Last night we did a case study on ethics and moral responsibility around Abu Ghraib. The case study itself was good, but we kinda rushed through it because of the lack of time which sucked.
But at one point, a fellow student announces that he was assigned to Baghdad Central Prison (originally called Abu Ghraib) in 2005-2006 (i.e. post the scandal) and was part of the team tasked with turning it around. And turn it around they did. Apparently prisoners leaving would tell him that they've never been treated so well in their lives - 3 square meals a day, a restful 8 hours of sleep.
It's just amazing to be doing a case study on such a pivotal moment in US history and have someone who was on the ground and experiencing it to be part of the analysis.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Social Enterprises - Legal Structures
My last social entrepreneurship class was GREAT! Greenblatt basically ran his Structure Lab (part of Criterion Ventures) seminar in class talking about the different legal structures and options social entrepreneurs have when they start their enterprises.
We talked about a number of very cool things, but I'm going to focus this post on the White Dog Cafe.
All entrepreneurs have to have an exit strategy. Even if your exit strategy is death you need to plan for it. We've all heard of the Ben&Jerry story where Unilever's hostile takeover left the owners unable to protect their social mission. How do you avoid that?
Well there aren't many options - but Judy Wicks, the owner of White Dog Cafe, has gifted us all with her brilliant solution. She basically incorporated 2 companies. The first owned all the intellectual property, logo, brand, trademark and the other the physical assets of the company - the kitchen, tables, inventory etc. When it came time to sell she wanted to make sure that the social mission of the White Dog remained in tact and wasn't abused by the new owners. So she basically held on to the brand and sold the rest of the company and the new owners could then license the White Dog Cafe brand from the entity she held. Of course this lowered the value of the company she sold, but she was able to ensure the mission wasn't diluted. If someone wanted to use the White Dog logo, they had to use sustainable produce and be involved in the community - all the values that Judy cherished.
It seems so simple to do, but until Judy no one had designed such a structure.
Now if Ben&Jerry would have kept control of the brand and logo but sold shares of the asset holding company instead they would never have been strong armed by Unilever. But they probably wouldn't have raised as much capital in their IPO either.
There's always trade-offs to be made.
We talked about a number of very cool things, but I'm going to focus this post on the White Dog Cafe.
All entrepreneurs have to have an exit strategy. Even if your exit strategy is death you need to plan for it. We've all heard of the Ben&Jerry story where Unilever's hostile takeover left the owners unable to protect their social mission. How do you avoid that?
Well there aren't many options - but Judy Wicks, the owner of White Dog Cafe, has gifted us all with her brilliant solution. She basically incorporated 2 companies. The first owned all the intellectual property, logo, brand, trademark and the other the physical assets of the company - the kitchen, tables, inventory etc. When it came time to sell she wanted to make sure that the social mission of the White Dog remained in tact and wasn't abused by the new owners. So she basically held on to the brand and sold the rest of the company and the new owners could then license the White Dog Cafe brand from the entity she held. Of course this lowered the value of the company she sold, but she was able to ensure the mission wasn't diluted. If someone wanted to use the White Dog logo, they had to use sustainable produce and be involved in the community - all the values that Judy cherished.
It seems so simple to do, but until Judy no one had designed such a structure.
Now if Ben&Jerry would have kept control of the brand and logo but sold shares of the asset holding company instead they would never have been strong armed by Unilever. But they probably wouldn't have raised as much capital in their IPO either.
There's always trade-offs to be made.
Net Impact
Ok - I have been terrible about keeping this blog updated and I apologize (mainly to myself, because this blog is a way of helping me think about my experiences at Wagner). I would say I promise to do a better job, but with finals in a few weeks I'm not sure I'll be keeping that promise.
Went to the annual Net Impact conference 2 weekends back up in Cornell. The conference is huge - they had 2600 people this year and it was an incredible networking opportunity. Got to see some great people talk about the work and impact they are having and also got to see some not so great panels (don't get me started on Corporate Social Responsibility).
The first day I was a bit disoriented - running across Cornell's humongous campus from one panel to the next in the bitter cold. I didn't know what to expect and I was just a bit lost. So I'd say the first day was a bit of a dud. Even the panels seemed uninteresting.
But the second day was incredible. Attended a case presented by Sustainable Harvest. Very cool company, doing incredible things in the coffee supply chain space. If you're looking for an internship next summer in CA, then I look them up. The final presentation on Emerging Market Investing was probably the best panel of the weekend. We had Grassroots Business Fund, Soros Economic Development Fund and JP Morgan's social investment fund on the panel. Strong NYU contingent in the first 2 rows which was great as well :)
Got some great career advice - bulk up on my finance skills and consider a stint at management consulting as a stepping stone to the social venture capital space. Now I'm torn about what to do with my next summer. Decisions! Decisions! Decisions!
High level take aways -
* Don't run from panel to panel, even if you think you'll miss the next panel. Slow down, talk to people. Create relationships
* Definitely stay for the after parties. We social sector people know how to get our drink on
* Best part of the trip was developing bonds with my fellow NYU students. A weekend away with friends is great bonding
Went to the annual Net Impact conference 2 weekends back up in Cornell. The conference is huge - they had 2600 people this year and it was an incredible networking opportunity. Got to see some great people talk about the work and impact they are having and also got to see some not so great panels (don't get me started on Corporate Social Responsibility).
The first day I was a bit disoriented - running across Cornell's humongous campus from one panel to the next in the bitter cold. I didn't know what to expect and I was just a bit lost. So I'd say the first day was a bit of a dud. Even the panels seemed uninteresting.
But the second day was incredible. Attended a case presented by Sustainable Harvest. Very cool company, doing incredible things in the coffee supply chain space. If you're looking for an internship next summer in CA, then I look them up. The final presentation on Emerging Market Investing was probably the best panel of the weekend. We had Grassroots Business Fund, Soros Economic Development Fund and JP Morgan's social investment fund on the panel. Strong NYU contingent in the first 2 rows which was great as well :)
Got some great career advice - bulk up on my finance skills and consider a stint at management consulting as a stepping stone to the social venture capital space. Now I'm torn about what to do with my next summer. Decisions! Decisions! Decisions!
High level take aways -
* Don't run from panel to panel, even if you think you'll miss the next panel. Slow down, talk to people. Create relationships
* Definitely stay for the after parties. We social sector people know how to get our drink on
* Best part of the trip was developing bonds with my fellow NYU students. A weekend away with friends is great bonding
Monday, November 2, 2009
Intentions vs Outcomes?
Do intentions matter?
This was the question we were dealing with Corporate Social Responsibility in the context of social entrepreneurship.
A lot of companies out there really adopt CSR to green wash their brands. This sort of goes against the core ideals of social entrepreneurship - to have social missions at the core of the organizations mission. Examples of Chevron spending millions to advertise their 50000 donation to save some butterfly species exemplifies the greenwashing and spin in todays markets.
So is it social entrepreneurship if one's intentions and motivations are driven by social value?
I can see why you intentions are important. There's this thing with spin and being manipulated that makes you uncomfortable. And then to dilute the promise of social entrepreneurship along with it, just adds to the discomfort.
But how do you ever gauge someones intentions? Unless you're on a first name basis with someone then I don't see how you could know their intentions.
I think outcomes matter more than intentions. Call me results oriented, but if I can achieve my goal through CSR, then I have no issue with labeling it as social enterprise. Specially if this gives corporations motivation to contribute to the solution.
This was the question we were dealing with Corporate Social Responsibility in the context of social entrepreneurship.
A lot of companies out there really adopt CSR to green wash their brands. This sort of goes against the core ideals of social entrepreneurship - to have social missions at the core of the organizations mission. Examples of Chevron spending millions to advertise their 50000 donation to save some butterfly species exemplifies the greenwashing and spin in todays markets.
So is it social entrepreneurship if one's intentions and motivations are driven by social value?
I can see why you intentions are important. There's this thing with spin and being manipulated that makes you uncomfortable. And then to dilute the promise of social entrepreneurship along with it, just adds to the discomfort.
But how do you ever gauge someones intentions? Unless you're on a first name basis with someone then I don't see how you could know their intentions.
I think outcomes matter more than intentions. Call me results oriented, but if I can achieve my goal through CSR, then I have no issue with labeling it as social enterprise. Specially if this gives corporations motivation to contribute to the solution.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tiffany - socially responsible?
You never really think socially responsible when you think of the Tiffany brand. I mean they mine the earth for shiny things to sell to Americans so they can adorn themselves with said shiny things. But if you can get beyond the basic issue of the luxury business and that mining destroys mother earth, then Tiffany is really an impressive organization.
Today Andrew Hart, from Tiffany, came to my social entrepreneurship class to talk about Tiffany's approach to doing the right thing. Tiffany is on the leading edge of pushing environmental standards for mining. They take their responsibility for social good very seriously on conflict diamonds, to living wage issues. Lots of impressive stuff that I won't get into.
But at the end of the day, they pursue these only because it is synonymous with the Tiffany brand. Can you imagine socialites buying diamonds if someone did an expose on Tiffany and conflict diamonds?
They have come up with a template for determining living wage to figure out what they would pay their diamond polishers in Vietnam. This is very innovative, because very few have an actual model for this. But they won't advertise this on their site, because the amount ($140 a month) is still something that would shock their clientele as being too low. But 140 is twice the minimum wage in Vietnam, and by making this model public they are in a position to shame their competitors into doing the same thing. It is a really powerful position to shape the behavior of an industry. But here is where the for-profit and social good conflict arises. The potential negative publicity for their brand prevents them from pursuing this social good (and what a powerful social changer this could be).
Now at the end of the day, they are really doing a lot of great stuff (def more than what I have ever contributed to date). It's just interesting to see how this line gets drawn and how original intentions and motivations play out. The counter argument is - so who cares what the original intention is. Sure they could do more, but what they've done already is really great.
Okay - have 3 midterms next week, I really shouldn't be spending my time blogging.
Today Andrew Hart, from Tiffany, came to my social entrepreneurship class to talk about Tiffany's approach to doing the right thing. Tiffany is on the leading edge of pushing environmental standards for mining. They take their responsibility for social good very seriously on conflict diamonds, to living wage issues. Lots of impressive stuff that I won't get into.
But at the end of the day, they pursue these only because it is synonymous with the Tiffany brand. Can you imagine socialites buying diamonds if someone did an expose on Tiffany and conflict diamonds?
They have come up with a template for determining living wage to figure out what they would pay their diamond polishers in Vietnam. This is very innovative, because very few have an actual model for this. But they won't advertise this on their site, because the amount ($140 a month) is still something that would shock their clientele as being too low. But 140 is twice the minimum wage in Vietnam, and by making this model public they are in a position to shame their competitors into doing the same thing. It is a really powerful position to shape the behavior of an industry. But here is where the for-profit and social good conflict arises. The potential negative publicity for their brand prevents them from pursuing this social good (and what a powerful social changer this could be).
Now at the end of the day, they are really doing a lot of great stuff (def more than what I have ever contributed to date). It's just interesting to see how this line gets drawn and how original intentions and motivations play out. The counter argument is - so who cares what the original intention is. Sure they could do more, but what they've done already is really great.
Okay - have 3 midterms next week, I really shouldn't be spending my time blogging.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Bottom up approach to development
Just got out of a lecture by William Easterly - the big proponent of bottom up development (very anti Jeff Sachs & millennium development goals).
For someone like me who is a big believer in social entrepreneurship, Easterly's perspective of innovation and individual entrepreneurship as the key to development is very exciting. Although, I have to admit I don't think I got a lot of what he talked about. There's very little data and he kept coming back to how development has a lot more randomness than what we're comfortable with. It was interesting to talk about our human biases, where we are uncomfortable with randomness, have a huge success bias (studying successes instead of studying both successes and failures), and finally always want to attribute things to leaders. It's interesting how our inherent biases influence the way we operate and the theories we gravitate towards.
The subject matter is fairly dense and boring, but Easterly has a biting sense of humor and it was an enjoyable lecture.
In other news -
1) Today was a thoroughly unproductive day. Whenever I spend my time at Puck (Wagner building) I end up socializing and do very little work. Tomorrow I'm going to the library, lot easier to work there.
2) I registered for the Net Impact conference in Nov. Really excited about that.
For someone like me who is a big believer in social entrepreneurship, Easterly's perspective of innovation and individual entrepreneurship as the key to development is very exciting. Although, I have to admit I don't think I got a lot of what he talked about. There's very little data and he kept coming back to how development has a lot more randomness than what we're comfortable with. It was interesting to talk about our human biases, where we are uncomfortable with randomness, have a huge success bias (studying successes instead of studying both successes and failures), and finally always want to attribute things to leaders. It's interesting how our inherent biases influence the way we operate and the theories we gravitate towards.
The subject matter is fairly dense and boring, but Easterly has a biting sense of humor and it was an enjoyable lecture.
In other news -
1) Today was a thoroughly unproductive day. Whenever I spend my time at Puck (Wagner building) I end up socializing and do very little work. Tomorrow I'm going to the library, lot easier to work there.
2) I registered for the Net Impact conference in Nov. Really excited about that.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Markets and the environment - how to align incentives?
Attended a law school event, hosted by Echoing Green, on whether markets can deliver energy efficiency.
The discussion was NYC centric. Who knew that in NYC, buildings are responsible for 2/3 of green house gas emissions? In most other cities usually transportation is the main culprit.
The NYC real estate market is an interesting one. Since it is mainly rental, the incentives to reduce energy costs lie with the tenant (who pays the energy bill) but the person responsible for making the efficiency improvements is the owner of the building. Sort of a catch 22 here. Neither one has any stake of improving energy efficiency. Specially the low hanging fruit, that can bring down energy costs by around 30%.
The other challenge is financing. With most commercial buildings having pre existing debt already (and battered credit ratings), how can you enable them to take on additional expenses in retro fitting a building? Even though you know that there will be future savings, most banks won't lend to such an undertaking since it's 1) it's not considered safe and 2) there is no collateral (you can't take away the insulation that's put in if the owner defaults).
Lastly, there is really very little data on the impact of efficiency improvements. And this makes undertaking any retro fitting a bigger risk. On this front, the Clinton Foundation is doing some pioneering work on the empire state building, retrofitting it and making all the energy savings data publicly available. Great example of public private partnership.
So given these issues - how do you structure a market solution to address this issue? Clearly there is money to be saved (made?). Or maybe non-profits are better suited to address this.
Worth further investigation...
The discussion was NYC centric. Who knew that in NYC, buildings are responsible for 2/3 of green house gas emissions? In most other cities usually transportation is the main culprit.
The NYC real estate market is an interesting one. Since it is mainly rental, the incentives to reduce energy costs lie with the tenant (who pays the energy bill) but the person responsible for making the efficiency improvements is the owner of the building. Sort of a catch 22 here. Neither one has any stake of improving energy efficiency. Specially the low hanging fruit, that can bring down energy costs by around 30%.
The other challenge is financing. With most commercial buildings having pre existing debt already (and battered credit ratings), how can you enable them to take on additional expenses in retro fitting a building? Even though you know that there will be future savings, most banks won't lend to such an undertaking since it's 1) it's not considered safe and 2) there is no collateral (you can't take away the insulation that's put in if the owner defaults).
Lastly, there is really very little data on the impact of efficiency improvements. And this makes undertaking any retro fitting a bigger risk. On this front, the Clinton Foundation is doing some pioneering work on the empire state building, retrofitting it and making all the energy savings data publicly available. Great example of public private partnership.
So given these issues - how do you structure a market solution to address this issue? Clearly there is money to be saved (made?). Or maybe non-profits are better suited to address this.
Worth further investigation...
Saturday, September 19, 2009
End of my 2nd week
And there is a lot going on here.
I started the semester thinking I'd have a ton of free time, and in some respects I do, but there just is a lot going on and you easily get sucked in to so many different things.
This is what I'm taking this semester
1) Intro to Financial Management (should have placed out of this)
2) Stats (should have placed out of this as well)
3) Into to Public Policy by Rogan Kersh - I'm back in undergrad again, 200 person class room. I thought this was a private university? What's happening here? Jokes aside, looks like Kersh is going to make this a really interesting course
4) Intro to Social Entrepreneurship - The one class that I'm really psyched for. So far the class has been real fun. Doesn't get much better than Ben&Jerry's ice cream in class.
Looking at my schedule of this week though, I also had the
1) Career services event (fairly useful)
2) The stern business plan competition kick off (this is really going to suck up a ton of my time this sem)
3) The acumen "dog and pony show" @ stern - this was more a social thing to hang out with Sophie
4) Executive and Legislative clash policy seminar - extra credit for Public Policy. Glad I went, learnt something new.
5) Student faculty reception - nice, but didn't get to talk to Paul Light :(
6) WEFA kick off meeting - the finance club at Wagner, they really want to make sure they don't sit on their asses this year.
7) Bridge bash - most fun event of the week. I'm going to enjoy working with this crew.
8) Columbia's conference on the financial crisis - which I had to skip because of so much else going on.
Just looking back at this week, I'm going to have to start being very judicious with my time. And I'm def not making the mistake of trying to study/read at Puck. All I do is talk and socialize there. Very unproductive. But I did get to meet a whole bunch of cool people.
I started the semester thinking I'd have a ton of free time, and in some respects I do, but there just is a lot going on and you easily get sucked in to so many different things.
This is what I'm taking this semester
1) Intro to Financial Management (should have placed out of this)
2) Stats (should have placed out of this as well)
3) Into to Public Policy by Rogan Kersh - I'm back in undergrad again, 200 person class room. I thought this was a private university? What's happening here? Jokes aside, looks like Kersh is going to make this a really interesting course
4) Intro to Social Entrepreneurship - The one class that I'm really psyched for. So far the class has been real fun. Doesn't get much better than Ben&Jerry's ice cream in class.
Looking at my schedule of this week though, I also had the
1) Career services event (fairly useful)
2) The stern business plan competition kick off (this is really going to suck up a ton of my time this sem)
3) The acumen "dog and pony show" @ stern - this was more a social thing to hang out with Sophie
4) Executive and Legislative clash policy seminar - extra credit for Public Policy. Glad I went, learnt something new.
5) Student faculty reception - nice, but didn't get to talk to Paul Light :(
6) WEFA kick off meeting - the finance club at Wagner, they really want to make sure they don't sit on their asses this year.
7) Bridge bash - most fun event of the week. I'm going to enjoy working with this crew.
8) Columbia's conference on the financial crisis - which I had to skip because of so much else going on.
Just looking back at this week, I'm going to have to start being very judicious with my time. And I'm def not making the mistake of trying to study/read at Puck. All I do is talk and socialize there. Very unproductive. But I did get to meet a whole bunch of cool people.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Room to Read
My first day at Wagner, and I don't have any classes. Instead I attend a talk given by John Wood, founder of Room to Read.
This guy is the latest hot thing in the non-profit world. Quit Microsoft to start room to read. There are things he said that really hit hard. "The poor are too poor to afford education, but until they have it they will always be poor".
Room to Read has grown super fast, faster than any NGO out there. Their catch line is 9 countries in 9 years. They started out building libraries, but now address a host of issues in education in the developing world.
Very slick presentation. And he knows how to use numbers and stats to his advantage. Compare the cost of a aircraft carrier to the number of years of education it could buy a girl child (a million). A crowd like ours ate that stuff up. Not to say that I am not impressed with what he has done. The focus he's brought on the issue alone is worth accolades. But I am very skeptical of the sustainability of this effort. They are building schools and partnering with the Nepal ministry of education who will provide teachers. Now if Nepal is anything like India (and I guess it's worse), finding teachers to work in rural villages will not be easy. And these guys have built 756 schools in 9 years. Yeah, sure it costs 30,000 USD to build a school, but is it effective? Why grow at break neck speed if the work you've done currently won't be sustainable?
Probably true that in education, results have to be measured over time, and they have commissioned a 5 year study (they are currently in year 2). So will wait for the results.
I did leave the room inspired. And I now appreciate more the ability to use numbers to your advantage, specially when you sprinkle individual anecdotal stories to clutch at the audiences heart strings.
There was one question from the audience, that I found very insightful. What were Room to Read's tipping points? 1) Fast magazine wrote an article on John, 2) His book came out and really put him on the bookshelves of the right power players, 3) Clinton Global Initiative brought him in as a speaker (3 times), and that just raised the stakes and finally 4) Oprah - she just made Room to Read go viral.
This guy is the latest hot thing in the non-profit world. Quit Microsoft to start room to read. There are things he said that really hit hard. "The poor are too poor to afford education, but until they have it they will always be poor".
Room to Read has grown super fast, faster than any NGO out there. Their catch line is 9 countries in 9 years. They started out building libraries, but now address a host of issues in education in the developing world.
Very slick presentation. And he knows how to use numbers and stats to his advantage. Compare the cost of a aircraft carrier to the number of years of education it could buy a girl child (a million). A crowd like ours ate that stuff up. Not to say that I am not impressed with what he has done. The focus he's brought on the issue alone is worth accolades. But I am very skeptical of the sustainability of this effort. They are building schools and partnering with the Nepal ministry of education who will provide teachers. Now if Nepal is anything like India (and I guess it's worse), finding teachers to work in rural villages will not be easy. And these guys have built 756 schools in 9 years. Yeah, sure it costs 30,000 USD to build a school, but is it effective? Why grow at break neck speed if the work you've done currently won't be sustainable?
Probably true that in education, results have to be measured over time, and they have commissioned a 5 year study (they are currently in year 2). So will wait for the results.
I did leave the room inspired. And I now appreciate more the ability to use numbers to your advantage, specially when you sprinkle individual anecdotal stories to clutch at the audiences heart strings.
There was one question from the audience, that I found very insightful. What were Room to Read's tipping points? 1) Fast magazine wrote an article on John, 2) His book came out and really put him on the bookshelves of the right power players, 3) Clinton Global Initiative brought him in as a speaker (3 times), and that just raised the stakes and finally 4) Oprah - she just made Room to Read go viral.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Pre term week
This week was pre term week. And I really wasted this opportunity. I was waitlisted for 2 of the 3 classes I wanted to take. And the remaining activities, I just sort of blew off.
Not very smart of me. An entire week of activities and I attended just 2 events. Didn't even make it to happy hour.
Here is what I did attend:
Small Wallet, Big City - This was fun. Having lived in NYC for so long, I knew most of it already. But there was a lot of NYU specific stuff that I wasn't aware of. Who knew I could get cheaper movie tickets through NYU. Yay for Ticket Central! And if you are taking NJ Transit to Newark Airport, it's cheaper to buy the ticket for the stop after Newark Airport instead of buying direct to Newark. Who knew?
Running Efficient Meetings - This was the only pre term "class" that I actually get into (did I mention I hate ALBERT). What I found most helpful was how to construct an agenda for a meeting. I never thought of clearly listing out what the end outcomes of a meeting would look like (instead of just meeting objective). And while I have started doing prep work for a meeting I chair, I never thought of assigning prep work to other participants to 1) get their buy in and 2) enable the meeting. She recommended "How to Make Meetings Work" by Michael Doyle and David Straus. I'm going to try and pick this up at the library.
Not very smart of me. An entire week of activities and I attended just 2 events. Didn't even make it to happy hour.
Here is what I did attend:
Small Wallet, Big City - This was fun. Having lived in NYC for so long, I knew most of it already. But there was a lot of NYU specific stuff that I wasn't aware of. Who knew I could get cheaper movie tickets through NYU. Yay for Ticket Central! And if you are taking NJ Transit to Newark Airport, it's cheaper to buy the ticket for the stop after Newark Airport instead of buying direct to Newark. Who knew?
Running Efficient Meetings - This was the only pre term "class" that I actually get into (did I mention I hate ALBERT). What I found most helpful was how to construct an agenda for a meeting. I never thought of clearly listing out what the end outcomes of a meeting would look like (instead of just meeting objective). And while I have started doing prep work for a meeting I chair, I never thought of assigning prep work to other participants to 1) get their buy in and 2) enable the meeting. She recommended "How to Make Meetings Work" by Michael Doyle and David Straus. I'm going to try and pick this up at the library.
Student retreat - Iroquois Springs
I'm 30 and going back to camp.
I was apprehensive about this whole out in the middle of nowhere, singing Kumbaya with my fellow Wagner newbies. Thankfully, this camp wasn't anything like what I expected (trust exercises and "3 facts about me" conversations).
My fellow Wagner classmates are a varied and damn cool bunch. It was the first time I was part of a policy discussion where I didn't have much to offer. And after meeting them, I've realized that I have a heck of a lot more traveling to do.
The faculty were super approachable, making me feel all warm inside about my choice of school. There is a strong sense of community, you feel it right when you get to camp. I'm really impressed with how smoothly they pulled off the entire thing. From all the "activities", to just getting us to mingle and network. And the surprise beer and wine at the campfire was just what we needed. It wouldn't have been the same with only Smores.
There were a number of quotable quotes, but the one that stood out was Dean Schall's - "Vision without a strategic plan is a hallucination". I think I'm going to really enjoy my 2 years at Wagner. I'm going to learn so much about myself. I can't wait!
My only suggestion - next year pick a place that is a lot warmer, or one that has thicker blankets.
I was apprehensive about this whole out in the middle of nowhere, singing Kumbaya with my fellow Wagner newbies. Thankfully, this camp wasn't anything like what I expected (trust exercises and "3 facts about me" conversations).
My fellow Wagner classmates are a varied and damn cool bunch. It was the first time I was part of a policy discussion where I didn't have much to offer. And after meeting them, I've realized that I have a heck of a lot more traveling to do.
The faculty were super approachable, making me feel all warm inside about my choice of school. There is a strong sense of community, you feel it right when you get to camp. I'm really impressed with how smoothly they pulled off the entire thing. From all the "activities", to just getting us to mingle and network. And the surprise beer and wine at the campfire was just what we needed. It wouldn't have been the same with only Smores.
There were a number of quotable quotes, but the one that stood out was Dean Schall's - "Vision without a strategic plan is a hallucination". I think I'm going to really enjoy my 2 years at Wagner. I'm going to learn so much about myself. I can't wait!
My only suggestion - next year pick a place that is a lot warmer, or one that has thicker blankets.
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