26 Comments
Ursula Burns, SEAS '82
Bwog has just learned that the Ursula Burns, SEAS ’82 (MS in mechanical engineering) and the chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation, will be the featured speaker at the 2012 engineering school class day. Burns is the first African-American woman to chair a Fortune 500 company, according to an article published by Spec. The same article asserts that this was the first year SEAS undergraduates were involved with choosing their class day speaker, a process in which Columbia College undergraduates have taken part for several years, as well as the first time graduate students will be invited to attend the event. With regard to the invitation, the ultimate decision-making power rested with SEAS Dean Feniosky Peña-Mora.
Spoiler alert! It should come as no surprise that someone as prominent as Burns will not be delivering her first graduation address this spring. Last year, she was the commencement speaker at MIT, and here’s the text of her speech. Here’s a link to her corporate bio page at Xerox, which fills in some interesting professional details, including her other board of directors positions and some work in the Obama administration on the President’s Export Council.
SEAS and unaffiliated Columbian busybodies, what say you?
Photo Credit to Lonnie C. Major via Xerox Corporation
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26 Comments
@Oooh... How… Exciting….
As long as the CC/Commencement speaker can evoke any sort of basic emotion out of at least half the audience, (s)he is guaranteed to be more interesting than the CEO of an office machinery and supply company. This just reeks of the mundane middle-class 9-5 monotony, miserable in its utter mediocrity, through which so many Americans slave in a state of existential despair towards their genuinely unhappy and unfulfilling, yet inescapable, lives.
SEAS students, you’ve been warned: this is nothing short of the reification of the corporate. Your happiness is on the line!
@O.o You…need a hug.
@Anonymous more like a kick in their WASPy ass
@Anonymous wow, get over yourself. some of us have to work to support ourself and families, but i doubt you would know anything about that
@... fuck the man! but don’t you dare touch my trust fund!
@Barnard '12 This woman is great. I had secretly hoped she would be our Barnard speaker, but SEAS is also a great pick for her.
@Anonymous “Bwog has just learned…” = “Bwog just read on Spec that…”
Gotta love Bwog.
@Anonymous More like, bwog just got an email like the rest of use SEAS saying that its e^week and announcing the speaker.
Dumb CC wannabe.
@omfg She totally has the same hair stripe as Pena-Mora
@Anonymous I bet her speech is a copy of suck.
@SEAS '13 I bet this is a CC alumnus still trolling Bwog because they have no job.
@CC '12 Actually I’m a senior and have a Goldman job offer for next year while you will be working as a sales rep at your local Apple store.
@GS '16 Is everyone always this mean? Why can’t we just all get along :(
Have a nice day everybody!!!
XOXO <3 <3 =)
@Anonymous Aww, I like you!
@GS '16 I like you too!!
When I get on campus can we be friends??
;*
@Anonymous Just friends?? ;))))) WINK
@I just... threw up a little.
@Just wondering Are GS considered pre frosh? I feel like the typical hating hazing shouldn’t be given to people of more life experience like GS students.
@... sounds like fun!
@anonymous sounds like a certain CC Senator
@Anonymous Sounds like a certain CC Senator
@What do Columbia engineers say to their parents when their parents expect them to get a 100K job after graduation?
SEAS-ier said than done!
@what do cc non-econ and ~50on majors say to their parents when their parents expect them to get a job after graduation?
“sorry, i studied something completely useless and im gonna probz have to teach high school/go to grad school”
@hmm Teaching high school is an honorable profession. Sure you won’t be making 100k+, but you’ll sure go to sleep at night fine. I think you owe a bit gratitude to the teachers that taught you so well when you were in hs.
@....hmm On a different topic, since when is “grad school,” the mark of an unsuccessful undergraduate career?
@SEAS '12 I bet her speech is a copy of another speech.