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From Paul Danos, Dean of the Tuck School of Business
MBA students must be involved in addressing societal challenges. In a world where the private sector is of growing importance and in which the private sector controls so much of the wealth of most countries, business leaders cannot ignore the communities in which they work. Each person must respond be it an epidemic such as AIDS, a tsunami, or the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Being a native of New Orleans and having many relatives there, I have a special connection to that particular disaster. We always heard of the dangers of living in a place that was surrounded by water, below sea level and continuously dependent on pumps for drainage. It was said that a "perfect" storm from a certain direction and of a certain intensity would be devastating. It seems that now such a storm, Katrina, has taken a dreadful toll on many people and on a wonderful culture that played such an important part in so many lives. Many now say that the old city and the culture will never fully recover.
Certainly, our MBA students who some day will be leaders in the world's great businesses must view their sphere of responsibility as taking in the welfare of others in society. At Tuck we discuss the relationship between business issues and societal issues; we get students directly involved in long-term solutions through projects and voluntary work. We also encourage our students and the entire community to be involved in crises that demand immediate attention, and in the case of the Gulf Coast devastation to contribute to an organization like the Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org/), which is on the ground making heroic efforts to save lives. Our goal is to expose students to business leadership in its broadest meaning, and contributing to the immediate alleviation of human
suffering and despair is a big part of that.
I am gratified that our first-year students in their first week on campus are mounting a fundraiser for their class and challenging the T'06s to match their goal of $2500 or more. Jim Allwin has pledged to match the students' contributions and I want to encourage everyone in our community to join in.
Students will be sitting outside Pepsico Dining Hall through September 9th from 12:00-1:00 p.m. to collect contributions and answer any questions you might have. You may also bring your contributions to Tuck 114. Please make your checks payable to the American Red Cross. This is going to be a long and arduous road for the people in the disaster zone and I commend our students for taking this initiative.
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