Russ McCutcheon

Department of Social Services Commissioner Roderick Bremby told WFSB’s Dennis House on “Face the State” last Sunday that he might consider drug testing for welfare recipients. He was referring to the needy who receive thousands in state assistance in any year they are eligible for benefits.

Where is the test for those upon whom the state heaps hundreds of millions in corporate welfare? The people who concocted the plan to clear a wide swath of working-class homes in New London must have been on something.

Corporate travel buyers dished the dirt on the top five US airlines in Business Travel News’ Annual Airline Survey last week.

Airlines were judged on ten criteria including flexibility in negotiating pricing, services, and amenities; distribution channel availability; complaint resolution; value for price; quality of customer service; and networks and airline partnerships.

Overall, travel buyers saw stagnant or declining levels of customer service – only 18% thought there was an improvement over last year. Cost was also a point of contention – buyers say airlines are pooling their pricing power and not offering as many business travel program discounts, as well as piling on the ancillary fees.

What does this mean for business travelers? Your preferred airline may be on the outs with your travel department – read on for an insider’s view on possible shifts in corporate airline loyalty.

Delta soars to the top. Delta placed first in the ratings this year, due to corporate pricing flexibility, high responsiveness to customer complaints, and value of their networks. They’re known to cooperate with corporate travel buyers to negotiate the best deals and their extensive carrier network can get travelers where they need to go. Another boost is Delta’s new reporting tool for corporate customers which details ancillary fee spending and saving – a smart move with a view to transparency.

United-Continental in a holding pattern. The cumbersome process of merging two giant airlines takes its toll – buyers especially feel the pinch during corporate program consolidation and contract repricing. The airline’s recently publicized labor disputes and technological minefields are enough to make any travel buyer nervous. United is hoping a unified passenger system launching early next year will present a seamless interface to travel buyers and improve the “highly distracted and confused” opinion of the merged airline.

American and Southwest in free fall. American plummeted to almost last place from its 2nd place finish last year, partly due to this year’s distribution wars with Sabre. Buyers also felt the value of American’s network and quality of communication went downhill. Southwest, never a corporate favorite due to their inflexibility in negotiating preferred pricing and their product distribution strategy which limits availability through 3rd party channels, saw their rank hurt even more this year by a low perceived value for ticket price.

While your travel department may not switch preferred airlines overnight, staying up to date on airline reputations among travel buyers can help avoid an unpleasant surprise if your favorite carrier is put on the “No-Fly” list.

With the Learning Transfer Conference only a few weeks away, we thought wed give you a small preview of 6 Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning (6Ds). These Ds make up the core of the conference and its message of how to improve learning transfer in your organization.

Well start with the first disciplineD1: Define Business Outcomes. When organizations invest in training and development, they expect to see improved results. Learning organizations that are true strategic partners to the business go beyond just defining learning outcomes. They define business impact.

Learn more about the Learning Transfer Conference (November 14-15, 2011).

Tags: conferences, learning transfer, learning transfer conference, learning transfer and retention, education

Categories: Learning Development | News | T+D

APPARENTLY Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, called two weeks ago for reducing funding for liberal-arts disciplines at state universities and shifting the money to science, technology, engineering and math, which he abbreviates to STEM. (Amusingly, if you Google Rick Scott STEM you end up getting multiple references to Mr Scotts apparently non-operative campaign pledge to ban stem-cell research in Florida. Between the two issues, youve got a sort of operatic treatment of the modern Republican love-hate relationship with science.) Mr Scott seems to have repeatedly singled out the discipline of anthropology for derision. On one occasion, he apparently told a right-wing radio host: You know, we don’t need a lot more anthropologists in the state. It’s a great degree if people want to get it, but we don’t need them here. I want to spend our dollars giving people science, technology, engineering, math degrees…so when they get out of school, they can get a job. On another occasion, hes quoted as telling a business group in Tallahassee: Do you want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who cant get jobs in anthropology? I dont.

Few would defend deliberately educating more people who cant get jobs in anthropology, as such. (Of course, giving people math degrees rather than anthropology degrees will render them even less able to get jobs in anthropology.) Many, however, would defend educating more people in anthropology, regardless of what they wind up getting jobs in. In Slate on Friday, Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University, gave the traditional and entirely accurate pitch:

[R]esolving the complex challenges that confront our nation and the world requires more than expertise in science and technology. We must also educate individuals capable of meaningful civic participation, creative expression, and communicating insights across borders. The potential for graduates in any field to achieve professional success and to contribute significantly to our economy depends on an education that entails more than calculus.

Curricula expressly tailored in response to the demands of the workforce must be balanced with opportunities for students to develop their capacity for critical thinking, analytical reasoning, creativity, and leadership–all of which we learn from the full spectrum of disciplines associated with a liberal arts education. Taken together with the rigorous training provided in the STEM fields, the opportunities for exploration and learning that Gov. Scott is intent on marginalizing are those that have defined our national approach to higher education.

This is a solid response. What it lacks are rhetorical oomph and concrete examples. So heres a concrete example with a little oomph. Some of the best analysis of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and of the ongoing follies on Wall Street these days, has been produced by the Financial Times Gillian Tett. Ms Tett began warning that collateralised debt obligations and credit-default swaps were likely to lead to a major financial implosion in 2005 or so. The people who devise such complex derivatives are generally trained in physics or math. Ms Tett has a PhD in anthropology. Heres a 2008 profile of Ms Tett by the Guardians Laurie Barton.

Tett began looking at the subject of credit five years ago. Everyone was looking at the City and talking about Mamp;A [mergers and acquisitions] and equity markets, and all the traditional high-glamour, high-status parts of the City. I got into this corner of the market because I passionately believed there was a revolution happening that had been almost entirely ignored. And I got really excited about trying to actually illustrate what was happening.

Not that anyone particularly wanted to listen. You could see everyones eyes glazing over … But my team, not just me, we very much warned of the dangers. Though I dont think we expected the full scale of the disaster thats unfolded.

There is something exceedingly calm and thorough about Tett. She talks with the patient enthusiasm of a Tomorrows World presenter–a throwback, perhaps, to her days studying social anthropology, in which she has a PhD from Cambridge. I happen to think anthropology is a brilliant background for looking at finance, she reasons. Firstly, youre trained to look at how societies or cultures operate holistically, so you look at how all the bits move together. And most people in the City dont do that. They are so specialised, so busy, that they just look at their own little silos. And one of the reasons we got into the mess we are in is because they were all so busy looking at their own little bit that they totally failed to understand how it interacted with the rest of society.

But the other thing is, if you come from an anthropology background, you also try and put finance in a cultural context. Bankers like to imagine that money and the profit motive is as universal as gravity. They think its basically a given and they think its completely apersonal. And its not. What they do in finance is all about culture and interaction.

Another person with an anthropology degree whos been doing terrific work in recent years in a somewhat-related field is the Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk, who produced a fantastic short book last year analysing the tribal culture of the Dutch parliament and the media circles that cover it. Hes currently working on a study of the City as well. Anyway, the general point is that while studying human behaviour through complex derivatives has its uses, theres something to be said for the more rigorous and less egocentric analytical tools that anthropology brings to play, and it might be worth Mr Scotts time to take a course or two. Its never too late to learn.

In almost any Harvard class–across disciplines and course levels–one can see students checking Facebook, reading the New York Times, or checking their Gmail during lecture. The degree of internet browsing–something I like to call the Facebook Index–varies widely from class to class, and from student to student. However, by and large, Facebook during class has become so ubiquitous that no one even questions it.

Students and professors seem to accept this as a routine part of Harvard life. An explanation for this widely accepted phenomenon, however, is far from obvious.

Harvard students are, for the most part, intellectually curious. Their professors are leaders in their fields and senior advisers to governments and corporations.  Why such talented students choose to surf the internet over actively listening to their distinguished professors is quite the paradox.

The question gets more perplexing when considering that outside of class, the same students are eager to meet people who are intellectual leaders in their field. The same students will desperately try to lottery into an Institute of Politics forum event with the president of Chile or a dinner discussion with Larry Summers. A recent event with the former president of India was so well attended that a police officer physically prevented me from entering the room because it was literally overflowing.

Intrigued by this paradox, I started asking my classmates “Why do you Facebook during class?” Answers were mixed, but generally a variant of the following responses. People say they go on Facebook under one of the following circumstances: A professor starts regurgitating exactly what they’ve read in the textbook; paying attention won’t clarify confusion; a professor starts on a random tangent that is neither interesting nor relevant; students need a break to re-focus; students feel pressed for time and decide to multitask.

Deeper probing of these responses has led me to the following conclusions. Harvard students are generally pragmatic and hyper-concerned about maximizing their Return On Time Investment.  During class, students will give their attention to whatever they think will give them the most utility in each moment. Past generations of students must also have wanted to maximize their ROTI during class. But technological innovation has provided today’s students with more options to do so in real time, via their smartphones and laptops.

At the same time, the IT revolution has destroyed the traditional professor-student knowledge hierarchy. Access to knowledge has become easier. In the past, professors were knowledge gatekeepers when lecturing at the pulpit. To do well in class or feed their intellectual curiosity, students had no choice but to listen actively in lecture to uncover the knowledge residing with their professors.

But today, much of knowledge has become commoditized on the web. Knowledge in any subject–semiconductor fabrication, Kantian logic, or exchange rate policy–can be accessed through a quick Google search. Online sources like Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare, Wikipedia, and Google books are all freely and instantly available online. Today’s students have many choices in deciding how to educate themselves and can do so in a highly personalized and customized manner.

The Facebook phenomenon is part of a much larger knowledge and cultural paradigm shift that Harvard must proactively respond to if it wants the educational experience to remain a central part of students’ lives. Faculty need to realize that they are in constant competition for students’ time and attention and their quest for personally relevant knowledge. Professors need to start thinking of themselves as service providers who must constantly innovate to serve students better, servicing students’ curiosity and their desire to apply knowledge to create impact.

Facebook doesn’t compete for student attention equally in every class. From personal experience, classes taught by Michael Sandel, Niall Ferguson, and Donhee Ham, have a very low Facebook Index. These professors interpret knowledge and make it relevant to students in a uniquely personalized manner. Sandel makes abstract philosophy relevant to everyday life. He extracts and synthesizes student perspectives to create a classroom experience that shares knowledge in a way that can’t be found in a book. Ferguson wows classes by candidly sharing his strong opinions on world history and current events. His classes are so unique they develop into popular new books.

The demonstrated success of these professors and others like Computer Science 50′s David Malan should motivate all Harvard faculty to approach their classes with some fundamental questions. How can we add the most value to our students? Can we personalize the content to each student’s unique interests with readily available technological tools? What specialized or experiential knowledge can we provide that is unique? What knowledge and resources can we share to help our students achieve their goals?

In a world that has been impacted by knowledge flattening, Harvard clearly is not alone in struggling to capture student attention. Rather than perceiving technology as a competing force in the classroom, our creative and distinguished faculty should explore innovative teaching methods that harness the same technological force to uniquely personalize class content and deliver it in a powerful, Facebook-type manner. Doing so, will not only improve education here at Harvard but also position the University to take leadership in improving education worldwide.

Hemi H. Gandhi ’13, a Crimson editorial writer, is an engineering sciences concentrator in Leverett House.

In a bid to regain customer confidence after the negative publicity generated by the recent crackdown, prominent sweet shop-owners in the city have now decided to install CCTV cameras in their workshops where the confectionery is made. The owners say the cameras will then stream images onto screens in their shops where customers can observe the images and decide on the hygiene standards of the particular store.

? This year also enough of negative publicity happened for sweets. So we decided to display the scene of our workshop to win confidence of the consumers by demonstrating that we maintain proper hygiene levels?, said Parveen Kharbanda, owner of a sweet shop in the city. ?We will be doing this in the coming Diwali season because this year we took the decision,? he added. A few other shops have also decided to adopt the idea after it was discussed in a meeting of the Halwai association recently. Kharbanda, however, clarified: ?Despite the negative publicity there was no impact on the sale of sweets in our showroom. We have maintained a standard?.

Associated Students Inc. voted in favor of a resolution opposing proposed changes to the arts and humanities category of the general education policy.

The resolution, discussed on Oct. 19, divided the student government senate, with a 9-6 vote in favor of the resolution and four abstentions.

Currently, the GE requirements for the arts and humanities category mandates students take six units from two out of three humanities disciplines. The proposed change would allow students to take three units of art and six units from any two humanities disciplines, said Lynn Mahoney, associate vice president for undergraduate studies.

The changes are all motivated by a desire to simplify the GE requirements, Mahoney said.

Senator Jorge Soriano, however, stated that there had not been many complaints from students regarding the current arts and humanities category of the GE policy.

There is not a pressing need for change, Soriano said during the meeting. Do not fix what is not broken.

College of Liberal Arts Student Council President, James Suazo, was also present during the meeting and expressed his concerns that the change to the category would take away from what GE classes are suppose to do for a students education.

But Mahoney said, These changes do not water down the educational experience. GE is designed to expose students to a range of disciplines beyond their majors.

According to Mahoney, the changes to the arts and humanities category allow students to explore more disciplines since it increases the breadth of GE. It will also make it easier for the average student to fulfill the GE requirements.

Students within the College of Liberal Arts and in other colleges benefit equally, Mahoney said.

ASI, however, is concerned that some smaller departments, such as foreign language, will lose students if the changes to the arts and humanities category occur.

Richard Haller, executive director of ASI, urged senators to think carefully about these potential changes.

What may be good for CLA, could be detrimental to other students, Haller told the ASI senators. You have a duty to act for the entire student body, not just one group.

The Academic Senate approved a change to the arts and humanities category during their meeting on Oct. 20. The initially proposed change would have allowed students to take three units of art and six units of humanities from any two humanities disciplines, Mahoney said.

There was also a counter proposal by some from the Academic Senate that was subsequently approved, Mahoney said. If this counter proposal receives final approval from the Academic Senate, then students will be required to take three units of art, three units of humanities and an additional three units of either humanities or art effective fall 2012, Mahoney said.

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ALBANY, NY — Despite pressure on local officials from Governot Andrew Cuomos administration, protesters from the Albany version of the Occupy Wall Street movement remain in Academy Park. But theyre not happy that Cuomos top aide leaned on Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings to end the protest.

The events over the weekend with him trying to stifle the Occupy Albany movement were disconcerting and that some of his key staff people were trying to shut this down and it seems like hes trying to stifle democracy when it doesnt agree with him, said Ron Deutsche, New Yorkers For Fiscal Fairness Executive Director.

I think its kind of wrong. We have a right to assembly peacefully as long as were not violating the. Its a public park with a curfew that our tax dollars paid for, so its kind of a Catch-22 there, protester Eric Egnor.

But by injecting himself into what was essentially local protest against corporate greed, the governor has given the protesters a larger platform, including their support for increasing taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, a position Cuomo opposes.

Certainly he resisted it last time when we negotiated the budget, although I think the political pressure is mounting now, said Assembly Majority leader Ron Canestrari.

The governor sided with Senate Republicans during the last budget cycle to allow a surcharge on those making $250,000 and more to expire. Hes also opposed to keeping the tax in place for millionaires.

Its common sense, if you raise taxes 31 percent, which is what this was, people who have a great deal of discretion over where they work, some of them will decide where to live and how they earn their income, said Empire Center Deputy Director EJ McMahon.

In a radio interview with his predecessor, former Governor David Paterson, Cuomo said he was fine with the protests as long as they follow the law.

We believe in the right to demonstrate. We also believe in the rule of law and we enforce the law, Cuomo said.

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, meanwhile, said he would continue to let the protesters reside in the park.

Ive known Andrew Cuomo for a long time. I want him to respect what Im doing as a mayor just as like I respect what hes doing as governor, Jennings said.

5 days ago 

The Associated Press-GfK Poll on President Barack Obama and the economy was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Oct. 13-17. It is based on landline and cellphone telephone interviews with a nationally representative random sample of 1,000 adults. Interviews were conducted with 700 respondents on landline telephones and 300 on cellular phones.

Digits in the phone numbers dialed were generated randomly to reach households with unlisted and listed landline and cellphone numbers.

Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

As is done routinely in surveys, results were weighted, or adjusted, to ensure that responses accurately reflect the population’s makeup by factors such as age, sex, education and race. In addition, the weighting took into account patterns of phone use — landline only, cell only and both types — by region.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 4 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all adults in the U.S. were polled.

There are other sources of potential error in polls, including the wording and order of questions.

The questions and results are available at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com .

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Cherokee Inc. late Wednesday announced plans to move to larger offices in Van Nuys in order to accommodate its growth.

The apparel brand licenser said it will relocate to a 10,000-square-foot facility at Tri-Center Plaza on Sepulveda Boulevard by Dec. 1, about two miles away from its current headquarters. It noted that the depressed commercial estate market enabled it to negotiate “advantageous rates” on a five-year lease with a five-year extension option.

“This move ensures that we are in the best position possible to accelerate our planned growth initiatives while still strategically managing our expenses,” said Chief Executive Henry Stupp in a statement. “This relocation provides much-needed room and will allow us to better transform our company.”

Cherokee licenses Cherokee, Carole Little and other fashion apparel sold at Target Stores in the United States, Tesco in the United Kingdom and similar retailers around the world,

The company last month reported a one-third drop in fiscal second quarter earnings, largely due to lower sales at Tesco stores and expansion expenses. Last month it opened a marketing office in Minneapolis.

Shares earlier closed down 37 cents, or 2.6 percent, to$13.97 on the Nasdaq.