When I get stuck for a blog post, Dean Robert Bruner’s blog at the Darden School of Business is often a handy resource. Today is no exception; as pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona for spring training — a joyous time of the year for baseball fans — Bruner uses baseball to explain the wisdom behind Darden’s case study method.
An amazing stat from his post: Darden’s full-time students will go through about 600 case studies in their careers.
The University of Virginia is poised to plunge into the world of MOOCs (massive open online courses) next month with the debut of six courses, being offered through Coursera.
To introduce the first six courses to potential students, the University has posted a series of short videos featuring the pioneering professors who are teaching the courses:
It’s a sort of bleak-looking Monday, and the blog is crying out for a post, so I decided to cruise the Wahoo blogosphere and find out what’s happening.
• As one might imagine, it’s a fairly stressful time on Grounds. Fall semester classes ended Friday, and final exams started today. Over at the “Notes from Peabody” admissions blog, there is evidence of further stress: Early-action applicants eagerly awaiting word of their fate. Dean J is counseling patience; decisions will not be announced until Jan. 31 (or maybe a few days earlier).
• Speaking of stress, the “up close and personal with a UVA student” blog hasn’t had a fresh post since Nov. 22. Sign of the end(-of-semester) times? That’s certainly understandable.
• Darden dean Robert Bruner is a very active blogger. On Saturday, he posted his holiday reading tips — not just what to read (he has 14 books to recommend, which should take you well into next year), but how and why to read. Good stuff.
• Here’s a new one to me : “More Us,” the official blog of the Alfred J. Morris (more-us — get it?) Law Library. Looks pretty lively. Most recently, they are reminding students that sleep is a good thing, even (especially) during exams.
• Finally, over at Madison House, there’s a nice late-November meditation on gratitude.
This is just a sampling of U.Va. blogs, which are numerous and vary greatly in degree of freshness. You can check out our blog roll here.
Dean Bob Bruner of the Darden School of Business published this post in his blog on Saturday, but we’ve been a little busy here and are just catching up with our reading.
Though Veterans Day was a couple of days ago now, Thanksgiving is still in the 
offing, and we thought his comments on gratitude were thought provoking. Continue reading…
Darden professor emeritus Bob Fayer appears on screen in Mystic, Conn., where several fellow World War II veterans had gathered. (Photo courtesy easymeeting.net)
While many of you were tailgating — or maybe stuck in traffic — before the U.Va.-Penn State football game on Saturday, history was meeting new technology at the Darden School. And in Mystic, Conn.
The occasion was the first videoconference meeting of the 100th Infantry Division Association, a World War II veterans’ group.
Bob Fayer, a former Darden professor, is the national president of the group. He offered a little history lesson on the 100th and its veterans.
U.Va.’s Darden School of Business took some unjust hits (in our view) during “the recent unpleasantness” surrounding the forced resignation and reinstatement of President Sullivan. Yes, a few of the principals were Darden alums, but the school’s faculty and deans maintained that the failed ouster attempt did not much reflect the values taught in Darden’s classrooms.
So if you feel a little sheepish about any anti-Darden thoughts you may have harbored and want to do a little penance — or if you think you might enjoy a very well-made video that reflects Darden’s real mission and values — click here. It only takes 2:33.
They’re building some nice karma up on North Grounds — not to mention reinforcing community institutions and people’s homes.
Last weekend, the Law School‘s wildly popular softball league hosted its annual North Grounds Softball League Invitational, which drew 120 teams and approximately 1,800 players from 50 schools up and down the East Coast. The event raised $20,000 for Children, Youth and Family Services. In the end, U.Va. teams took home two titles. No word on whether any of the star players will be going professional.
Not to be outdone, students at the Darden School of Business are preparing for their annual spring charity event, Building Goodness in April. Teaming with Charlottesville’s Building Goodness Foundation, the Darden community plans to tackle 1o housing rehab projects on April 14. Here’s a video explaining it:
Charlottesville VA-Building Goodness in April-Referral Video from Aaron Watson on Vimeo.
The legendarily hirsute Ed Freeman, a faculty member at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, knows a good cause when he sees it. Challenging Darden students, alumni and peers to raise $10,000 for Charlottesville’s Shelter for Help in Emergency, he committed to shave his 28 year-old beard if the amount was met or exceeded. The challenge was reached, and at present, Freeman is sans beard. But not for long – he plans to let it grow back immediately.
Meredith Woo, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, offers some interesting thoughts on academic leadership in her latest blog post, and a reader comments that similar situations occur frequently outside academe, too.
Meanwhile, Darden School of Business dean Robert Bruner urges his MBA students and graduates to value their employment offers in a possibly worsening economy.
(Photo by Patricia Lyons Photography)
It was an assignment right out of one of those cable TV shows. The bride, her mother and the groom were meeting with Anita Gupta of Charlottesville’s Maliha Creations to discuss their wedding cake.
First, they wanted a cake decorated in a fern motif. No problem.
Then there was the other idea.
They wanted a cake decorated like Scott Stadium. The happy couple, Marjorie Anderson Webb and Ryan White Childress, are both double ‘Hoos and met as classmates at the Darden School of Business. Childress played football at U.Va. for four years.
“Uhhhh, no problem,” she answered, according to Gupta’s Mahila Creations blog.
Gupta managed to track down blueprints for the stadium, took the time to secure licenses for the logos and made several drives past the real thing. “This cake had to be one of the largest undertakings I have had to date,” she wrote. “Over 18 sheet cakes and 12 batches of buttercream … this cake fed over 300 people!”
The finished product had working stadium lights and played “The Good Ol’ Song” at the touch of a button.
Gupta promises to post more of the story in the future.
Webb, the bride (and granddaughter of noted U.Va. benefactors David A. Harrison III and Mary A. Harrison), earned an undergraduate degree in 2001 and her MBA from Darden in 20009. Childress got his undergrad degree in 2003 and his MBA also in 2009. The wedding was held May 28 at Farmington Country Club. After honeymooning in Kauai and Napa Valley, the couple resides in Atlanta.
For more pictures of Gupta’s creation, click here.
(Corrected Aug. 10, 9:15 a.m.) What do a Hispanic grocery store in Northern Virginia, a seafood company on the Eastern Shore and a winery in Southwestern Virginia have in common?
All three are among the dozen 14 finalists in the second annual Tayloe Murphy Resilience Awards competition, sponsored by U.Va.’s Tayloe Murphy Center and Darden School of Business. The awards “honor the most resilient businesses in Virginia — those which displayed growth, a dogged entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to community in areas facing high unemployment, high poverty and low entrepreneurial activity.”
You can read about all 12 14 finalists here.
Local teacher John Hunter has gained some notoriety for the role-playing “World Peace Game” he created, thanks to a recent film, “World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements.”
Beginning this week, he and the U.Va. Darden School’s Center for Global Initiatives will host the World Peace Game Summer Academy, during which youngsters from all over the world will play the game.
Here’s how Hunter explains his creation: “At the start of the game, the countries represented by students are tangled in disagreement and crisis. Throughout the game, the students must straighten out their differences through diplomacy and strategy, while winning the health and strength of their own countries.”
Perhaps they could add a session for the NFL owners and players. Or the president and Congress.
DeMaurice Smith, head of the National Football League Players Association and a 1989 graduate of the U.Va. Law School, returned to North Grounds Thursday and discussed the current conflict between players and owners (video available) in front of a large crowd at the Darden School’s Abbot Auditorium.
When negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement between NFL players and owners broke down in March, Smith and the players moved to decertify the union and filed an injunction in federal district court in Minnesota to stop the lockout imposed by team owners.
In Thursday’s hourlong talk, Smith outlined the players’ position.
Asked whether there would be an NFL season this fall, he answered simply, “I hope so.”
Feeling a little uninspired this Monday morning, I was fishing for material on the UVA Today News Blog’s blog roll. (First impression: We need to do a little purging there.)
Came across some interesting stuff. The Virginia Quarterly Review’s blog has people on the ground in Egypt. The most recent post was from Friday, and mentions Mubrak’s departure from the eyes of a correspondent in Giza. … The blogger “Azorin” at “up close and personal with a UVA student” has been pretty active lately, and seems to have a wide range of interests. … I enjoyed Ashley’s post last week on the Madison House blog about visiting a Crozet-area nonegenarian. … The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership’s blog is pretty active during the General Assembly. … The Sustainable Dining at U.Va. blog recently took a look at food-related TED talks. … The always-interesting Notes from Peabody blog is seeking to reassure applicants who have nothing to do but wait until the April 1 notification deadline. … High school seniors aren’t the only ones fretting about applications. At the Hoo Stories blog, second-year U.Va. students are anxious about applying to the McIntire School of Commerce and the Curry School of Education, and the Transfermer blog is busy with folks from other schools trying to make their way to Charlottesville. … Even Darden students are feeling some stress about job applications, according to the school’s Career Runnings blog. (For more from Darden students, the school has a whole page of student blogs.) … We’ve kept up pretty well with Conversations with Meredith, the blog of Arts & Sciences Dean Meredith Jung-En Woo. … Public Works, the public service blog over at the Law School, is pretty active, and flies in the face of the stereotype of the money-grubbing lawyer.
As mentioned above, it looks like it might be time to do some purging of inactive blogs. Meanwhile, if you have an active U.Va.-related blog that is NOT on our blog roll, click on comment below and send us your URL.
Today’s edition of Headlines@UVA cites an essay from Darden professor Edward Hess in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, published Thursday, arguing that BP’s “sordid” safety record merits at least a temporary suspension of its right to do business in the U.S.
It’s a provocative thought. Should legal companies be banned for doing business for repeated rules violations? Or would that just punish thousands of its ordinary American employees?
Read the article and drop a comment below.
