Ross Featured In the News - Week of April 19
Week Ending April 19
April 18 - Newsweek - Students May Get Lower Grades Based on Their Surnames (Jun Li)
"We spend a lot of time thinking about how to make the grading fair and accurate, but even for me it was really surprising," study author Jun Li, an associate professor of technology and operations at the university's Ross School of Business, said in a statement.
"It didn't occur to us until we looked at the data and realized that sequence makes a difference."
April 16 - WXYZ Detroit - Renaissance Center Faces Uncertain Future After GM Announces Move to Hudson’s Site in 2025 (Brian Connolly)
Connolly, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, noted the massive amount of office space in the complex and explained the office market isn’t doing so well.
“Folks who own office buildings are trying to figure out how to fill them, given that people are working from home and you’ve got companies downsizing their lease footprints," he explained.
April 14 - AACSB Insights - Academic ‘Elders’ Wanted: Inquire Within (Andrew Hoffman)
The business school curriculum needs a major reset. While the present variant of shareholder capitalism accelerates climate change and widens income inequality, business schools continue to teach that endless economic growth and consumption are possible. While groups like Business Roundtable, World Economic Forum, and BlackRock have been reexamining the purpose of the firm, we have been largely absent from this debate and continue to teach that its purpose is to maximize shareholder value.
We need to amend the curriculum to reflect the world as it is now and the world that is yet to come. Our students are already ahead of us, questioning basic assumptions about the market and bringing new attitudes about the economic, social, and environmental purpose of corporations. For instance, today, more than 70% of the Gen Z business cohort want content that addresses climate change.
Week Ending April 12
April 11 - TODAY - What Happened During O.J. Simpson’s Car Chase - And Why Everyone Remembers It (Marcus Collins)
Dr. Marcus Collins, an author and professor at the University of Michigan who focuses on the impact of culture, tells TODAY.com that the Simpson police chase and subsequent trial simultaneously gathered and divided the country.
“It was one of those rare moments in time when seemingly the majority of the country is watching the same thing, shoulder to shoulder,” he explains. “What those moments do for us is allow us to speak concurrently and in shorthand because we have all seen it, and that’s all in the air.”
Even in the case of the gruesome murders at the center of the trial, the entire ordeal created a shared experience that brought people together to share in conversations and debate.
“It becomes a currency for our social networks, and we can go to dinner and say, ‘Did you see it?’” Collins said. “‘Of course, you saw.’”
April 7 - New York Post - Professor Susan Miller Jokes her Airtight ‘Super Commute’ from NYC to Michigan is Faster than Past LIRR to the City (Susan Miller)
NYC resident Susan Miller hops on a plane every week to fly to the Midwest where she teaches as a full-time professor at the University of Michigan business school.
“I get to enjoy an atmosphere and culture different from NYC. And it usually takes no more than two hours to fly between New York and Michigan,” she told Business Insider.
“I think I have the best of both worlds: I teach bright, well-rounded, caring students from around the world, and I get to return home and take advantage of everything that makes New York City exciting and interesting.”
Week Ending April 5
April 2 - Yahoo! Finance - Capital One and Discover Start Their Uphill Battle in Washington (Jeremy Kress)
“It’s like [Capital One’s lawyers at] Wachtell took the template from the last 20 deals and did a control+ F,” Kress said in an interview. “Times have changed, and the people making the decisions on this merger are not the same regulators as before.”
Kress said Capital One’s analysis ignores submarkets and niches that regulators are likely to focus on. Subprime is “a totally different animal than cards with $800 annual fees and access to airport lounges,” he said.
Capital One and Discover are among the biggest issuers of credit cards to people with poor credit scores, generally under 660. Doing some rough math, Kress calculates that combining them would exceed the Justice Department’s own limits on market concentration. They are also both big issuers of secured credit cards, which require a deposit and are used to help people build or rebuild credit after a bankruptcy.
Week Ending March 29
March 25 - Crain’s Detroit Business - Michigan Banks Have More Commercial Real Estate Loans than Big Chains. Are They in Danger? (Erik Gordon)
"Two things make these commercial real estate loans scary: one is we're not enjoying as many people going back to work in commercial real estate locations as we had expected," said Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. "We're through COVID, but lots of people are still working from home. They're not going back to office buildings. So there's a big swath of commercial real estate where we have very high vacancy rates."
