Concordia Builds More Ties with China Delegation Will Travel to China Other Premiers
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's ort Publications Mail Agreement No.: 1758594 VOL. 25, N° 9 JANUARY 25, 2001 CUTV rises from the ashes New look for Advancement and Alumni McGrath takes over Stingers football page9 pages page 11 Concordia builds more ties with China delegation will travel to China other premiers. The trip takes place Fine Arts will be looking for an ments with Hunan University, Arts and Science has the relation A_ on the next Team Canada trip February 8 to 17. agreement with the Shanghai Film Southeast University (Nanjing), and ships of longest standing in China, to develop our partnerships in that For Dr. Lowy, it will be his second Studio and Academy of Chinese Tra the Pulp and Paper Researr:h Institute and the current dean, Martin Singer, country and get the word out about trip to China as Rector, and his third ditional Arts. In fact, a screening of of China. is a Sinologist, with a deep and pas Concordia. to Hong Kong. animated films has been arranged Dean Mohsen Anvari, of the John sionate interest in the culture. He Rector Frederick Lowy, Vice-Rec "We have relationships with Chi with the cooperation of the National Molson School of Business, will join will meet with officials from City tor Marcel Danis and Dean Martin nese institutions going back 16 Film Board of Canada that will show the trip in Beijing, where he will University of Hong Kong, Beijing Singer will be part of a delegation of years," he said, but added that much case the work of Concordia gradu make a presentation about the Global Concord College of Sino-Canada, an about 300 Canadians, including of this trip will be to make new ates and faculty members. Aviation MBA program, a:long with expanding network of private institu- Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Pre friends, and "all four Faculties are The Faculty of Engineering and four Quebec aviation-related compa mier Lucien Bouchard and eight involved." Computer Science will solidify agree- nies. continued on page 5 Noble effort by home team at MBA Case Competition BY JANE SH UL MAN practical way." It wasn't only the competitors who usiness gurus arguing about how were able to apply their learning. BNoranda could best solve its Organizers Karine Wei, Megan Picker technology dilemma - a casual ing and Raymond Najm had been observer might have thought that it planning the event since last May, and was for real. The only clue was at the were thrilled to see the results of their end of it all, when the winner received hard work. a score sheet instead of a contract. As she sipped a cup of cold coffee It may be a game, but it was deadly and nibbled on a croissant, the only serious to the competitors taking part food she had managed to eat that day, in the 20th annual Concordia Univer Wei modestly described the planning sity MBA International Case Competi that was required to pull the event tion, held at the Queen Elizabeth together. The organizers and a crew of Hotel from January 8 to 13. 80 volunteers sought sponsors, solicit The week-long event, hosted by the ed judges and attended to hundreds John Molson School of Business, is the of details necessary to coordinate the oldest and arguably the best-known competition. MBA case competition in the world, Michael Mikelberg, president of attracting more than 100 students and Groupe Gestion Luger Inc., was one more than 300 volunteer judges from of over 300 judges on hand for the the business community. competition. Most are presidents of Thirty teams competed this year, their own companies, but took time half of them travelling from the U.S., Congratulations to the Concordia team, who won their division and made it to the semi-finals. Stand ing are Fra ncisco Zelez-Torres, off to lend their services. Mikelberg Doug Page, Priya Karnick and coach Tim Field. Seated are Bob Oommen and Susan Vivian. Europe, South America and New said that's because the judges learn a Zealand to participate. This year, judges, who act as company represen They faced a team from ESAN, in titian. Team members and the orga lot, too. however, the winners came from our tatives. Judges then grill team mem Peru. nizers of the Case Competition receive "It's an opportunity to stay in touch own neighbourhood - Universite bers about their ideas, and decide on a The competition demands that par academic credit for their work. with the level of excellence of students Laval. (See photo, page 8). winner. The top teams face off in the ticipants think on their feet. Concor Karnick said that she and her team emailed in MBA programs around the Teams go head-to-head, coming up finals on the last day of competition. dia team member Priya Karnick said mates, Bob Oommen, Susan Vivian world," he said. 'Tm always amazed at with solutions for problems that com The John Molson School of Busi that's why it is such a valuable experi and Doug Page, had an opportunity to the remarkable level across the board. panies are actually dealing with. Each ness team (see photo) did very well, ence. "As a result, I'm not afraid to be learn from the teams they faced. ''You It's also a chance to get out of the of the two teams in each competition making it to the semifinals. They won asked really hard questions in front of have a chance to see different schools' office," he added with a grin. is working with a case package of all their first three cases and were strong a group of important people," she approaches to business," she said. the background information they under pressure at the live case, an said. "The best part is the experience we've For more on the MBA Case need. They have three hours to come annual feature attraction of the com Concordia's team practised for sev gained, applying all these business competition, see page 8. up with a 25-minute presentation for petition that is open to the public. eral months leading up to the compe- concepts that we have learned in a Urbanologist John Zacharias is guardedly optimistic about municipal mergers BY ZA CK TAYLOR "There have been so many expen sive mistakes made because plan ontreal is not the first Cana ning decisions have been Mdian metropolitan area to subordinated to political decisions," face amalgamation. First Halifax, he says. "With a centralized profes then Toronto and Ottawa have sional planning bureaucracy, we gone the way of the "megacity" stand a good chance of correcting since 1995. them." In January 2002, all 28 city gov The merger does not address ernments on the island of Montreal what he sees as the central problem will become one. Overnight, 284 facing the Montreal region: subur councillors and mayors will be ban sprawl. replaced by one mayor and 71 "Sprawl will destroy our competi councillors. Municipalities like tiveness. The percentage of our bud Westmount, Outremont, and Ste get going into maintenance of Anne-de-Bellevue will cease to exist infrastructure like roads is growing as independent entities. year over year. While citizens of the smaller cities "We're sprawling at a faster rate and especially anglophones have than almost any other North Ameri been vocal in their protests, the PQ can city despite 10 years of flat pop government pushed the merger bill ulation growth. All of this sprawl is through the National Assembly on the north and south shores - before Christmas. amalgamating the island will at best John Zacharias, the director of create a new kind of political pres Concordia's Urban Studies Program, sure to halt sprawl, but there will be Urban Studies Professor John Zacharias. is guardedly optimistic about the no direct authority." merger, though he believes that it Asked how an amalgamated Mon Passed in 1992, Montreal's first-ever the 1970s, '80s, and early '90s, a lot gram offers a unique analytical will be far more difficult than the treal will stack up against cities like master plan is concerned with regu of important decisions were made: approach that emphasizes urban recent merger of Toronto's five bor Toronto or Boston in the future, lations rather than achieving long Metro system expansion, South project development. oughs. Zacharias is circumspect. term objectives. Since Mayor Shore bus integration, dedicated bus "Urban planning in Quebec has "It is difficult to know the advan "Cities are specializing. They are Bourque was elected in 1994, the lanes. These helped keep downtown been more about studying tech tages in the short run. There are developing profiles that are attrac city's planning department has been commercial vacancy rates below niques and the governmental vastly different bureaucratic cultures tive to particular types of business further diminished. suburban rates, something rare in process. Our program is far more from one municipality to another in investment. How successful Montre All of the signs of downtown revi North America." broadly based," Zacharias says. Montreal, and many of the smaller al will be in this competitive envi talization - the Alouettes' move to Good planning in Montreal is not In the program, students work on ones have no planning staff at all." ronment may have little to do with Molson Stadium, new university impossible. Zacharias says that with both real and hypothetical case When it comes to thorny issues of city governments. Our city govern buildings, Ex-centris, the Simons/ a good professional bureaucracy studies with an eye on what condi taxing, spending, and government men ts are very dependent on Paramount theatre complex, the responsible for the whole island, tions are required to make a plan responsiveness, Zacharias defers to provincial and federal governments Cite du multimedia, and the Molson regional coordination, and a strong happen, including funding and the political scientists.