4A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
BUSINESS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELE
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the tendency to begin pursuing degrees in business and engineering during recession isn't new. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported significant growth in both areas during the last major U.S. recession in the early 1980s, when unemployment reached 10.8 percent in November of 1982.
Approximately 36,000 more students earned degrees in business in 1985-86 than in 1980-81, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In the same five year study, computer and information sciences, a department within the School of Engineering at the University, grew the sec
ond most nationally by more than 27,000 degrees. Engineering, which added 13,000 degrees, came in third. As students in the '80s gravitated toward business and engineering, student involvement in 10 of the
30 listed fields in the study, including education, social sciences and history, visual and performing arts and the humanities, dropped.
Ann Cudd, dear of the KU department of humanities, said students with degrees in these subjects had expressed concern about finding a job. She said she always asked about their biggest interest within their field of study and then tried to help them find resources that could lead to jobs.
"We have a career center and a service learning center, both of which can help students figure out what they want to do." Cudd said.
Being able to understand the Business School is a great tool. "
Cudd also said she did not expect to see a significant decrease in humanities majors. Enrollment in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences rose from 16,653 students to 17,080 from 2007 to 2008, according to the KU Office of Institutional Research and Planning. Although Cudd acknowledged the recession had worsened, she said she thought KU students would always continue to pursue these subject areas, regardless of the state of the economy; for both their practical and intrinsic value.
"I think even in a time when students might be worried how their major will apply to the job market, students will still be going to the humanities for those basic fundamental skills," Cudd said, "Majors in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have to do with broader questions about human life. Those questions are going to be burning, regardless of the state of the economy."
in growing schools, such as the School of Business, during times of recession, Cudd said.
A more likely change would be a rise in the amount of students with a second major or a minor
WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN
"Double majoring has gone up over the years," Cudd said. "The business minor is clearly very popular."
Russell Mosser is retired and isn't worried about his job status, but he is concerned about the people around him. He attended the University during the Depression and graduated 70 years ago in 1939 with an economics degree.
KOLTON SLATTERY Topeka junior
He said the economy now is not much different than it was in the 1930s — unemployment has risen, the market is struggling and the recession is dictating student
career paths.
Although he majored in economics, Mosser said he took courses in both money and banking and in public finance. He said when he first began pursuing an economics degree in the fall of 1936 — the middle of the
Great Depression - he noticed a widespread uneasiness across the Lawrence campus.
"Kids were pretty serious at that time because they were concerned about getting a job when they finished school," Mosser said. "There was no guarantee in that."
Mosser said that although he did not notice his classmates choosing one or two fields in particular, the University overall had more students who were careful to choose the degrees they thought would be most practical.
"Sometimes it looks like the same old thing, just in a different garb, to so say." Mosser said. "Things are not that different. They're just dressed up a little differently."
BUSINESS IS BOOMING
This fall, while more students chose business programs at the Lawrence campus, the number of graduate students in the part-time MBA program at the Edwards
campus also grew by 30 percent, Dixon said. She said the 30 to 40 percent enrollment increase in the full-time MBA program in Lawrence was probably the biggest indicator of a struggling economy
Dixon said the School of Business also accepted more undergraduate students this semester in an attempt to meet a higher demand from both students and outside employers.
marketable."
"We've been able to increase our faculty and, therefore, increase the number of students that we accept," Dixon said. "We've been expanding our programs based on what employers tell us they are looking for in new applicants. We try to listen to them to make sure our programs offer the skills employees are looking for when they hire."
People are going into the full-time master's program when they're looking to retook and find a new career," Dixon said. "The economy has a lot to do with that. People are thinking of increasing their education so they'll be more
Slattery, who said he hoped to secure an undergraduate spot in the School of Business, said his uncle, Joe Slattery, encouraged him to switch to business. Joe also attended the KU School of Business to pursue accounting, and is now the chief financial officer of SunGard Data Systems Inc.
"He basically kind of told me everybody needs accountants," Kolton Slattery said. "Being able to understand the business school is a great tool for anybody to have. There's businesses everywhere."
Slattery said he realized there were no guarantees for a job following graduation. But he said he would certainly be more marketable, and at a time when the market was struggling and jobs were scarcer, that advantage had acquired new value.
Stuart Bell, dean of the School of Engineering, agreed. He said KU engineering graduates recently found success in securing jobs in health care and environmental protection, and other students had noticed. As Kansas employers have been seeking KU engineering graduates to help resolve state issues in these areas, he said, more students have sought to become a part of the supply.
"Certainly we are seeing engineering as being a high demand," Bell said. "We were not even coming close to meeting the demand both Kansas City and Wichita are placing on our students."
Mosser said similar to the '30s,
he had directly seen the effects o'
"People are thinking of increasing their education so they'll be more marketable."
this recession. His daughter, who was making $80,000 a year, was recently laid off.
TONI DIXON School of Business
"Our economic time now, it's really scary," Mosser said.
Mosser said that even with rising unemployment, what he witnessed in the past has given
him hope that the economy would soon recover like it did after he graduated in '39.
"We keep reinventing the wheel!" Mosser said. "We're pretty good at that."
Edited by Abbey Strusz
BUSINESS
Newspapers will try new
online payment systems
SAN FRANCISCO Newsaper publishers spent much of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.
This fall some large newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths.
They'll be testing readers' willingness to pay for information that mostly has been given away online for the past 15 years. That happened largely because most publishers could afford to subsidize their Web sites with profits from their print
franchises. But now those profits have crumbled, just as the prices for online ads are tumbling, too.
Publishers are using caution because they are still trying to devise online payment plans that will generate more revenue without alienating too many of their readers.
Tanner Grubbs/KANSAN
Heather Himmelwright, Pratt sophomore, looks through posters Tuesday afternoon in the Kansas Union lobby. The back-to-school poster sale, which ended on Friday, offered varieties of posters ranging from art to landscapes, music and movies.
OBITUARY (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Off-the-wall visuals
"Shed walk into a room and make everyone smile, even if they were having the worst day possible," she said
In 2004, Morgan dropped her classes and moved to Hawaii, where she waited tables at a five-star restaurant for two years. Morgan would send gifts from Hawaii to her nephew, Cooper, said her sister, Jennifer Whitaker of Tacoma, Wash.
Auntie-package?"
"He would always look for a package from Auntie," she said. "Then she came back to Lawrence and was a poor college kid like everyone else and Cooper would say, 'Where's my
"Of anybody that could've done it, I think Kara probably could've done it because once Kara set her mind on doing something, it got done," her mother said.
floor of the Paris Las Vegas hotel, but Blodgett said Morgan charmed the workers at the front desk into giving the girls a free upgrade to a better room on the 27th floor.
Blodgett remembered traveling to Las Vegas with Morgan to celebrate Blodgett's 21st birthday. The girls had booked a room on the 10th
After returning to Lawrence, Morgan started a new major in sports management. She told her mother two weeks before her death that her goal was to get an internship with the Seattle Seahawks.
"I've been telling them that she's dancing, wherever she's at now," Bldgett said.
Blodgett said Morgan would want her friends and family to be happy, even after her death.
Edited by Brenna M. T. Daldorph
DONATE (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
blood.
Unger said she had been donat ing since she was 16.
"Blood cannot be manufactured; it must be donated," Sajevic said. "It takes less than an hour, it's easy and the personal satisfaction of knowing you helped someone is all the reward you need."
"It's been engrained in me from my family." Unger said. "My grandpa was a medic in the war and encouraged all of us to donate blood because it truly saves lives."
Kerbs said each unit of blood, which is about a pint, had the potential to save up to three lives. Once the blood is donated, it is separated into three parts: platelets, plasma and red blood cells. Kerbs said each unit of blood, which is about a pint, had the potential to save up to three lives. Once the blood is donated, it is separated into three parts, platelets, plasma and red blood cells, and each part is given to a different recipient depending on their need.
Keep up with friends, stay ahead of your coursework and stay in touch with family near and far. As a student, you can take advantage of instant savings on many monthly service plans. To make it easy, we'll even waive the activation fee. Get it on the Now Network. $ Save with your discount for students of KU.
Major in communications.
"There are other volunteer opportunities," Unger said. "But by donating at this drive, you save lives and that's something we rarely get the chance to do."
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Save 10%
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- Edited by Abbey Strusz
As in years past, the American Red Cross and Community Blood Center are offering T-shirts as an extra incentive for people to donate blood. Sajevic said it provided an
Each year the blood drive has a new theme to encourage people to donate. This year's theme is Crimson and Blue for KU.
additional benefit for the cause as well by drawing attention to the campus organization.
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