THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF BENTLEY UNIVERSITY SINCE 1963
THE VANGUARD VOLUME LVIII ISSUE VII
COMING SOON
THURSDAY, APRIL 9 2015
Bentley hosts first series of student-led TEDx conferences Staff writer
Bentley hosted its first ever TEDx talks in an extremely stimulating experience for all last Saturday. The theme of the event was “Coalescence,” to grow together, or join two or more ideas. Thirteen speakers presented their thoughts on this topic in the inaugural event, which was organized by a team of 17 student leaders as well as numerous other volunteers. TED was founded in 1996 by Chris Anderson and is a series of talks on a variety of topics. Although these talks now cover almost all topics, they started out by covering the convergence of Technology, Entertainment and Design, hence the name: TED. The nonprofit is committed to spreading positive ideas in the form of talks of 18 minutes or less. TEDx was created by TED in alignment with their primary mission of “ideas worth spreading.” These events ba-
sically allow independent organizers to create “TED-like” events in their own communities under free licenses they offer. Organizers from across the globe ranging from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam to Yale have organized TEDx events of great substance. According to its website, TEDx events
“spark deep conversation and connections at the local level” through “a combination of live presenters and TED Talks videos.” TEDxBentleyU was made possible by Kevin Ma, a Bentley senior whose commitment and persistence earned him both permission from the university
and a license from TED to organize the event. Beginning at the end of the 2014 fall semester, Ma constructed his team of 17 student leaders as well as other volunteers. Separated primarily into the marketing and logistical teams, the volunteers overcame obstacles regarding a variety of issues.
THE VANGUARD/Jennifer Wright
BY Adam haidermota
TED limits each speaker in a community’s initial TEDx event to an audience of 100 individuals each. The student logistics team was responsible for issues such as how to disperse these limited tickets to the Bentley community and how to divide them amongst students, professors and alumni. The student marketing team was responsible for promotion. In addition to placing posters around the school and running an active Facebook page, they developed a custom website and created a Snapchat account in order to help spread the word. The event was a terrific success. Most of the speakers’ 100 tickets were sold out, with a few even selling out their waiting lists. The speakers included alumni, professors, innovators, entrepreneurs and even prominent YouTube personalities. The professors included law professors Marianne Kulow, whose talk was titled “The Business Case for SEE tedx, PAGE 4
The TEDxBentley team poses for a post conference picture.
Sinegal fails to impress at ethics lecture; my opinion BY usama salim Editor in chief
I’m not a big believer in ethics. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean you don’t need to be ethical, I just don’t believe that we need to be taught basic things such as treating employees’ right, or paying them on time; these should be standards embedded in our everyday lives for us to abide by. The real ethics and the ethics that we need to learn is to understand that we, as future business persons, will often walk a very fine line between what is and isn’t ethical. And there are very few theoretical books that can outline this; you need to experience it. So imagine to my surprise when Costco, a retailer known for its ethics and social responsibility, has one of its co-founders and former CEO come to Bentley. I was personally ecstatic. What are some of the challenges he faced? How did they deal with walking the “fine line of ethics”? Did they
ever break their ethics code? With these questions in mind, I showed up to the lecture ready to learn. I was on cloud nine when James Sinegal, THE James Sinegal, passed by me whilst I sat on the stairs in Wilder (they understandably made me move). I sat in my seat, ready to learn. My mental notepad was all ready to jot as many notes down as my mental capacity would allow, and I was all set to challenge my understanding of ethics. Sadly, that never happened. We know the standard company lecture always starts off with how great a company is. Understandably, so did Costco’s. One of the really big things that these companies do is recruit top talent, and if people know more about their companies, they will flock more towards them. I’ll give them all that. The lecture started with an over-the-top video explaining how much people love Costco. From news anchors to actors to scenes from movies, all the way
THE VANGUARD/Natalia McCullough
Costco founder holds “Costco Glory” talk; barely mentions ethics
to a shout-out from the President. It was all there. But there was NO need for a 7-minute video. I get the fact that Costco is great and all, but I mean come on, let’s try not to stretch its greatness that far. After these seven minutes were over, I thought we would jump straight into the ethics part. I held on… not even close.
Sinegal went on to belt more about how awesome the company was for perhaps another 20 minutes or so. By minute 45, I, along with a few other students who weren’t really there for extra credit but rather to learn, decided to leave. It had started to get too painful by then. Sinegal had mentioned the fact that Cost-
co had sold 129,000 Karats in diamonds. And how exactly was that ethical? He followed up a comment along the lines of “I don’t even know what that means” combined with a chuckle. Maybe it just infuriated me to see him shove his company down peoples’ throats, SEE costco, PAGE 4
Spencer West
Vejigantes
Women’s Lacrosse
The world-renowned speaker hits the stage.
Check out a restaurant review by features editor Megan Lieu!
The team heads into the final stretch. Can they make it?
NEWS 5
ENTERTAINMENT 6
SPORTS 12