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Editors : Sanjeev Patel, Leah Ramkaran, Desmond Kwan, Will Kwan, and Lee Welbanks

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Building tomorrow’s leaders toda y

M • E • S • A Management & Economics Students’ Association

B a n q u e t E d i t i o n The

Photos from the 2002 MESA Annual Banquet

N e w s l e t t e r

Congratulations to everyone on another successful year!

This year MESA organized 25 successful events for students including pub nights, recruiting seminars, the mentorship program and our annual banquet. Thank you to everyone who helped out this year, including the dedicated MESA executive team and all our volunteers!

Taking on the role of MESA President in my 3rd year was incredibly daunting, and very exciting! I gained an incredible wealth of knowledge and I learned a lot about managing people and balancing many different pri-orities at once. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to be the President of this organization and work with such wonderful people. It may have been a bumpy ride at times, but the satisfaction at the end of the day was well worth it!

I wish Sejal and next year’s team all the best.

Regards, Jacinda Clarke

Page 2 The Executive

President - Sejal Shah Sejal will be going into her 4th year in the Co-op Management Program. Sejal has worked diligently as VP Opera-tions this year, and as Director of Accounting in 2001-2002. Her commitment to MESA and work ethic set Sejal apart from her peers. She has demonstrated excellent leadership skills as VP Operations, ensuring the success of all our events. Congratulations Sejal! VP Communications(1st term) - Lisa Harvey Lisa is going into 3rd year in the Co-op Management Program, and has in interest in accounting. Her work with MESA began in her first year, as a volunteer to the Director of HR. This past year Lisa served as Human Resources Manager, where she demonstrated her excellent organizational skills. VP Communications(2nd term) - Leah Ramkaran Going into her 4th year of the Co-op Management Program, Leah has an interest in i-banking. This was Leah's first year on the MESA team, and she did an excellent job as Director of Administration. Her leadership and organiza-tional skills ensured the success of MESA's newsletter. VP Finance & Administration - Melissa Wyseman Going into her 4th year in the Co-op Management Program, Melissa aspires to be a CA. Melissa was Director of Social Events and Banquet Chairperson on this year's MESA team. Her ability to manage several MESA projects at once earned her a spot on the Senior Executive Team. VP Operations - Lisa Tran Lisa is going into 4th year in the Co-op Management Program, and is currently on a work term at Microsoft. As Special Events Coordinator, Lisa ran our FinEx program this year. Her initiative and creativity have earned her the repect of faculty and peers alike.

Message From the President

Meet Next Year’s Senior Executive Team

The Executive Page 3

Trimestering and Tuition—FAQ By: Jacinda Clarke

What is Trimestering? From now on the academic year will be divided into 3 complete sessions: Fall, Winter and Summer. Starting next year most of the courses offered at UTSC will be half-credit courses offered over 12 weeks. This should offer more flexibility and course choice to all students, while supporting the needs of the growing co-op programs on our campus. How will Tuition be Affected by Trimestering? If you enroll in 3 half credits or more in any session, you will be considered a full-time student for that session. All full-time man-agement students will pay the same tuition whether they are en-rolled in 3, 4 or 5 courses. Is Tuition Going up Again Next Year? Yes. Starting in September 2003 all 2nd year full-time management students will be paying $4,000 per session($8,000/year). 3rd and 4th year full-time management students will be paying $3,307.50 per session($6,615/year). Can I Take More Than 5 Courses? Beginning this summer students will only be allowed to register in 2.5 credits per session on ROSI. Students wishing to enroll in more than 2.5 credits in a single session must go to Registrarial Services in person. What’s Happening this Summer? The summer of 2003 will serve as a transitional period with some half-credit courses being offered over 12 weeks, some half-credit courses being offered over 6 weeks and some full-credit courses being offered over 12 weeks. For more information, including a list of summer course offerings please go to www.utsc.utoronto.ca/trimestering.

The Executive Page 3

Inside this Issue: Page 4 • Mesa to pursue Student Society

Status By: Sebastian Park Page 5 • Post-Secondary Tuitions By: Professor Rick Powers Page 6 • The Next Frontiers of Marketing By: Professor Sharmistha Law Page 7 • The Purpose of Management Edu-

cation By: Professor Chris Bovaird Page 8 • Our New Management Building By: Professor Sandford Borins Page 9 • Preparing for the Job Interview By: Professor David Zweig • Recent Management Faculty Ac-

complishments

For many years, MESA has been the primary academic club for students in the Division of Management at UTSC. We are proud to have half of the student population in the Division of Management on our registered membership, a reputable executive team from year to year and the recognition from our various partners for professionalism con-sistently displayed at our events and in our team.

As the Management Program expands and develops, MESA must also re-evaluate our mission and goals. As a re-sult of careful analysis and planning, we are re-aligning our strategy to pursue Student Society status. By becoming a Student Society, MESA will be able to increase the availability of services for management students, increase transparency and accountability to our sponsors, and provide more comprehensive student representation in the Di-vision of Management.

What follows is a brief summary of our reasoning for this decision.

Increase in Demand for Greater Variety of Events

There has been a significant increase in demand for events in areas that MESA has only been able to explore suc-cinctly in the past due to limited resources, e.g. Marketing, Human Resources, Economics, etc. MESA could try to fill these demands. However, we feel that it would be more beneficial to students for a number of niche clubs to be formed to focus on each of these areas. Assuming the leadership role as a Student Society, we would like to begin fostering the sprouting of such new business clubs through financial and strategic assistance, thereby increasing variety and quantity of events for students overall.

Increase in Applications for Executive Positions

Applications for MESA Executive positions have jumped over the years. We are expecting over 100 applicants for the 20 or so spaces available this year. The process itself is becoming highly competitive. Each year, too many well-qualified applicants are turned down and it is a reflection of MESA having outgrown itself. As a Student So-ciety, MESA can help more students reach their full potential by providing the space, and resources for new clubs to form and by providing more venues for leadership experience. Building tomorrow’s leaders today remains as one of MESA’s primary objectives.

Increase in Membership (including the effects of double cohort)

MESA’s membership has risen consistently over the years; this year’s membership comes close to 600. We project this trend will continue, especially with the double cohort, we will be taking on an even larger responsibility than ever before. Given the significance in the size of our membership, we feel that it would be more efficient to grant the memberships automatically. This can only be achieved as a Student Society. Furthermore, this will officially formalize our division-wide representation for management students.

Increase in Administrative and Council-like Responsibilities

Communicating to students via e-mail, conducting polls, assisting alumni initiatives as well as many other tasks have become the responsibilities of MESA. MESA Executives have served as members of the Building Users’ Committee, Branding Committee, Chair Selection Committee, and as students’ advocates at the Academic Planning Committee. Responsibilities like these will only increase as the Division of Management doubles its size over the next few years – in both breadth and scope of its program. It is paramount that MESA evolves together with the Division of Management to ensure success for all students and the Division.

Change is Good!

At the peak of MESA’s existence, we humbly realize at this juncture that there is still much room for improvement, and that change is the only way to achieve that. Our new vision of becoming a Student Society will allow ....See Student Society Status on page 7

New Vision New Heights: MESA to Pursue Student Society Status By: Sebastian Park, Executive Advisor, MESA

Page 4 The Executive

Deregulated tuition in the University of Toronto man-agement and commerce programs has resulted in un-precedented increases in tuition fees in recent years. Tuition is much more market driven with most top pro-grams in Canada experiencing similar fee increases.

As part of my doctoral studies at The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, we have been examining the financing of higher education, focusing in part on differ-ent ways of determining and allocating the participant’s contribution to the cost of various programs. While I am not advocating any particular change to the current payment schedule, I think it is both interesting and worthwhile to have an idea of how other jurisdictions have dealt with this issue.

In examining the direct and indirect costs of education, the economic expenditures and returns on educational investment and the various public policy issues relating to all of these topics, it becomes clear that the nature of higher education involves a discussion of quite different funding sources.

Tuition for the most part is unique to higher education in Canadian universities and colleges. Elementary and secondary schools are publicly funded (other than pri-vate or independent schools), as are universities and col-leges, but to a different degree. Whereas public funds administered through formulas (Ontario) account for virtually all of the financing of our elementary and sec-ondary school systems, public funds account for only a portion of university and college revenues, and this source appears to be declining despite the rhetoric ad-vanced by politicians. There are also a number of pri-vate institutions (eg. DeVry) that rely almost entirely on tuition fees, so universities and colleges fall somewhere in the middle.

It has been previously noted that we are experiencing a period characterized by rising tuition fees in Ontario. As well, over the past several years, the Ontario govern-ment has allowed the deregulation of tuition in certain programs while maintaining strict allocation formulas based on the use of such fees (30% to student aid for example).

Decisions as to which programs should be deregulated appear to be market driven as compared to having any basis in public policy. What can we charge or what

will students pay appear to be the rallying cries around deregulated programs. And the programs experiencing this phenomenon are what one might expect in terms of to-day’s “hot” degrees – computer science, business, man-agement and the professional programs such as medicine, dentistry and law. One can argue that the increased likeli-hood of obtaining employment in these areas justifies the incremental tuition, however, that assumes that the pur-pose of higher education is to secure employment. Not an altogether foreign concept as we do have to eat, but should it be the basis on which tuition is determined?

There are other ways to structure tuition.

Perhaps tuition fees should be based on level of study. Undergraduate programs would cost a certain amount, followed by master’s level and then doctoral. This idea can be compared to a type of progressive tax as proposed by researchers Elchanan Cohn and Terry Geske, in that as the level (income) of study increases, so does the tuition (tax rate) for those programs. This method may make sense in some cases, where the economic benefits of an advanced degree can be translated into higher income upon graduation. But this is not always the case, in fact in many instances the pursuit of a higher degree has more to do with the advancement of knowledge than any remu-nerative value.

Consider the idea of standardized fees – the same fee for all programs. An advantage would be greater access to a wide range of programs, assuming a relatively low fee. There would not need to be any structure really, much like an ice-cream stand – the same price for any flavour, and presumably you could mix your flavours – do a major in computing science and a minor in law. Accounting would certainly be simplified, but standardized fees assume stan-dardized costs, and we know that this is not the case. The costs of providing laboratory facilities in science courses are certainly higher than the costs associated with giving a history lecture. Thus the fee, in order to cover different program’s costs, would have to be relatively high. Some programs would be overcharged (general arts) and others undercharged (science) in order to achieve a balanced budget. This is what is referred to as a tuition tax, in the sense that general arts programs are used to subsidize more expensive science programs for example. ...See Post-Secondary Tuitions on page 6

Page 5 The Executive

Post-Secondary Tuitions: Options for Change By: Professor Rick C. Powers

Page 6 The Executive

Did you know that Cunning Stunts, an advertising agency in the UK, has started paying students to emboss brand logos on their foreheads? Or, that Jeff Spriet, who heads up a Toronto-based company called Chokolat, is in the business of creating short TV programs that will entertain the viewer and promote products at the same time?

Well, facial ads and product placements may be unsettling, but the idea behind these is not new. Ever since an en-gineer at Zenith invented the TV remote control in the 1950s, advertisers have tried to figure out how to keep our attention. Advertisers, reacting to increasing clutter, decreasing effectiveness of traditional advertising and greater competition have experimented with and adopted many new methods of reaching their consumers, such as direct mail and telemarketing. More recently, marketers have begun looking beyond these traditional methods to seam-lessly include brand names in entertainment media – in movies, television programs, video games, and even fiction! Indeed, over the last decade we have witnessed an increasing blur between entertainment and advertising. Do these new techniques work? Some critics have contended that product placement is unethical because it is a secretive, subliminal form of advertising. Should consumers be concerned?

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Comment on the Next Frontiers of Marketing By: Professor Sharmistha Law

Post-Secondary Tuitions continued...

This suggests that perhaps it would be more equitable to tie tuition to program cost. Using the above example, general arts programs would have comparably lower tuition costs than science programs. Medicine and den-tistry, with their extremely high delivery costs would bear the burden of much higher tuition fees. This propo-sition strikes at the promotion of access – only the rich could afford the higher cost programs. Or it envisions a grant and loan system that would offset the higher tui-tion. But we have to consider – offset it to what? The cost of a general arts degree? What would we use as a base? There is a current need for more doctors in On-tario – how do we attract students with such high tuition costs?

This leads into a discussion of tuition based on the type of program. This is somewhat analogous to the idea of program cost, but includes an introduction into the post-graduate salary debate. Those programs with the great-est potential for high salaries should have higher tuition fees, based on the candidate’s ability to pay upon graduation. In many respects this amounts to a tax, simi-lar to standardized fees. Higher priced programs would subsidize lower priced alternatives.

In medicine and especially in the current market situa-tion, this may make sense. We can predict to a reason-able degree, the average salary a doctor can expect upon graduation and extrapolate this into the future. Then it is a matter of deciding what percentage, over how many years, doctors would accept the reimbursement of their tuition fees, assuming that they were not charged during their training. One might consider

tying tuition to the actual salary earned over a period of time. For example, a plastic surgeon earning $400,000 per year might be “taxed” at 20% over 4 years, thus yielding $320,000 in tuition costs. Another doctor earn-ing considerably less, say $150,000 re annum, would contribute $120,000, using the same formula. This re-sults once again, in higher income individuals subsidiz-ing those with lower incomes, but it recognizes that abil-ity to pay may not be such a bad thing. One could argue that the financial impact of such formulas is similar – 20% is 20%.

Varying tuition by institution should also be addressed, a practice not uncommon in the private institutions in the US and even to some extent between private elementary and secondary schools in Ontario. How to implement such a system in Ontario is questionable and determining the rankings is fraught with problems such as bias and selectivity to name just a couple. How much faith can we put in an institution’s reputation? If we use the cur-rent Maclean’s rankings as a start, those institutions ranked in the top ten for example could charge higher tuition that those in the bottom tier. But how do we dif-ferentiate by the type of programs offered? Should medical/doctoral schools, assuming increased delivery costs, be allowed to charge even higher tuition than pri-marily undergraduate institutions?

The debate over tuition fees is an interesting lesson in economics. The double-cohort and increasing participa-tion rates in higher education have created a traditional supply-demand model. While tuition fees are unlikely to decline, the extent to which they may rise should be con-sidered in light of the various options presented in this article.

I don’t work at the Rotman School, downtown. So I don’t go there often. However, because I live near the St. George campus, and have some colleagues who do work there, I pass through its doors from time to time.

The Rotman School is housed in an attractive, modern building as befits a business school of its size and reputa-tion. I like the atrium design. However, there’s something about the Rotman School building I don’t like: there’s a pixel board with a constant stream of share prices that tends to dominate the atrium space. Every minute of the working day, you can get a (presumably) real time quote: BCE 30.75 -.25, RBC 55.60 +.20, NTL 3.30 -.05, and so on. Its impressive looking, and wouldn’t be out of place on a Bay Street trading floor, but what does a running stream of stock quotations have to do with management education?

Bay Street, I recognize, needs managers. Chartered banks, investment banks, and pension funds all need to be managed. These are all large organizations, with important work to do. Bay Street needs finance experts, and ac-countants, and strategists, and marketers, and human resource managers. But since when did the hegemony of Bay Street mean that “management” became synonymous with “stock speculation”.

I’m not against the financial sector. I started my career by – literally – walking down Wall Street. My first job in Canada was in an office building at the corner of King and Bay Streets. I’m not anti-capitalist. I’m an investor in the stock market. I check the Dow, the TSX, and the NASDAQ indices regularly. I sit on the Board of a private investment company. So I’m not anti-finance, anti-Bay Street, or anti-establishment.

What concerns me is the message that that pixel board sends to students of the Rotman School: “You are here in order to go to Bay Street”. The dominance of a stock ticker suggests to Rotman’s MBA students that their skills are un-needed and unwanted in the public or not-for-profit sectors. It suggests that the purpose of a (partly pub-licly-funded) management education is to go exclusively into high-income, for-profit, private sector firms. It sug-gests that an MBA is a tool designed exclusively to enhance your income, not your knowledge or understanding of organizations and the people within them.

Some of most well rounded, well traveled, compassionate and literate people I know have an MBA degree. Not all of them work on Bay Street. A great friend of mine once said “an education should be an open-ended journey, and should last a lifetime”. The pixel board at the Rotman says “this program is a one way ticket. Once you get to Bay Street, you’ve arrived”. I think the message is wrong. And I think it’s sad.

Page 7 The Executive

The Purpose of a Management Education By: Professor Chris Bovaird

Student Society Status continued…

us to focus our attention on the very things we do best. Through this process, we will reinforce the foundation of student activity in the Management Program, and help strengthen the spirit of active learning of “Great Minds for Great Management” at UTSC. This is our commitment to the Division and its goal of becoming the best business school in Canada.

MESA has struck a Transition Committee to assess and formulate strategies on bringing the changes about. There are many details that still need to be nailed down. Our implementation plan involves a referendum to be held around February of 2004 and full attainment of the Student Society status for the academic year of 2004-05, coin-ciding with the opening of our new home in the Management building. It will also involve the formation of a Board of Directors that will serve as a democratic platform for the operation of MESA. Stay tuned for periodic updates on this project on mesa.ca.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this project, please do not hesitate to contact us at mesa@utsc.utoronto.ca.

Page 8 The Executive

The new Management Building is coming – very soon. The architects and the building committee have been hard at work since last summer, and the new Management Building will soon become a reality. Our challenge was to bring three elements into alignment: the program, which is the term architects use to refer to the activities to take place in the building; the budget, the amount of money the university is making available for the building; and the aesthetics, the look and feel of the building itself. We have now done that, and we have an attractive building that will provide state-of-the-art classroom and office space for the Division of Management, and we will do it within the construction budget of approximately $ 9.5 million.

A key feature of the building will be an inner atrium that runs the length of the building, open to the third floor, looking up to a roof of Douglas fir. There will be walkways crossing the atrium on the second and third floors. At the centre of the building, the atrium will open to an outdoor courtyard, looking out to the valley beyond. The main floor will house three 60-seat and one 80-seat tiered lecture amphiteatres and a 120 seat lecture hall. The upper floors will include a classroom for skills development courses, a seminar room, the Co-op and divisional offices, faculty offices and research space, and four 30-seat classrooms. There will be five meeting rooms for student dis-cussion groups and a permanent office for MESA.

Ground-breaking will be on Thursday, May 15 and a committee that includes several MESA members is now plan-ning the event. Construction is set to begin in July and the building should be ready for opening for fall semester in 2004.

As Chair, I have several hopes for the building. First, that it will be a place of pride for everyone in the Division of Management. Second, that it will stimulate creativity on the part of students, staff, and faculty, so that we will use it to enrich our programs in ways that we never imagined when planning it. Third, that it will attract donors who want their names associated with it, thus providing support for the Division. Planning the building has been very exciting, and I’m sure the reality will even exceed our plans.

Our New Management Building By: Professor Sandford Borins, Chair

Division of Management

Southeast Perspective of the Management Building.

The job interview can be a stressful experience. You have to sell yourself to potential employers and convince them that you are the best person for the job. In the past, this often meant coming across as agreeable and extra-verted in response to questions like “can you tell me something about yourself?” Today, most large organizations are much more rigorous and structured in their approach to interviewing job candidates. Interviewers will ask all job candidates the same questions in order to objectively rank them on specific and job-related criteria. Preparing for these questions can help you reduce your stress, and hopefully, increase your chances of success.

You might be surprised to learn that organizations are not really concerned about assessing your level of job-related knowledge. Be it finance, accounting or something else, organizations count on your education at U of T to provide you with the technical background necessary to work with them. These organizations are much more interested in assessing your “fit” in terms of key competencies (skills, abilities, personality and motivation) that have predicted success in the past. The questions they ask are designed to assess these relevant competencies. For example, many organizations are interested in your ability to make well-considered decisions. So, interviewers might ask you to describe a situation where you had to make a difficult decision. As another example, interviewers interested in your ability to work in and lead groups might ask: “Describe a situation in which you took the initia-tive in your group and led them to a creative decision.” Your response will tell them if you have the right mix of characteristics they are looking for.

Other common competencies that are often assessed in structured interviews can include judgement, team-work, drive and communication. To best prepare for these questions, you should think about specific situations that convey your competency in these areas. For example, consider a time when you had to deal with conflict in a group. How did you handle it? Were you successful in resolving the conflict? Above all, be honest in offering ex-amples. Most interviewers will probe for specific answers after you give them an example.

It is still important to learn all that you can about any organization with which you are interviewing. You must decide if the organization, and the job, is a good fit with your skills and interests. But, thinking in advance about how your experiences have prepared you for working in an organization will enhance your probability of ob-taining a great job. Good luck.

Page 9 The Executive

Preparing for the Job Interview By: Professor David Zweig

Recent Management Faculty Accomplishments Continued Interest in David Zweig's Research David Zweig has been busy giving talks at a number of practitioner conferences, following the media interest in his research into electronic surveillance in the workplace. The conferences include a luncheon address at a "Privacy in the Workplace" conference attended by over 100 HR executives and lawyers and an upcoming conference focusing on "privacy as a fundamental right" hosted by the Ontario Bar Association in April. He will be speaking alongside the Federal Privacy Commissioner and a Supreme Court Justice. Walid Hejazi Receives Plumptre Award The recipient of this year's Plumptre Research Award is Walid Hejazi. His project, "Canada's Industry Level For-eign Direct Investment: What Drives Success?," will look at different sectors of the Canadian economy in an effort to explain the extent to which they attract investment from other countries, and are themselves a source of Canadian investment abroad. As part of the Plumptre Award, he will be giving a public lecture on his work in the spring.

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