JULY/AUGUST 1998 · VOLUME 19· NUMBER 7&8

The July/August 1998 Lawrence Summers Memorial Award* honors Bob Casey, assistant dean of the University of Texas, Austin College of Business Administration.

 "By running the college like a business, [University of Texas College of Business Administration Assistant Dean Bob] Casey said alumni and private donors get to help shape the product -- the students," reported the Daily Texan in an August article comparing the university's art museum's difficulties in raising funds and the business school's success.

"'We need to produce students with skills businesses want, create successful alumni,' Casey said. 'By involving business partners and alumni, their involvement and satisfaction leads to their contributions.'"

The Daily Texan story continued: "One problem the College of Business Administration has faced is that most of its donations come from corporations, Casey said, because they receive the greatest benefit in the shortest amount of time. Alumni though, don't get the student product right away and so the college has to appeal to them in a tangible way, which why it has specialized centers of excellence in place, Casey said."

One example of a specialized program "is the center for Business Measurement and Assurance Services, a program offered through the accounting department."

(Source: Suzannah Creech, "Art museum struggles with funding goals," Daily Texan, August 6, 1998, courtesy of Bill Medaille.)

*In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist and current Deputy Secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?" Summers wrote. "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City." Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic.