Media Matters – SFU Business in the News – June 11

How SFU Business fared in the news for the week ending June 11, 2010.

BC News

• Marketing prof Lindsay Meredith was on CKNW, discussing at length the public-relations fallout and the political impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster:
  • “The longer you go without solving the problem, the more difficult it gets to make your point stick that you are indeed a worthwhile corporate organization and the more difficult it gets to keep the regulatory authorities and the federal U.S. government off your back. Let me tell you, the politicians worldwide are on high alert about this one. It was a big wakeup call for everybody and the entire oil industry is going to pay for this. They’re going to pay for it in spades.”
  • “Are we junkies for oil? You betcha. (But) as soon as you go offshore, as soon as you drill in the Arctic, you’re getting into very, very, highly vulnerable environmental areas. Any kind of screw-up in those areas is going to be a massive screw-up.  . . . The sensitive areas of British Columbia’s Queen Charlottes, for example. That mess on the Gulf Coast literally threw a major wrench into the works for Gordon Campbell and the guys who are trying to get some oil drilling activity here. If we restrict oil drilling in some of these more sensitive areas, it’s not going to make the demand go away. The only issue is we’re going to have to start scrambling harder for supply. What does that do for our friends in Alberta and the oil sands? Things look better and better.”
• Meredith was also in the Epoch Times, in a story suggesting the new Harmonized Sales Tax may generate a cash black market to avoid the tax.
  “Dr. Lindsay Meredith, a professor of marketing at Simon Fraser University, says the 12 percent HST in B.C. and 13 percent in Ontario are large numbers and if consumers can get around paying the new tax, they will.
  “‘As long as people are feeling a little bit poor, because of the amount of debt they’re carrying and feeling put upon by the tax level that’s hitting them—you’re going to see some of this underground behaviour going on,’ he says.”
• A Douglas Todd column in The Vancouver Sun looked at the challenges of “dual loyalties” of immigrants, loyalty to this country but also to a “home” state, society or religion. Quoting SFU ethicist Mark Wexler, Todd wrote:
  “Our sense of personal integrity and purity can feel as if it’s becoming undone, Wexler says, when we start asking questions such as: ‘How can I be loyal to two countries, particularly when one is at war with the other? How can I be loyal to my principles when I am drawn to many different and viable options?’ . . . (But) when we experience multiple loyalties, Wexler says, ‘The joys of a new sense of self come into being. There is the romance of what may be possible in an alternate world or an alternate identity.  This is far more than a delusion. It is the hope of becoming.’”
• Business prof Andrey Pavlov was in the Epoch Times, saying the recent Bank of Canada boost in its benchmark interest rate is further evidence of Canada’s leading position in the global economic recovery.

National News

• An outdoors column in the Winnipeg Free Press offered 10 reasons why the long-gun registry should be scrapped. The 10 came from a presentation to a House of Commons committee last week by Gary Mauser, prof emeritus (SFU Business) and a student of national and international gun control. Mauser concluded:
  “In sum, the test of any governmental program should be whether it meets its goals. In this case, the long-gun registry has failed.  It has failed to save lives. It has failed to reduce murder, suicide or aggravated assault rates. The long-gun registry continues to cost Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars each year. This money could be better spent on other more useful law enforcement measures, or be directed towards a number of other key priorities for Canadians such as health care.”

Education

• Following up on a story about admission grade-requirements at BC universities, The Vancouver Sun found a new angle at SFU Business:
  “To combat sky-high admission requirements, Simon Fraser University’s school of business is changing its application process to take into account extracurricular activities. A 92-per-cent high school average is needed to get into the popular program, but that’s about to change.  As of next year, all students will be selected based on ‘broad-based’ admission requirements.
  “‘When our admission average exceeded [those needed for] engineering, I said,  “There’s something wrong,” Colleen Collins, SFU’s associate dean, faculty of business, said. ‘We do have some kids who, it blows my mind that they can pull of the grades and do all of that. But once we’ve admitted Superman and Superwoman, let’s see who else is doing great things out there.’
  “The school decided to shake up its admission process, which sees 1,400 applications for 450 spots, by starting a pilot project to look at the extracurricular lives of students.  Musicians, artists, athletes, social activists and community leaders are now sought after for the school of business.”

Also in the News

• The Vancouver Sun featured SFU grad Claudia Li, who is “helping to save the world’s sharks, one bowl of soup at a time.”  The Sun continued:  “The business graduate from Simon Fraser University has founded Shark Truth, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping reverse the severe global decline in sharks due to the Asian demand for shark-fin soup.  . . . Li launched Shark Truth not to use attack or boycott tactics, but rather to engage the community on the issue. She started by asking Chinese couples to commit to not serving shark-fin soup at their weddings.”