Once again, Columbia Business School’s behavioral research lab is attempting to coerce students into participating in experiments with the gift of free hot chocolate. They’re stationed between Schermerhorn and Uris right now!

Also: Free razors (the shaving kind, not the scooters) outside of Student Activities on the third floor of the Diana. So… if you’re into that.

Your new Lerner 5. Photo courtesy Columbia Business School

This summer, Columbia introduced the Financial Econ major, allowing undergrads to enroll in B-School classes (and perhaps partake in B-School bacchanalia) and inching Columbia a little closer to pre-professionalism. Today, that inch becomes a mile: the Center for Student Advising has just announced a Special Concentration in Business Management. You can apply here.

The Concentration is open to twenty students, who must be juniors or seniors in CC or GS. Concentrators will take classes taught by B-School professors in “financial and managerial coursework.” Students wishing to grasp on to the final shreds of their liberal arts education will be able to take electives in sociology, econ and psychology.

Concentrators will also have access to B-School events, have formal networking opportunities with B-School faculty and students, and generally sort of go to Business School while they’re in college.

Gulati, PrezBill and Landon in happier times. Photo via ohnotheydidnt

That means “a motley assortment of things.” Seatbelts, everyone!

Gulati says the U.S team was “capable of more” in the World Cup.

Columbia is a partner in a jargon-y, confusing government project called the “NYC Media Lab.”

Breaking: James Franco is self-important. He is also an artist.

Joseph Stiglitz makes $109,919 a year is the highest paid B-school professor in the country.

A look at how Columbia B School has changed (by not really changing!) post-crash.

CC alum create the Salsabol, which provides a new and revolutionary way to scoop salsa.

Procrastination o’clock? Watch this footage of Columbia going crazy in 1969 1968, even though it says 1969 for some reason.

But only if you’re in the Law School or SIPA. Columbia’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs announced the complete list of Class Speakers today, and joining Attorney General Eric Holder are many other famous names to prop up the 22 various Class Day and Commencement ceremonies taking place between this Saturday (the B-School) and next Thursday (Law School and Dental School).

Among the big names: former California governor Gray Davis at the Law School graduation, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft at SIPA’s Commencement, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall at the J-School’s Class Day, New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman at the Med School graduation, and senior advisor to Hillary Clinton Phillipe Reines at General Studies’s Class Day. Of course, some of the speechifying talent isn’t travelling very far: professors Jagdish Baghwati and Jeffrey Sachs will be speaking at the Ph.D. convocation and the Dental School graduation ceremonies, respectively.

Our favorite detail, though? Both J-School ceremonies are “closed to the media.” Full list after the jump. Read more…

- Photo by JNW

Spotted in Lerner: blogger and Entertainment Weekly creator/founding editor Jeff Jarvis (dim photo at right). Jarvis, who is also now the director of the interactive journalism program at CUNY’s new journalism school, was part of a pre-lunch panel in the Business School’s BRITE Conference, which is taking place during today and tomorrow in Roone Arledge Cinema.

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Last Saturday, Boris “Bob” Yavitz, who served eight years as the dean of Columbia Business School, died of prostate cancer.  He was 85.

After moving to the United States at 23, Yavitz earned two graduate degrees (in engineering and business) from Columbia and, after starting and managing his own development company, eventually became the dean of the Business School in 1975. 

Yavitz’s leadership revamped the school, returning both its spirit and its prestige; after retiring from the position, he remained a beloved professor. 

In addition, he served as the director and deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1976 to 1982.

The B-schoolers aren’t the only ones effected by the recent economic downturn.  It turns out undergrads are too! Instead of offering advice on how to save money, this week Bwog on a Budget returns with a special money-making feature. 

The long and the short of it is simple: Bwog is broke.  Given our economic state, there’s little sense in discussing how to save money since there’s no money to be saved.  Yes, indeed the time has come for Bwog to make some money. But when the times are tough, finding work is hard.   And finding work is especially hard for Columbia students, who not only prefer not to waste their talent doing remedial labor but also have their cumbersome class schedules to take into account.  And while the minority of employed folks may receive a steady flow of cash each month, by October 18th, September’s paycheck certainly must have diminished.

Bwog’s done some research and discovered that Columbia’s most lucrative resource is just where you’d expect to find lucrative things and people.  Tucked away on the second floor of the business school library is Columbia’s Behavioral Research Lab.   If you are desperate enough, Bwog understands and suggests you sign up to receive the Behavioral Research Lab‘s bi-weekly announcements. 

Read more…

We’ve been hearing a lot about Business School professors opposing the government bailing out Wall Street investment banks, but according to IvyGater Robyn Schneider, they have no problem bailing out their vending machines. 

They have lowered the prices of Luna Bars and Vitamin Waters so that even the poorest MBA student can afford them.  The move has put Uris Hall into the upper echelons of campus automatic refreshment dispensers along with Mathematics and Schermerhorn, which feature the $1.50 Nantucket Nectar (the best price in Morningside until the Business School came along) and the cafe between Journalism and Furnald that sells $1 Wolfgang Puck hot chocolate. Bwog, however, will always have a soft spot for this little guy.

Photo by Robyn Schneider via After the Gates

UPDATE, 10/16, 11AM: The vending machines on the first floor of Mudd (the real first floor, not campus level) have joined the Defend Your Dollar program, too.  This one might actually help people, as most Mudd-dwellers live off vending machine food and the occasional mac and cheese from Carleton Lounge.

Last time we checked in with our pals over at the Business School, things weren’t looking too hot. Since today was the first good day in a long, long time, Bwog headed over to Uris when the stock market closed this afternoon to see what we could find.

B-Schoolers were clustered around the televisions in the lobby, reading the headlines on the 11.6% gain and the European summit this weekend and chatting happily. The powers that be had wisely chosen this particular day to sell Business School merchandise, and Bwog noted long lines of students shelling out $50 for backpacks.

We asked a vendor clad in a B-school T-shirt that read “we’re the GBA, and we’re here to serve you!” if the mood had been a little more cheerful around school today. “It’s hard to say for sure,” he began. We gave him a few moments, and he lifted his head after stacking another $20 bill into his collection. “But yeah,” he continued, and Bwog may have seen a twinkle in his weary B-school eyes, “yeah, a definitely little bit.”

Remember that subprime mortgage-induced liquidity crisis and the subsequent slight dip in the markets as a result of the bailout plan being rejected? Us too. 

Prior to Monday’s rejection of the $700 billion plan, a letter was sent by economists around the country urging Congress not to adopt the plan set forth by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. This petition included 13 signatures of Columbia professors, all of whom work in the Business School and range from those holding named professorships to non-tenure track positions on the faculty. 

From a cursory look into their after-school jobs, it seems as if, like most b-school professors, those who signed on appear to generally back the Wall St. establishment: Christopher Mayer is a real estate expert who moonlights with a hedge fund while Wei Shang-Jin is a vocal supporter of outsourcing and globalization.  In the letter, they stressed a long-term solution that was fair to taxpayers and investors.  The full list of Columbia professors is after the jump.  Read more…

Remember American hero and proud Business School alum (’97) Roy Den Hollander? The self-described antifeminist who sued Columbia for failing to offer a “men’s studies” course? Whatever, anyway, he’s back! And he’s suing mad, specifically about ladies’ nights at bars because what else?

This month, Hollander is arguing that when nightclubs offer all the ladies reduced-price drinks, they are discriminating. He then went on to conclude that since nightclubs get their liquor licences from the state, it’s not only the clubs but New York that is discriminating against him, Roy Den Hollander, and all of his kind.

The lawsuit was dismissed and Hollander called the judge a “feminist.” The end.

It’s not often Bwog takes pity on the young masters of the universe of the Columbia Business School. They’re territorial with small spaces, and not terribly warm to the idea of mere undergraduates purchasing food in Uris.

But still, this week is not a good week for the b-schooler. Here, observe as they stand in Uris and watch updates about the banking collapse. 

Things are not looking good — they can have those group study rooms.

Photo by Lydia DePillis

You’ll recall Bwog reporting last week that Business School Alum and self-proclaimed “anti-feminist” Roy Hollander was suing Columbia for offering women’s studies courses. Apparently, these courses are discriminatory against men.

Now, according to Bwog tipster Stephanie Quan, some Columbia women are interested in hearing his views. More specifically, the group Women in Science at Columbia have invited him to speak at the school, where he will “give a short talk briefing us on the case against Columbia and then answer any questions from the audience.”

The talk is scheduled for tomorrow, August 28th, from 1-2 PM, and the room is TBA Havemeyer 209. Whether it includes free food is unknown at this time.

Roy Den Hollander (he of litigious demeanor at right), a proud business school alum (’97) and self-proclaimed “antifeminist,” is suing the University Trustees and the Institute for Research on Women & Gender for using federal aid to promote a “religionist belief system called feminism.”

Women’s Studies programs, he claims, are “spreading prejudice and fostering animosity and distrust towards men with the result of the wholesale violation of men’s rights.” And while the College Bulletin claims the major is “intended to introduce students to the long arc of feminist discourse about the cultural and historical representation of nature, power, and the social construction of difference,” the super-secret version explicitly states that the purpose is to “demonize men and exalt women in order to justify discrimination against men based on collective guilt.”

Read more…

Terrible news for those partial to the business school library’s wonderful study rooms: this preference is no longer an option for you, and please get out. According to a Bwog informant — and confirmed by the man who just picked up the phone at Watson library — the study rooms are going to be business-schooler-only come fall.

Our informant (who moonlights as a library employee) says she was asked to hang signs announcing that September 1st would be the last that the study rooms would be undergrad-friendly. But she is conflicted about performing these cruel tasks: “I thought the whole point of the university system was that we have access to tons o’ fun and resources, including as many business-y and economic-y books as required to fill our bellies.  So are we paying for a share of the goods, or aren’t we?”

In any event, see you in the Lerner Piano Lounge, where the duration and volume of someone’s piano playing is always proportionate to your workload.