Shawn Bergman, and Joseph Daly surveyed more than 500 undergraduate business and psychology students at their school and concluded that they are more narcissistic than college students of the past, and that of the two, business students exhibit the highest levels of the personality trait .

Since the study hasn’t been published yet, I called Westerman for the low-down on the study’s findings. He told me that the students who were surveyed were measured for narcissism using something called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. The NPI presents pairs of statements and asks subjects to choose the one that best describes them; it gives researchers a way to quantify personality traits such as modesty, selfishness, and assertiveness.

So how bad is it for b-school students? Pretty bad. The researchers, Westerman said, found that psychology students had an average NPI score of 15.19. The business students registered 17.67 on the narcissism scale. (Keep in mind that they still have a ways to go before they hit Donald Trump levels; the NPI tops out at 30.) And it gets worse. Westerman said the team compared the NPI scores it found with those reported by previous researchers. In 1992, the average NPI score of college students (not just business students) reported in one study was 15.93; a few years earlier, in 1987, it was 15.65. College students, particularly business students, were turning into full-blown ego maniacs.

Westerman blames business schools, who he says are either attracting narcissists, creating them from scratch, or a little of both. And that, he says, is a big problem for business, where he says the personality trait can cause all manner of mayhem. "Increasing narcissism has been linked to risky decision-making, alcohol abuse, and toxic work environments," Westerman says. "The fact that business schools are creating narcissists and sending them out into the workplace is not a good thing."

Oddly enough, a second paper presented at the conference suggests that narcissism in the right dosage might not be such a bad thing. That paper, authored by Jack Goncalo and Sharon Kim at Cornell and Francis Flynn of Stanford, found that narcissists on their own can undermine the workings of teams. But when two or more are present their tendency to compete with each other for the attention of teammates has the effect of prodding the group to consider a wider range of possible solutions.

So don't knock narcissists, just go out and find another one. If you're in b-school, that shouldn't be too hard.

MSNBC.com, August 9, 2010, Monday

Copyright 2010 MSNBC.com
All Rights Reserved
MSNBC.com

August 9, 2010, Monday

Is it worth it to go to college?

BYLINE: Allison Linn, msnbc.com

For people considering college, perhaps the greatest lesson of the Great Recession is not that you shouldn't go to college but that you should make sure the investment will pay off.

BODY:
Wracked by recession, choked with debt and uncertain about the future, more Americans are asking: Is college worth it?

The question is understandable. Private college tuition and fees have risen 70 percent over the past decade, accord-ing to the College Board. That is more than twice the rate of inflation. Public college tuition and fees have doubled in the same timeframe.

But while college debt has proven a financial chokehold for some people, a four-year degree is still great insurance, especially in a tough job market: The unemployment rate for people with a bachelor's degree or higher was 4.5 percent in July, compared to 10.1 percent for those with only a high school diploma.

Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Great Recession isn't that you shouldn't go to college, but that you should approach it like you would any other investment: with caution.

"It's a very risky investment," said Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University and president of Economic Security Planning Inc., which makes financial planning software.

Calculations done by Kotlikoff for msnbc.com suggest that attending a public college might make more financial sense than a private college. Private schools charge $26,300 a year on average, compared with $7,000 for in-state stu-dents at public, four-year schools, according to the College Board.

Readers, do you think college is worth the cost?

Using his company's website, ESPlanner.com, Kotlikoff calculated how much discretionary income a student would have after graduation, assuming he or she took out loans to fund an education at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a public school, or private New York University.

The calculation assumed the student earned a business degree, got a job making $65,900 (the median industry salary, according to the BLS) and paid 8 percent interest on the loans.
After factoring in everything from taxes to 401(k) contributions, Kotlikoff calculated the graduate paying off the debt from UMass would have $36,515 for discretionary spending. That
would remain stable even after his debt was paid off.

The NYU graduate would never catch up. He or she would have $22,128 for discretionary spending at age 22, ris-ing to $35,311 at age 42, when the debt is paid off.

Of course, there are factors that could make the higher debt more worthwhile. Perhaps the NYU graduate would find that degree translated into a higher salary over time, making the extra tuition pay off. But even at the most elite private universities, there are no such guarantees.

Readers, are you working more than one job?

In fact, a small group of economists and others have begun to argue that the investment is, in fact, too risky, and that people should skip both college and the debt associated with it.

In an article in The New York Times this summer, Richard K. Vedder, founder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, pointed out that Americans can expect continued
strong growth in low-skill fields such as nurse's aides, which do not require a college degree.

Appearing on msnbc cable last week, Formula Capital Director James Altucher suggested that parents should give their kids cash to start a business rather than sending them to college.
Entry into middle class In general, however, the financial odds still greatly favor a person with a college degree.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that median weekly earnings for a person with a bachelor's degree was $1,025 in 2009, compared with just $626 for those with only a high
school diploma.

"A postsecondary education is necessary for entry into the middle class," said Nicole Smith, senior economist with The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
Consider the jobs that the government expects will show the largest employment growth over between 2008 and 2018. The ones that require little if any extra education - such home health aide, retail salesperson, customer service representative - generally pay in the range of $21,000 to $32,000, according to the BLS.

The ones that require a bachelor's degree, including accountants and computer software engineers, pay two or three times that.

There are also the countless intangible benefits students can get out of college, ranging from friends and connections to an appreciation of subjects like art and philosophy. Those may or may not translate into a higher salary.

"If you're going to college only with the idea of improving your occupational standing, you're going to be disappointed," said W. Norton Grubb, a professor of higher education at University of California, Berkeley. "There's a lot about college that really isn't about occupational benefits."

High cost of studying

Still, Grubb says that pragmatic planning - especially about where you go and what you study - can make a huge finan-cial difference.

Before signing those student loan documents, students first need to be honest with themselves about whether they have the dedication and drive to complete a bachelor's degree, Grubb said.
Just over half the people who started a college degree in 2000 completed their degree within six years, according to the Department of Education figures. College dropouts can end up saddled with student loan debt but lacking all the earning power of a graduate.

Second, it's important to consider the financial implications of where you go to college. Grubb notes that some low- to mid-quality schools have very poor graduation rates, with as few as one quarter of their students actually earning a degree.

What you study also can make an enormous difference.

"If you become a philosophy major and that somehow can't translate into much income in the future ... the payoff just won't be there," Kotlikoff said.

Finally, experts say you should consider very carefully how much in college loans you absolutely need, and how much you can pay out of pocket with a part-time job, family help or savings. Suze Orman, the personal finance guru, recommends not taking on more in loans than you expect to make in your first year out of school.

"You have got to be responsible. If you are taking out a student loan, you have got to know, what will the repay-ments be? If you don't think you can make those payments easily, I am telling you, you better think twice," Orman said in a recent appearance on the TODAY show.

Maybe it's just you Kevin Hallock, director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University, thinks that it is an oversimplification to compare the wages of non-college grads to college grads. That's because the very qualities that make a person a good college student may also make them a successful employee or business owner, whether or not they have a degree.

"Maybe (it's) because you're good at things that people pay for, like showing up on time and completing assignments and being part of some sort of structure," Hallock said.

Nevertheless, Hallock also believes that college can lead to a job that is more stable, or has better health and retirement benefits.

"I think we have to remember that the payoff isn't necessarily just the higher wage but a more fulfilling job or a more interesting job," Hallock said.

Fretting about college costs? Take a break and follow me on Twitter @alinnmsnbc

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 2010

The Oregonian, August 8, 2010, Sunday

Copyright 2010 The Oregonian
All Rights Reserved
The Oregonian (Portland Oregon)

August 8, 2010, Sunday

Money hot topic as NBA, union talks turn serious

NBA owners say they are hemorrhaging money and need to change the formula under which players are paid. The players union doesn't agree.

That basic disagreement is at the heart of the league's looming labor unrest. The collective bargaining agreement under which the NBA operates, signed in 2005, expires July 1, 2011, raising the specter of a lockout.

The owners and union will meet Tuesday or Wednesday in New York, CBSSports.com reported last week. NBA spokesman Tim Frank confirmed a meeting will occur this week, but was unable to specify a day.

With less than two months left until training camps begin, this week's meeting might be the best opportunity for the sides to bridge the differences that, at the moment, seem so daunting that many are predicting the NBA's first lockout since the 1998-99 season was shortened by 32 games.

The meeting comes after a summer in which the same owners who claimed they lost millions seemingly spent freely on free agents, with LeBron James and other stars getting maximum or near-maximum deals, and other, less accomplished players getting hefty free agent deals, too.
In February, NBA commissioner David Stern projected that the league would lose $400 million for the 2009-10 season, then amended that figure to $370 million last month.

Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, has said in interviews with multiple media outlets that he disputes the NBA's figures.

"I'm preparing for a lockout right now and haven't seen anything to change that notion," Hunter told ESPN.com last month.

The union would be happy to have owners simply renew the current CBA, but it seems clear that will not happen. The Associated Press reported in February that an owners' proposal submitted to the union called for several drastic changes, including reducing the value and length of maximum contracts, and limiting guarantees on all contracts to half their value. Currently, most NBA contracts are fully guaranteed.

The proposal also called for cutting salaries for first-round draft picks by a third and reducing the minimum salary by as much as 20 percent.

The laundry list of cuts, however, could just be a negotiating point from which the owners could pull back to entice concessions from the union, said Lawrence Kahn, a professor of labor economics and collective bargaining at Cornell University who has studied sports labor negotiations.

"I think that's how most negotiations proceed," Kahn said. "I don't pretend to get inside the heads of the NBA, but back in 1982, they made all kinds of contract demands on the union, then dropped all of them except for the one they really cared about, which was the salary cap."

If there's a golden nugget the owners are reaching for this time, it could be the players' share of what's called basketball-related income. BRI is defined as any income received by teams and their ventures, including ticket sales, parking, sponsorships and even dance team and mascot appearances.

Under the current CBA, players are guaranteed 57 percent of league-wide BRI in salary.
To the owners, the problem with BRI is that it is calculated as simply the money coming in, with no accounting for the amount that teams spend to make that money.

"Part of the problem with the existing system is it's based largely on revenue, not net revenue," NBA deputy com-missioner Adam Silver, the league's point man in the negotiations, said at a news conference last month. "Our teams did a spectacular job in a down economy of increasing ticket sales, but that came at the cost of additional promotions, additional marketing, additional staff."

The union points out that the salary cap for 2010-11 --which also is based on BRI --came out at $58 million, much higher than the $50.4 million the league had projected.

And some critics point to the contracts players received during the current free agency period as proof that owners have money to spend. How can owners willing to give Drew Gooden a five-year, $32 million deal or Darko Milicic a four-year, $20 million contract cry poverty, some say.

Stern counters that owners need to keep their teams competitive to be successful at the box office.

"Our owners spend within the system," Stern said after an owners meeting in Las Vegas last month. "They're en-couraged, praised, and otherwise driven to improve their teams. Of course they have that capacity. It winds up driving them to unprofitability. They want to change that system so when they get driven to it, whatever they do, there won't be losses. That's all."
A lockout would be the first in the NBA since the start of the 1998-99 season, which was delayed until February. After the lockout, the league improvised a 50-game schedule by extending the regular season into May.
Mike Tokito: 503-294-7603;
miketokito@news.oregonian.com

LOAD-DATE: August 9, 2010

Lansing State Journal, August 8, 2010, Sunday

Copyright 2010 Lansing State Journal (Michigan)
All Rights Reserved
Lansing State Journal (Michigan)

August 8, 2010, Sunday

MSU spends more in nonacademic areas as state aid drops

BYLINE: By, Matthew Miller

BODY:
With state support shrinking, an increasing share of Michigan State University's budget is coming from student tuition and fees.

At the same time, the share of the budget MSU spends on instruction has declined.

MSU's general fund grew by more than 75 percent between 1998 and 2008. The amount spent on instruction grew by just 64 percent. The amount spent on student services rose 35 percent.
At the same time, spending on administration increased by 106 percent, while operations and maintenance of the university's physical plant rose 95 percent. And as tuition doubled, the amount of its own money MSU spends on scholarships has nearly tripled.

MSU is not an exception. According a recent report by the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability, colleges and universities across the country are spending more of their money in nonaca-demic areas.

MSU officials say it's a case of shifting necessities brought about by declines in state support for higher education. Some faculty and students worry it's more a matter of shifting priorities.
Kim Wilcox, the university's chief academic officer, said the change in how MSU spends its money "is a story of the state walking away from its responsibilities, plain and simple."

In 1998, state appropriations made up just over half of the university's general fund. A decade later, it was 30 per-cent.

Student tuition and fees filled in much of the gap, increasing by 109 percent over the 10 years.
To keep the university accessible, MSU needed to invest more money in scholarships, Wilcox said. Because the state is no longer paying for the university to build new buildings or maintain the ones it has, MSU has had to pay out of its own pocket.

Rather than hoping state appropriations will bounce back, MSU's leaders have decided they need to "diversify our revenue streams," Wilcox said.

"That means we have to invest in places that are going to be useful to us in the long term," he said, such as fundraising and programs to help MSU win research grants and contracts.
That is, in areas that aren't directly related to educating most of the university's 47,000 students.

Classroom changes

But some faculty and students worry about what they see as a diminishing commitment to quality education.

"In the recent budget cuts, there are many classes that have gone from having graders to just being computer-graded classes," said Phylis Floyd, a professor in the Department of Art and Art History. She is also vice president of the MSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, but emphasized she was speaking only for herself.

"This is at Michigan State University," Floyd said. "That's outrageous."

She was referring, in part, to cuts made just in the past year, after MSU proposed shutting down two departments and more than two dozen degree programs and asked colleges to pare back their operating budgets.

Those cuts can be felt in the classroom.

"There are places where, in the past, we might have taught a course with 75 students and then, once a week, small groups of 25 would meet with a teaching assistant for a discussion section, and those are being done away with," said Stephen Arch, the chairman of MSU's English department. "We can't afford to add the teaching assistant to that assignment."

To keep grading loads manageable "we have tried to change our understanding that every single class has to be a writing class and instead recognize that a major in English will take 10 or 12 classes total, some of which will be more writing-intensive than others," he said.
Arch believes there is something to be gained from that sort of rethinking but said "it's not what we chose. We recognize that it's an economic necessity."

It's not what Sam Inglot would choose, either. The sophomore journalism student said he has been disappointed by large classes where electronic clickers are used to gather student feedback and teaching assistants are few.

"I would like my degree to have some weight and some value to it," he said. "Not just, 'Look at me, I filled out the bubble sheet and got more right than everybody else.' "
Big Ten comparisons

MSU's spending on instruction is comparable to that of similar schools.
In 2008, the most recent year for which federally reported data was available, MSU ranked fourth among the public universities in the Big Ten for both percentage of its budget spent on instruction and the amount it spends per student.

And though executives, administrators and managers were the fastest-growing pool of employees from 2003 to 2008 - growing by 28 percent, while the number of faculty increased by 13 percent and the number of clerical and maintenance workers fell - MSU still spent a smaller portion of its budget on administration than most of its peers, ranking seventh among the Big Ten public universities and eighth for the amount it spends per student.
Student services, a category that includes counseling, performing arts, admissions and financial aid administration among other things, is a different story.

In 2008, MSU spent a smaller percentage of its money on student services than any other Big Ten school. Only Purdue University spent less per student.

Kyle Dysarz, a 2010 MSU graduate who chaired the University Committee on Student Affairs last year, called that "alarming."

"Student services is extremely important to complement what we do academically," he said.
"The students that need to use the counseling center, they actually need that center to even survive their four years here."

Support services key

Research bears him out. While student services are sometimes viewed by critics as frills, student service expenditures have an impact on students' academic success, said Ronald Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute.

That is particularly true for those students who are the first in their families to go to college or who come from poor backgrounds.

"These students will tend to need more support services than will the high-income kids coming from highly educated families," Ehrenberg said.

Wilcox said he stands by MSU's results - the increasing graduation rates, the improving academic profile of its stu-dents, the falling student-teacher ratio, grant funding that's approaching $500 million annually.

Had MSU not invested in fundraising and research operations, "we'd have fewer resources total," Wilcox said.

"We'd have fewer students supported. We'd have fewer students employed. We'd probably have a different profile of students enrolled," he said.

"It seems to me growing the instructional fund from $300 (million) to $500 million is at least a statement that we think instruction is important."

Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project, which recently published the report on college spending, said spending on administration is "a necessary price of business and certainly not something that we mean to be all that pejorative about."

But if there is a link between that spending and students' academic success ... "Nobody has ever found any evidence for it," Wellman said.

As state government support dwindles and the financial burden on students grows, "it's important to ask tough questions about where the money is going and about necessity," she said, "so that we don't just automatically shift costs onto students."

Big Ten ranking

MSU's rank in spending compared with public universities in the Big Ten: 4th
share of budget spent on instruction and instructional spending per student
7th share of budget spent on administration 8th administrative spending per student
10th percent of budget spent on student services 9th student services spending per student
4th percent of budget spent on research 7th research spending per student
Source: National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS data center

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 2010

Buffalo News, August 7, 2010, Saturday

Copyright 2010 The Buffalo News
All Rights Reserved
Buffalo News (New York)

August 7, 2010, Saturday

Cornell students spend summer helping to better life in the city

BYLINE: By Jay Rey - NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Buffalo has been getting some help this summer from Cornell University, whose students have gotten acquainted with the city from the ground up -- helping people find jobs, working with immigrants, bettering Buffalo.

Cornell University's Industrial Labor Relations School, which has an extension office on Main Street in Buffalo, brought 10 students to the area for the second summer of its fellowship program, "The High Road Runs Through the City."

The participants are paid $2,900 for eight weeks of service on a variety of projects with local not-for-profits.

"What they all have in common is this idea that there are very important things that can be done at the grass-roots level," said Lou Jean Fleron, emeritus professor at Cornell's extension site in Buffalo, who supervises the program with attorney and faculty adviser Sam Magavern.
"The idea is to really immerse them into Buffalo and all its challenges."

The program wrapped up Friday.

While the students spent the summer helping out at the agencies, the experience brought to life what they've been learning in the classroom.

Annie Finn, a Cornell junior, spent the past two months working with refugees at the International Institute of Buf-falo. Although the Nardin Academy graduate is from Buffalo, it gave her a whole new perspective on her hometown.

One of her duties was teaching English as a second language.

"I never taught before and didn't expect to, but it was one of the most amazing experiences," Finn said.

J.C. Tretter, a Cornell sophomore, spent his time with Hispanics United of Buffalo helping people find work and building a database of resumes. He was amazed at the amount of service
the agency provides to the community.

"I live in the suburbs and was never on the West Side," said Tretter from Akron. "To meet the people, to hear their problems, this gave me the opportunity to see it first hand."

And Thom Barnes, a Cornell junior, worked with the Coalition for Economic Justice, organizing a forum for local candidates for State Senate.

Coming to Buffalo from small-town Saranac Lake was an eye-opener for him, and reaffirmed his interest in be-coming a public defender.

"It certainly has been enlightening," Barnes said. "Coming here and seeing problems that people face on a daily ba-sis, and doing something to try to fix that, was really rewarding."

The other fellows were: Julia Burgdorf, who worked with the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York; Kwan Park, International Institute; Elaina Mule and Zach Smith, Partnership for the Public Good; Sam Bordia, People United for Sustainable Housing; Aaron Klein, Urban Roots Community Garden Center; and Mike Dolce, Western New York Apollo Alliance.
e-mail: jrey@buffnews.com

LOAD-DATE: August 7, 2010

New York Times, August 6, 2010, Friday

New York Times

August 6, 2010, Friday

New York Times

For American Students, Life Lessons in the Mideast

By JENNIFER CONLIN
Cairo

AT first glance, they seem like typical American college students on their junior year abroad, swapping stories of language mishaps and cultural clashes, sharing sightseeing tips and travel deals. But these students are not studying at Oxford, the Sorbonne or an art institute in Florence.

Instead, they are attending the American University in Cairo, studying Arabic, not French, and dealing with cultural, social and religious matters far more complex than those in Spain or Italy. And while their European counterparts might head to Heidelberg, Germany, for a weekend of beer drinking, these students visit places most Americans know only through news reports — the West Bank, Ethiopia and even northern Iraq. No “Sex and the City” jaunts to Abu Dhabi for this group.

In what educators are calling the fastest growing study-abroad program, American college students are increasingly choosing to spend their traditional junior year abroad in places like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, wanting to experience the Arab world beyond America’s borders and viewpoints.

According to a February 2010 report from the Institute of International Education, a private nonprofit group that administers the Fulbright program for the United States government, the number of American students studying in Arabic-speaking countries increased sixfold to 3,399 in 2007 from 562 in 2002.

While that number may seem small compared with the more than 33,000 American students who headed to the United Kingdom in 2007 and the 13,000 who studied in China, it represents the fastest growing region for study abroad in the world. Between 2006 and 2007 the number of American students studying in Arab countries rose nearly 60 percent while China had only a 19 percent increase and England, 1.9 percent.

These numbers have no doubt been bolstered by the Critical Language Scholarship Program, begun in 2006 by the State Department — a government initiative set up to encourage college-age students to study Arabic, as well as 12 other listed languages, including Punjabi and Azerbaijani. Since then the program has become so popular (more than 12,000 students having applied for the Arabic program since its inception, with 800 being awarded scholarships), that this year eligibility was restricted to college and graduate students who have already had at least one year of Arabic.

Lisa Anderson, the provost at the American University in Cairo, which has a student population of around 7,000, said she has “absolutely seen a surge in U.S. students’ interest in the region,” adding that before 9/11 the university had 50 to 75 American students studying there each year, compared with around 350 a semester now.

“But you have to understand, these are not the same kids who go bike touring in France,” said Ms. Anderson, who joined the faculty two years ago from Columbia University. “Many are contemplating careers in the Middle East, perhaps with the Foreign Service or an N.G.O. They are very serious about this region of the world.”

Alex Thompson, 21, a Princeton senior this academic year who spent last year at the American University in Cairo, is typical of the student Ms. Anderson described. His interest in the Middle East stemmed from a summer spent at Seeds of Peace, a camp based in Maine with a mission to empower high school students from America, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as other war-torn areas, to work for a better future.

“I knew then I wanted to learn more about the conflict in the Middle East and live there,” Mr. Thompson said, adding that he spent one of his last vacations in Egypt traveling around Kurdistan with some friends. “We took a cab to Iraq from Turkey,” he said, as casually as if he had just jumped the Eurostar from London to Paris.

LIKE most American students traveling to the Arab world, Mr. Thompson had already taken two years of modern standard Arabic at Princeton. Yet modern standard Arabic is a formal written form (the language of the Koran) that is rarely spoken in the streets and is likened to Shakespearean English — making it necessary for serious students to learn one of the many spoken regional dialects. Mr. Thompson, who hopes to work in Islamic finance one day, learned Egyptian colloquial Arabic, the everyday language in Cairo.

Brian Reeves, 21, and Leigh Nusbaum, 20, incoming seniors at Brandeis University, are Jewish, speak Hebrew and have spent considerable time in Israel. Hoping to one day work on the peace settlement, they came to the Middle East last term wanting to explore the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict while honing their language skills.

“Arabic is the new Russian,” said Ms. Nusbaum, who spent last spring studying at the American University in Cairo and wants to become a regional diplomat. Mr. Reeves chose the University of Jordan in Amman, where he learned the Levantine dialect spoken in the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon. “I wanted to find out what Jews and Arabs have in common,” Mr. Reeves said. “A lot.”

Both students traveled extensively, including personal fact-finding visits to Palestinian refugee camps, as well as to Ramallah in the West Bank, all the while being discreet about their Jewish identity. Despite peace among Israel, Jordan and Egypt, strong feelings exist in all three countries when it comes to the Palestinian conflict.

To that end, Mr. Reeves quickly learned to speak in code when in public. “Israel became ‘Disneyland,’ Tel Aviv was ‘Epcot,’ and Jerusalem was called, ‘Cinderella’s Castle,’ ” he said. For Ms. Nusbaum, the experience of being delayed at the Israeli border for nearly five hours when she tried to cross from Jordan into the West Bank was both frustrating and enlightening. “I had stamps in my passport from Lebanon and Syria so they questioned me extensively before letting me through,” she said. “It gave me a real taste of what the Palestinians go through.”

Female American students also see what life is like for women in the Middle East. Hannah McDermott, 20, a senior this year at Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, spent last semester in Cairo researching women’s rights issues in Egypt, including female genital mutilation and human trafficking, for a United Nations organization. Though she said it helped her decide her future (she would like to work on women’s issues in Iran and Afghanistan), she remembers feeling the sting of “every man’s eyes,” despite dressing conservatively. No wonder it is not unusual for American mothers to worry about their daughters studying here. When Ms. McDermott told her mother her study-abroad destination, she said, ‘Why can’t you just go to France like other kids?”

Anna Khandros, 21, faced a similar reaction from her family when she told them she wanted to study in Beirut. “It is not easy to get your parents to let you go to a country with a State Department travel advisory, that is also home to a U.S. defined terrorist group, and that just went through a war,” said Ms. Khandros, who this academic year will be back at Brandeis and spent last semester at the American University of Beirut. Once there, however, any anxiety evaporated. “A.U.B. is like a resort,” said Ms. Khandros, who is studying the history of the modern Middle East. “My dorms look out over the beach and Beirut is an incredibly cosmopolitan and safe city during peaceful times.”

Last year, 135 American study-abroad students were enrolled at the American University of Beirut, according to Rania Murr, the university’s international student services coordinator. “The year after the war,” she said, referring to the 2006 conflict, “we actually had an increase of American students.” She said that during the war many preferred to stay in the mountains with the families of fellow Lebanese students than to return home.

American University in Washington, which has had a 400 percent increase in the number of students studying in the Middle East since 2004, stopped sending students to Beirut after 2006. “Getting our students out during the war was very difficult,” said Sara Dumont, the director of American University Abroad (the State Department travel advisory says that American citizens must arrange their own travel out of Lebanon if unrest occurs).

J. Scott Van Der Meid, the director of study abroad at Brandeis, said the university never stopped sending students to Beirut but now provides them with a special type of emergency evacuation insurance. “Clearly the Middle East is an area of the world that is on our students’ radar screen and we don’t want to prohibit them from going there,” Mr. Van Der Meid said. “But we need to keep them safe.”

THOUGH American University has halted its Beirut program, it is starting one in Syria this spring. “Few Syrians speak English, so it is a better place for American students to really immerse themselves in the language,” Ms. Dumont said, noting that most of the classes are taught in English at American University in Cairo and in Beirut.

“These students know there is a shortage in America of Arabic speakers,” she said. “Knowing the language can only increase their job prospects.”

To that end, Middlebury College students are obligated to take a “language pledge” to speak only Arabic during their time in Alexandria, Egypt (the only exception being calls home). Michael Kremer, 21, a senior at Tufts University, is nearly fluent after attending Middlebury’s program. “I learned so much more Arabic than any of my friends studying on other programs,” he said, adding that they were housed in dormitories with local students with whom they practiced their Arabic.

Already most of these students have seen their experiences in the Middle East translate into coveted internships and jobs. Brian Reeves spent this summer working for a congresswoman in Washington, as well as doing research for the Jewish Dialogue Group, a grass-roots organization trying to foster constructive discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within Jewish communities.

Alex Thompson, from Princeton, earned a paid internship in Cairo this summer with a social entrepreneurship nongovernmental organization helping Egyptians write business plans. And William Zeman, a senior at American University, returned from a study-abroad program at the America-Mideast Educational and Training Services in Cairo with more than 20 clips, some front page, from an internship at the Daily News Egypt, an English-language newspaper.

More important, these students say they now view the region completely differently. Kathryn Baxter, 20, a student at American University, said of her time in Egypt, “I will never again look at a story about the Middle East with such a one-sided perspective.” Anthony Clairmont, 21, a senior at Sewanee: The University of the South, who spent six months in Morocco, said, “I genuinely enjoyed watching the bottom fall out of every one of my preconceived ideas about the Muslim world.”

Yet none of them said they had confronted anti-American sentiment, other than occasional disagreements over foreign policy. “I found that whether I was in Cairo, Aswan, Amman or Damascus, people with whom I interacted wanted to talk about common interests — family, sports, music and economics — rather than our struggles and disagreements,” said Richard Frohlichstein, 21, a senior at Georgetown University who spent last autumn at American University in Cairo.

Or as Anna Oltman, 21, a senior at Franklin & Marshall College, said about her semester in Egypt: “For better or worse, and certainly not unintentionally, 9/11 linked our generation of Americans with its parallel generation of Middle Easterners. We need to get to know them.”

Interpress Service, August 6, 2010, Friday

All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2010 Global Information Network
Interpress Service

August 6, 2010, Friday

Mexico: Towards a low-carbon society not at the cost of jobs

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 5, 2010 (IPS/GIN) - Transport workers are concerned that measures to mitigate climate change, like greenhouse gas emissions reduction, may put their jobs at risk, while experts are urging a transformation of the predominant transport model worldwide.

"The future of transport depends on sustainability. But there has to be a transition, because change can't happen overnight," Sandra Burleson of the United States' Union of Transport Workers, which represents 135,000 members in the air transport, public passenger service and railroad sectors, told IPS.

Links between transport and climate change are a central item for discussion at the 42nd Congress of the Interna-tional Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) being held in the Mexican capital Aug. 5-12.

Congress participants from 368 unions in 112 countries debated the issue Wednesday at a special one-day conference on the eve of the official opening. Divergent opinions were expressed about the global climate change crisis, and especially about the use of fossil fuels like coal and oil that are essential for transport today.

The head of the U.S. Transportation Communications International Union (TCU), Robert Scardelletti, told the fo-rum Wednesday that it is possible, even necessary, for unions to oppose job-destroying initiatives associated with cli-mate change.

But at the same time, he said, "we can join with environmentalists on a range of policy issues."
The TCU is one of the oldest unions in the United States, with approximately 46,000 members, many of whom are railroad workers.

The transport sector is responsible for 13 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Road transport emits 10 percent of the global total, according to a document titled "Transport Workers and Climate Change: Towards Sustainable Low-Carbon Mobility", presented and discussed at Wednesday's special one-day conference.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the main greenhouse gases, and 23 percent of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion comes from transport activities. Road transport, again, is the largest contributor, according to the report.

"Transport emissions are growing faster than in any other sector. Therefore, it is important to take actions towards mitigation and adaptation," Lara Skinner and Sean Sweeney, researchers at the Global Labour Institute (GLI) at Cornell University in the U.S., who attended the conference, told IPS in a statement.

The ITF Climate Change Working Group and the GLI worked together to prepare the report specifically for this international conference. It addresses issues like emissions reductions, promoting public transport, creating quality jobs, technological change, and the social changes required for more rational, greener transport policies.

The experts propose using the "reduce-shift-improve" strategy, which combines actions to curtail emissions, changes towards more sustainable forms of transport and improvements in fuel and energy efficiency.

"Transport is one of the most serious problems. However, it is notthe root problem, but one effect of global patterns of production and consumption of goods and services," Asbjorn Wahl, the Norwegian chair of the ITF Climate Change Working Group, told IPS.

Low transport costs that do not fully reflect pollution, high mobility of goods and people, increasing car use and an emphasis on land transport are behind rising greenhouse gas emissions, according to the 55-page document.

The ITF Executive Committee decided not to present the report on climate change as an ITF policy statement, al-though this had been the original plan.

Instead, the four-yearly ITF Congress, which opened Thursday, will vote on three resolutions proposed by the con-ference, which if passed will be binding for the organization and its policies over the next four years.

Motion One is the most ambitious of the three, and already has the backing of 51 unions from around the world. This proposal adopts the"reduce-shift-improve" strategy for the transport sector.

However, it insists that the ITF "will never accept a transition to a low-carbon society that takes place through in-creased unemployment and the undermining of wages and working conditions" for transport workers.

"There are conditions for alternative transportation, but we are developing countries," Zeleke Mena and Zerihon Alemu, representing the Ethiopian Transport and Communications
Workers' Trade Union Industrial Federation, told IPS in a statement.

Ethiopia's capital city, Addis Ababa, with a population of five million, has over 1,100 buses providing public and private transport, and 12,000 taxis. In 2008 the local government added two electric vehicles to the fleet. "People need transportation and what exists is notenough," the delegates said.

The report by ITF, which represents 4.6 million workers worldwide,recommends a moratorium on transport libera-lisation (deregulation and internationalisation), greater use of high-speed trains instead of airplanes, and increasing the energy efficiency of transport methods and vehicles through technological advances.

Studies of "reduce-shift-improve" policies suggest that more transport jobs will be created than lost by these poli-cies, the report says, although it predicts that changes in existing jobs and potential job losses may occur.

"We must be leaders in protecting today's transport jobs, and in creating new jobs in collective passenger transport and other clean modalities. Our first responsibility is to defend our members' jobs and standard of living," Scardelletti said.

Mexico releases 715.3 million tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere, with transport contributing some 134 mil-lion tonnes, according to government statistics.
Sixty percent of Mexico's total emissions arise from energy production and consumption, including transport, 14.4 percent is from waste management, 9.9 percent from deforestation, 8.9 percent from industry and 6.4 percent from agriculture.

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 2010