November 30, 2008 at 3:51 pm
School of Management finance Professor Mark Williams, a risk-management and former Federal Reserve Bank examiner, commends President-elect Obama’s introduction of the next administration’s new economic team.
“President-elect Obama did a nice job of conveying crisply that while he cannot step on the field as a quarterback until January 20th, he is still quickly assembling a top economic team that is experienced and able to lead us out of financial turmoil.
“In assembling these economic superheros — including Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, and Melody Barnes — he wanted a group that had sound judgment, were fresh thinkers and had new ideas. These are not characteristics most Americans would choose in describing Bush-appointed economic teammembers, or how they have managed this financial crisis. This was a clear message that a new team, with a lot of experience and new ideas, was suiting up for game day.
“The most important message was the phrase: ‘We can’t have a thriving Wall Street without a thriving Main Street.’ This was important as it sent a clear message that these new economic superheros will no longer allow the interests of Wall Street to take priority over the interests of the American people.”
November 26, 2008 at 8:03 am
School of Management finance Professor Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner, feels strongly that the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market definitely shares some blame, but it isn't justified to make it the latest scapegoat responsible for the economic meltdown. Nonetheless, there is a crying need for regulation of the CDS market and creation of a strong CDS clearinghouse as a direct response to a real and growing financial danger.
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November 26, 2008 at 8:00 am
Boston University's resident nutrition expert Joan Salge Blake was quoted in a Washington Post article this week providing tips on how to avoid feeling too full during your Thanksgiving meal:
"Eat breakfast: Don't starve yourself during the day. Otherwise, you'll be so ravenous come turkey time you'll stuff yourself silly.
Move the mealtime: Eat at 1:00 instead of 4:00, Salge Blake recommends. Wait till it's late and you may find yourself saying, 'It's a long time between breakfast and 4:00. I'm noshing!,' she says. 'The absolute worst that will happen,' she says, 'is that we may be hungry again at 6:00. So you pull it all out again then' to eat when your stomach is really ready for more.
Allocate alcohol: Nothing kills willpower like too much to drink. If alcohol is part of your celebration, sip wine with your meal; don't imbibe on an empty stomach."
November 22, 2008 at 8:00 am
The Boston University Art Gallery (BUAG) is hosting a symposium entitled “Cosmopolitan Identities and Alternative Histories: Africans in Front and Behind the Camera.” The event is taking place in conjunction with the gallery's latest exhibition which features postcards produced from Africa between 1870 and the 1930s. The symposium will be held at the Boston University African Studies Center at 270 Bay State Road today, Saturday, November 22, from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. Exposures
November 21, 2008 at 8:00 am
A recent survey found that Americans who eat out care as much about the restaurants' bathrooms as they do about the food. Boston University School of Hospitality Assistant Professor Peter Szende hopes these new findings make restaurants rethink their tactics on customer retention:
"Restaurants discreetly direct their customers to the bathroom as though it were an amenity beyond their control, outside the boundaries of their core service responsibilities. Most restaurants have well-defined strategies how to turn a table, how to make sure that each customer gets a clean table and a friendly server. Unfortunately, very few restaurants consider the bathroom visit as part of their service blueprint. The bathroom experience should be designed similarly to the meal experience in a way that guests find it so memorable that it should be repeated over time. The active participation and 'physical immersion' enables restaurants to easily stage the experience and provide a relief from real life by engaging customers with distinct and rich esthetic & entertainment elements. "
November 20, 2008 at 7:07 pm
For the first time, the Department of Defense has chosen a School of Social Work to develop a four-year program to help returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their young families, particularly those with children under five years old who are in the critical stage of development. Led by Ellen DeVoe, assistant professor at the School of Social Work, the goal is to both examine the impact of deployment stress and combat trauma on military families with young children and then develop long-lasting approaches to deal with issues such as separation and reassimilation.
"We are really focusing on the reintegration piece and what that means for children and parents, and how soldiers can come back into a familiy after they've been gone from 6 to 18 months.
"If you think about what that length of separation means for a child from infancy to five years old, they don't really have a way to understand where this person went, even though we tell them and show them pictures."
Support for Troops, After Combat
November 20, 2008 at 6:51 pm
A $750,000 NSF ADVANCE grant will focus helping women faculty strengthen their professional networks beyond their own science and engineering departments to enhance their career success.
"Analyzing the impact of social networks on improving the career success and satisfaction of women faculty is truly innovative," said psychology professor Deborah Belle, who will serve as principal investigator for the project.
November 20, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Since January 2007, the value of the New York Times Co.’s New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, has dropped by $980 million. As the Boston Globe's financial woes worsen, speculation is rampant about the possibility that someone will step up to buy the region's largest paper from the Times.
Lou Ureneck, chair of the journalism department, offered commentary in today's Boston Herald saying: "If somebody does come forward, it will be a person who cares about the city, is thinking long term about the importance of journalism in the life of the community, and sees the Globe as an important asset."
November 20, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Law Professor Kevin Outterson, an authority on food and drug law and director of the school’s Health Law Program, says the drug companies likely will fight the ruling as its impact spreads to other states.
"While this is a victory for New Hampshire, the Court of Appeals skirted several of the important Constitutional issues raised in the case. Several other states intend to move forward with similar legislation in the next few months.
"Most Americans are not aware that their prescriptions are being used by drug companies to aggressively market to physicians. The Court of Appeals was sympathetic to the desire to restrain drug marketing by expanding privacy laws to cover additional prescription data. Similar laws in other First Circuit states should now be upheld.
“The court’s focus on standing in part II of the opinion all but guarantees that drug companies will join this suit upon remand and return to the First Circuit demanding a more complete description of the Constitutional arguments presented.”
November 20, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Congress is considering a bailout for the "Big Three" U.S. auto makers. School of Management Dean Lou Lataif, a former Ford senior executive, says if the federal government chooses to become a lender of last resort, its loan could come with conditions:
-- the government loan takes precedence over all other creditors;
-- the loan would bear a fair interest rate which could yield the taxpayers a decent return on the risk taken;
-- executive compensation and UAW wages and benefits would have to be modified until the companies return to profitability and the loan is fully repaid;
-- each company would have to file a confidential 'roadmap to profitability' so that legislators could be satisfied that repayment of the government loan is likely when the pent-up demand for new vehicles returns in 2010 and beyond.
Lataif outlines his views further in Will the Big Three Fall.
