September 17, 2008

Page 1

The Chronicle Financial turmoil roils Wall Street Fee proposal Fewer firms to attend

fails to pass student vote

today’s Career Fair by

William Hyung THE CHRONICLE

Students who visit the annual Career Fair today will find representatives from more than 100 employers ready to tout their companies. But they will also notice gaps from a field whose tables historically drew long lines of interest: big-name investment banks. Several investment corporations that participated last year—including Goldman Sachs Sc Co., JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley—will not be found in the Bryan Center. Perhaps related to the faltering economy and the collapse of several large firms, only a few of the more prominent financialfirms will table at the Career Fair, said William Wright-Swadel, Fannie Mitchell executive director of career services. “Wall Street is one of the most soughtafter places students seek to work in after graduation,” said Wright-Swadel', who was appointed to the post this year. “When a domain like that is in transition, it diminishes the number of opportunities available for students.” Still, the Career Fair Guide lists 17 companies under the financial sector that will be represented. Several students said the recent economic downturn has caused them to consider careers outside the banking sector. “It is inevitable that it will have an effect on students,” said freshman Paul Harraka, who is planning to declare an economics major. “Maybe not now, immediately, but SEE CAREER ON PAGE 9

54 percent cast

against increase by "c-

SEE BANKS ON PAGE 10

SEE RESULTS ON PAGE 8

Bank troubles leave job offers uncertain More than a dozen students with postgraduation job offers at Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are uncertain about employment possibilities after the current economic climate threatened the firms’ futures last weekend. While Merrill Lynch, plagued by toxic assets and financial stress, was being acquired by Bank ofAmerica Corp. for $5O billion, global investment bank Lehman Brothers was fast approaching failure. On Monday, Lehman Brothers announced that it will be seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Bafclays PLC executives said Tuesday that

the chronicle

Barclays would purchase a portion of the ailing bank. Senior Helin Gai, who interned at Lehman Brothers last summer and received a job offer for after graduation, said his two-month experience with the firm was worthwhile and educational—even if his presumptive position disappears in the coming months. “Most of us know that, after the Bear Stearns collapse, a lot of people have been speculating that Lehman would be the next one to go,” Gai said. “When this happened, it’s not so much surprising, but I certainly had a lot of hope

This week,Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was acquiredby Bank ofAmerica. Industry difficulties have left some studentswhohad hoped to enterfinance questioning their job prospects.

Ally Helmers THE CHRONICLE

Emmeline Zhao

Duke Student Government’s online referendum to increase the student activities fee failed by majority vote Monday. The results were announced in a blast e-mail to students sent by DSG Attorney General Will Passo, a sophomore, at around 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. Of the 1,700 votes cast, 743 were in favor of the proposal and 920 were against—43.7l percent to 54.12 percent. Thirty-seven freshmen who cast ballots for freshman elections abstained from voting in the referendum. Additionally, freshmen and upperclassmen voted on different ballots, with large discrepancies in the results: 341 voted upperclassmen in favor of the referendum and 659 voted against, but 402 freshmen voted in favor

MARY ALTAFFER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

by

of vote

Distance no barrier for Alaska, Duke law journals Ryan Brown THE CHRONICLE

by

CHASE OLIVIERI/THE

CHRONICLE

The School ofLaw has published theAlaska Law Review since 1984 becauseAlaska does not have a law school.The editors of the journalare Duke law students.

There may be more than 4,000 miles between Durham and Anchorage, but the distance between the Duke Law Review and the Alaska Law Review is a little shorter. In fact, it’s about 15 feet. You can find the two journals in offices on the same dark stretch of hallway in the Law School basement. And the editors of Alaska’s most-circulated legal publication? They are Duke law students, most ofwhom have no connection to the northernmost state. “It’s a unique situation,” said Jeffrey'David, executive editor of die ALR and a third-year law student. The “unique situation” is that, unlike the other 49 states, Alaska has never had its own law school. And without a law school, it is also without a place to publish a scholarly journal about issues in state law. In the early 19705, the University ofCalifornia at Los

Angeles School ofLaw began putting out a publication called the Alaska Law Review. But the organization that oversees the Alaskan law community, the Alaska Bar Association, complained that the journal lacked relevance to Alaskan lawyers, said Paul Carrington, a professor and former dean at the School ofLaw. So the Alaska Bar Association began a search for a university that would put together a journal the Alaskan law community could actually use. When Carrington heard the ALR was looking for a new home, he snapped at the chance to bring the journal to Duke. “I thought, it’s a good deed in a cruel world and it’s not doing us any harm, so why not do it?” he said. That was 1984. Today, the journal has made itself at home in the Gothic Wonderland. Sandwiched between offices of law journals on gender and environmental SEE ALASKA ON PAGE 9


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