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(10/15/02 6:12am)
With a persistent, results-oriented attitude IU President Myles Brand pushed and prodded state leaders to do things his way. In a state slow to change, rocky relationships and confrontation didn't deter Brand.\n"He was very dogmatic in what he put his mind to. He was not very warm and fuzzy," said Indiana Chamber of Commerce President Kevin Brinegar. "He certainly clashed with folks in the state government and the state house, but he didn't seem to back away from any fights or battles if he felt it was important to maintain his position or principles."\nThe tough mindset allowed Brand, a Brooklyn, New York native, to come to Indiana and plant the seeds he believed would bring the University and the state the most growth.\nThose around Brand expect the seeds to grow while he's planting more with the NCAA.\nBrand created the positions for vice president for information technology and the office of the vice president for student development and diversity. He oversaw the formation of Clarian Health, a merger between IU Medical Center and Riley Hospital for Children and Methodist Hospitals. He led the creation of the school of informatics in November 1999 -- a program designed to educate in in the technical, psychological and social aspects of information technology -- the first new school at IU in 25 years. He helped IU Foundation secure an $105 million grant to fund the Indiana Genomics Initiative, to provide research on the link between genetics and disease. He also made IU a founding partner in the Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative, a $1.5 billion initiative to bring jobs in life sciences to central Indiana.\nBrand has served as an intellectual farmer, IU Trustee Stephen Backer said.\n"The things that he did in the business community and around the state we have not really seen the results of yet," Backer said. "Three or four years ago when he was going around the state talking about his view of what the state needed to do to be in the 21st Century economy, he was right on the money and right on target. Those are the kinds of things everybody is talking about right now." \nThe vision Brand brought to IU is what will be missed most, Backer said.\nIn leading state decision-makers to support the Life Sciences Initiative, Brand consistently attended meetings in Indianapolis to show his support for the future of central Indiana businesses.\n"Myles added immeasurably to the future by focusing on the future and not being content with what had been there," said David Goodrich, president of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership. "The job of any leader is to be a visionary and I think Myles has looked at the future of Indiana University and the future of the state."\nWhen Brand begins his new job with the NCAA on Jan. 1, 2003, he will take his vision of academic excellence to college sports -- an attitude that was sometimes unpopular with students.\nBrand fired former basketball Coach Bob Knight in September of 2000, causing an uproar on campus as students burned his effigy outside his house on campus. Many professors supported Brand's decision because they felt Knight's presence was taking away from the academic mission of the University.\nStill, many students were outraged, as they would have preferred Brand leave than Knight.\nBrand will no doubt be remembered by some solely for the firing, but Backer contends that Brand has always looked out for IU's best interests.\n"What's best for the kids and best for education and how do we get Indiana to be the best is a very important legacy he leaves behind," Backer said.\nA legacy, Backer said, that could grow exponentially.\nBrand's remarkable ability to attract new resources, IU spokesman Bill Stephan said, bodes well for the University's future.\n"He's certainly been our champion and opened a lot of doors"
(10/09/02 4:38am)
Bloomington-based Cook Inc. will soon turn to an appeals court after the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Monday again supported Boston Scientific Co.'s assertion that a potential merger between Cook and Guidant Inc. violates a co-exclusive agreement that Boston and Cook signed in 1997 with Angiotech Pharmaceuticals.\nGuidant and Boston are in direct competition to introduce new heart-disease technology, a potential $4 billion market by 2004.\nGuidant, which produces uncoded coronary stents, wants to buy Cook's paclitaxel-coding technology. The technology prevents arteries from clogging with scar tissue after surgery.\nBoth Cook and Boston obtained their paclitaxel coding capabilities from Canada-based Angiotech.\nBoston claims the co-exclusive agreement forbids Cook from sharing information with Guidant about stent coding.\nBoston is worried about Guidant becoming a world leader in both coded and uncoded stents, said David McCarty, Cook director of public relations.\nShares of Guidant dropped 16 percent last week as investors speculated the company will not be able to keep up with its competitors in the race for coded stents. Still, Guidant and Cook remain confident a merger will eventually take place.\n"Guidant continues to be committed to advancing this important lifesaving therapy and will pursue alternative pathways to bring drug eluting stent technology to market," said Ronald W. Dollens, president and CEO, Guidant Corporation in a press release. "We will also continue to aggressively pursue the Guidant vs. Boston Scientific litigation. We believe that the proposed acquisition of Cook Group is consistent with the terms of the Angiotech license agreement and should allow commercialization of the ACHIEVE Stent System."\nBut if for some reason the merger doesn't work out, Cook will remain financially strong, McCarty said.\n"We've been growing at an extraordinarily rapid pace over the past 16 months," he said. Still, a Guidant-Cook merger is most favorable, as it would represent a boon to the local economy.\n"Any time you have a Fortune 500 company come into town, that's a good thing," McCarty said.\nIf the merger goes through, McCarty said Guidant will continue using Cook's facilities in Bloomington and after an 18-month integration process the portion of Cook that Guidant is buying will eventually be labeled as Guidant, McCarty said.\nCook appears to be in an enviable position. The company is the largest privately-held medical manufacturer in the world and in competition with multi-billion dollar corporations, McCarty said.\n"Cook will continue to be a very successful company (no matter the outcome)," he said.
(09/24/02 4:28am)
A collage of news clippings about the backlash against Muslims after Sept. 11, both on campus and around the country, was posted earlier this semester on a bulletin board in Willkie Quad. The artist, senior Emily Roth, prepared the board for a CommUNITY Education Program discussion last Tuesday at Willkie entitled, "Can you be proud to be an American without excluding those who aren't?"\nSome -- who believe the collage sympathizes with Muslims -- were offended, and feel no remorse for the Muslims that were targeted following Sept. 11.\nThe mindset of these people poses at least two problems for IU.\nFirst, arbitrary hatred is dangerous. It is reactionary and implies the intolerant person is uneducated. Such intolerance should be a major concern at all levels in this community. The University's administration has been struggling for a long time to diversify IU and make minorities feel comfortable on a campus that is more than 80 percent white. Uneducated and misguided attitudes threaten that work.\nSecond, on a more acute level, Muslims were physically assaulted after Sept. 11 at IU. There is a lot more happening than the clash of ideas. Violence stemming from ignorance has no place at this University.\nAs evidence of IU's push toward a better-educated and integrated campus, CUE began in 1989 with the intention of promoting diversity and understanding in the residence halls. Today, there are CUE educators in every dorm that "strive to create innovative programs that build community, create dialogue, challenge assumptions and foster acceptance and understanding among our student populations," according to the group's Web site.\nRoth is a community educator. She is one of 13 on a campus of 39,000. She is a gender studies and History major, works as an HIV Prevention Educator with local Bloomington shelters and is planning on obtaining her Master's in social work. She is clearly well-suited for her position and has an awesome responsibility by being involved in such important work.\nThe collage she created was meant to foster discussion among students about the nation's response to Sept. 11. She should be applauded for thinking seriously about such deep issues and pushing her colleagues to think about them also. But some students do not want to have the discussion. Instead, they would rather hold on to their notions of what Islam is and what all Muslims are like. They would prefer to group all Middle Easterners together and write them off as ideologically backward rather than understand the societies they live in.\nSept. 11 was a terrible day. We should neither forget the anger we felt, nor keep it bottled up inside. But we should be careful about what we do with that anger and how we move forward. Roth would prefer we all talk about it.
(09/11/02 6:10am)
Self-confidence and optimism keep Mike Weichman from becoming discouraged. The depressed job market has directly affected him. A tumultuous year beginning with the Sept. 11 attacks and including public disclosure of bad accounting practices by several major corporations jarred an already reeling economy.\nWeichman, a 2001 IU graduate, is without a job and along for the bumpy ride.\nHe sizes up his situation and sees a wall ahead.\n"The economy is terrible," Weichman said. "It's a very tough time. A lot of big corporations aren't hiring right now. To get an interview you need to know someone right now."\nWeichman is originally from Chicago. After graduation he worked for Network Plus in the World Trade Center. A week before Sept. 11 he left the company to join 1 800 Gift Certificate as a national account executive. By changing jobs he escaped the fate of his friends from the Boston-based company. They took a double dose of misfortune when they saw firsthand their office become consumed in the carnage of the terrorist attacks and then lost their jobs about a month later when Network Plus filed for bankruptcy.\nMonths later, Weichman was laid off too. And he is still looking for a job. As for his friends, one promotes a book he wrote, the other moved home to North Carolina and is still without a job.\nBecause more people find themselves out of work and in competition for scarce openings, the job search is grueling and it can take many months to land work.\nWeichman remains determined. "If you put your mind to it you can get a job," he affirms. "I feel like I have a big wall in front of me and I have to get over that wall."\nWeichman is justified in envisioning a wall in front of him. Layoffs have been fairly widespread since the government declared a recession in 2001. In addition, corporate profits, with the exception of the fourth quarter in 2001, have decreased every quarter since 1999, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.\nBecause companies are generally making less money they have had to cut costs. In addition, confessions by several large businesses that they have for years disguised significant losses in tricky accounting techniques has forced heavy trading on the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average has experienced a particularly volatile year, seeing its largest one-day point loss (685 points on Sept. 17), one-week point loss (1,369.7 points from Sept. 17-21) and busiest trading day (2.81 billion shares on July 24).\nDespite this seemingly dark news from Wall Street, other economic indicators provide a calmer forecast.\nGross Domestic Product, a monetary measure of everything produced in the United States, has increased three quarters in a row. Consumer spending, another strong indicator of economic well-being, has remained virtually unaffected by the recession. It dipped at the turn of the century from its high levels in the late 1990s, but has shown consistent growth, particularly in the fourth quarter of 2001 when many auto manufacturers gave consumers incentives to buy cars with no interest.\n"We are not in recession by all the indicators that we see around us," Rudy Professor of Economics George von Furstenberg said. The problem economists have with deciphering what is going on is that mild upswings do not always denote the end of a recession, he said. Instead they can actually represent the eye of the storm before the economy again performs poorly as part of a "double-dip" recession. But von Furstenberg pointed to both healthy housing and car sales and expects increased government spending to soon prop the economy. \n"I think we are out of recession," he said. "I don't think there will be a double-dip and I think we'll find that we are and have been out of recession for several months."\nMost Bloomington business owners would likely agree.\nIn southern Indiana, like in much of the country, the psychological effects of Sept. 11 have kept many people on the ground. Vacationing by car is the way to go and the region has seen significant growth this year.\n"We can see 11 percent growth in comparison to last year," said Valerie Pena, executive director of the Bloomington Convention and Visitors Bureau.\nA new marketing plan targeted at the major cities within Bloomington's five-hour radius (Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville and St. Louis), plays high on both IU and nostalgia.\n"We wanted to bring alums and parents of students back to a time when things were casual and loose," Pena said. "We also had a strong emphasis in youth sports activities."\nTourism is the third largest industry in the Bloomington area, bringing in $225 million a year to the local economy with the help of 3,700 employees. The fun, close-to-home, university atmosphere has ensured that the Convention and Visitors Bureau's marketing plan has been successfully implemented.\nConvention spending is the only area of Pena's business affected by the recession. Government groups generally constitute a large portion of convention spending. Because of some questionable economic decisions at the Federal level and spending for the War on Terrorism, the groups have been resigned to less expensive conferencing measures as the government has gone from predicting a surplus to a deficit.\nA tariff on foreign steel has had the effect of raising the price of American steel and a $51.7 billion subsidy for American farmers doesn't appear wise now that the government is predicting a deficit.\n"I think the government did its political best to take measures that are politically popular but economically unwise," said von Furstenberg, who thinks the tariff and subsidy weaken the United States' position going into global free-trade negotiations. War can also have a substantial affect on the economy, he said.\n"What is true is that generally risk premiums tend to go up when you're facing increased international security, which has a chilling effect on investment," von Furstenberg said. "(You're unlikely to invest) if you're uncertain as to how things play out, and how demand shifts and what a quarter million in Iraq means for oil prices."\nSo the people producing the nation's corn and steel may be happy at the moment, while those buying grudgingly incur the costs. And as more fighting appears imminent and people are generally uncomfortable, Pena's business will thrive while Weichman and his friends trudge on to the next interview.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
As time passes we attempt to put events behind us, to rationalize them. War was declared on our country a little more than two weeks ago, but the state of our union is strong, says President Bush.\nAlthough alarmed by the terrorist attacks, the general feeling among young people seems to be that things will work themselves out.\nOur generation's perception of destruction and evil has been blurred by complex film plots and special effects. But the damage in Washington, D.C., New York and Pennsylvania is real -- not part of some movie promoted by the networks.\nWhat's most scary about the attacks is they were carried out by other young people. Young people who were not only willing to die for their beliefs, but kill more than 6,000 others in the process. And for one day our country, and the world with it, stopped.\nThere was before Sept. 11 and now there's after Sept. 11, and that's likely how we'll put things in context for the rest of our lives.\nIf the attacks were anything, they were a wake-up call to the evil in the world. If there was innocence before, it should be all but gone now.\nThere is determination among Osama bin Laden and his cohorts to destroy us and everything we stand for, and we must counter with greater determination.\nOn May 28, ABC News Correspondent John Miller interviewed bin Laden somewhere in southern Afghanistan.\n"We predict a black day for America and the end of the United States as United States, and will be separate states, and will retreat from our land and collect the bodies of its sons back to America. Allah willing," bin Laden told Miller.\nThe Taliban warned Americans Monday they are "igniting a fire that will burn them" if Afghanistan is attacked. \nBut we've already been burned; look at the smoke over Manhattan.\nThe attacks are not an isolated incident. God forbid, they could happen again. Bin Laden and his followers are armed, dangerous and unaccountable to anyone but themselves.\nWe -- America's youth -- are their antithesis. \nBeyond trying to fight terrorism -- because who knows how long the fight will last or how easy it will be to fight those we intend to -- there has to be a concerted effort among all young Americans to get up from the ground to which we have been beaten down and stand up taller. Everything has to be done better.\nIf ever the cliché "you are the future" wasn't cliche, it's now. In a community where education is top priority, we must be more educated. In a country where democracy rules, we must be more democratic. In a world both blessed and plagued by religion, we must be more upstanding.\nSoon enough we will graduate and America's fate will be ours. President Bush may make the decisions now, but we are the ones inheriting the world.\nCan we stand up to the tall order?\nA retired police sergeant with the Port Authority Police of New York & New Jersey and former sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, Richard Kiselewsky expressed his concern with America's young in an e-mail.\n"While we all like to stand and cheer the fact remains, when it comes to sacrifice, few are willing to step up and be counted," Kiselewsky wrote. "So much for the spirit of America."\nHopefully, history will remember our generation as one that acted with vigilance, that stood up for itself and numbered off for what was right before it was asked to be counted.
(10/10/00 5:57am)
Editor's Note: Goldman Sachs paid for the reporter's trip to its New York headquarters.\nNEW YORK -- With the hope of luring IU's best and brightest to one of Wall Street's oldest firms, representatives from Goldman Sachs will hold an information session regarding opportunities with its investment banking division at 7:30 p.m. today in Room 100 of the Kelley School of Business.\nGoldman Sachs is a global investment banking and securities firm that provides investing, advisory and financing services to corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net-worth individuals.\nAccording to Thomson Financial Securities Data, Goldman Sachs ranks among the most profitable Wall Street Investment Banks, having made more than $4 billion in investment banking revenues this past year.\nFinance professor Bob Klemkosky said the firm, which has 76 IU alumni globally, has a long-standing history with IU and has been interviewing on campus at the Kelley School for 20 years. But representatives said they will return Nov. 13 to interview select students, marking the first time the Wall Street firm has conducted campus-wide interviews at IU for its investment banking division.\n"They look for well-rounded people," Klemkosky said. "They've always hit the Ivy League schools hard ... most of the kids out of the Ivy League are non-business majors."\nRandy Powell, director of the Business Placement Office, said the company typically interviews students with very high grade point averages.\n"There are other firms like this, but they are probably at the top of the heap," Powell said. "It's a very select group of schools they visit."\nGoldman Sachs Managing Director David Baum, a 1986 IU graduate who is head of American mergers and acquisitions, stressed that students majoring in any subject have an opportunity to find a job within the company.\n"Ultimately in this business it may be more important to have done well in psychology class rather than in calculus," Baum said. "Not to upset any of the business majors, but a lot of what we do on the numbers side is not rocket science ... we need people with great aptitude, judgment, strong interpersonal skills and a good commercial sense."\nEnglish Department Chairman Kenneth Johnston said a liberal arts degree gives students these types of skills.\n"There is more open-ended problem solving and critical thinking about any range of issues," Johnston said. "In English, we know we have the importance of writing and thinking through writing."\nBaum said the team of recruiters coming to campus is made of IU alumni and will be considering three things in particular when evaluating students.\nFirst, he said students must have demonstrated strong academic performance throughout college, which he said gives them a "ticket to a conversation." Then, he said students must have both strong leadership skills and work experience.\n"Investment banking is a tough nut to crack because they generally recruit at the Ivy League and in the Northeast," said Career Development Center Director Alan McNabb. "It means they really think highly of our students and the fact that they're including our arts and sciences students is enlightened on their part."\nJohnston said the distribution requirements in the College of Arts and Sciences makes for well-rounded students.\n"As Cardinal Newman in 19th century England said, 'a liberal education gives you a sense of the relative disposition of things in the world,'" Johnston said. "You're going to know something about foreign cultures, math, science ... the world of nature, the world of society, the world of thought."\nAlissa Burstein, a vice president who manages the investment banking division's analyst program, said university recruiting is a critical aspect to bringing young analysts to the firm.\n"We recruit at approximately 60 schools around the country formally and hire many people from schools where we don't formally recruit," Burstein said. "There's no one right type of school or program or student. We look for a variety of different types of backgrounds in order to have a balance within the analyst class and feel as though a number of different types of preparation would lead to someone being a very successful analyst in the program."\nNancy Labiner, an associate with the analyst program's management team and a 1991 IU graduate, said Goldman Sachs will recruit from several Big Ten schools including Illinois, Northwestern, Iowa, Michigan and IU.\n"We've had enormous success with the analysts that we've hired from Indiana," Labiner said. "We feel as though the school has been a terrific source of talent for us."\nBaum said the recruiting effort is important because "we're only going to the world's finest educational institutions and our goal is to skim the cream off the top."\nWhen new analysts begin with the company, Burstein said they are given a great deal of responsibility. The analysts work with teams that include associates, vice presidents and managing directors to execute transactions and advise major corporations.\nLyndsay Harding, a first-year analyst who graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in Asian and Middle-Eastern Languages, said she enjoys the work because "it's never going to get stale." She said as an analyst, "you get the granular view and you get the 30,000 foot view ... there are a lot of moving parts."\nShe said that although she did not have much business training before coming to the company, a big buddy and mentor program within the firm has helped her adjust quickly and work on several projects simultaneously.\nIn addition, new analysts go through a five-week training program to prepare them for the job. Baum said those without business experience also complete a one-week supplemental math and accounting component.\nGabriela Gryger, also a new analyst with the company and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a dual degree in international relations and business, said that although she works long hours she enjoys the work.\n"It's like med school in a sense," Gryger said. "You're working ridiculously long hours, but you're paying your dues."\nBaum echoed her sentiments.\n"There's no question it's a very tough job ... 80 plus hour weeks are not at all unheard of or unusual," he said. "It is a group of overachievers who clearly enjoy working with other people."\nDespite the heavy workload, Andy Seger, an analyst and a 2000 IU graduate, said a university like IU prepares one for such a job because of the blend it provides between strong academic programs and extracurricular opportunities.\n"I think the reason that Wall Street firms have become so interested in Indiana University," Seger said, "is that the students (from IU) who have landed jobs on Wall Street have been very successful"
(09/09/00 4:31am)
IU campuses throughout the state are boasting record-high enrollment figures for the fall semester and all eight campuses set a combined record for credit hours, IU President Myles Brand announced Thursday in a press release.\nIn Bloomington, a 5.4 percent increase from last year's freshman class represents a new record and encouragement for IU officials. Total freshmen enrollment is now 6,936. \n"Clearly what this means is Indiana University is attracting a larger number of students than ever in our history," said Vice President for Public Affairs Christopher Simpson. "First, faculty, staff and alumni, led by enrollment services, are doing an outstanding job in recruiting students to Indiana University. Secondly, the marketing efforts, which includes enrollment services … have developed a well-oiled team to tell the IU success story."\nFor the first semester, Bloomington enrollment is at an all-time high of 37,076 students, an 875 student or 2.4 percent increase over the first semester of last year. The number of credit hours being taken this semester is also a new record, increasing by 2.8 percent to 489,987 hours.\nBrand said the figures indicate a number of things.\n"I believe the rising enrollments reflect the strong reputation of our academic programs, the welcoming atmosphere on our campuses and the success of our marketing efforts," Brand said in the release.\n"The record enrollment at IU Bloomington, the record number of credit hours at IUPUI and the continued rapid growth at IU Southeast are all particularly noteworthy, but significant gains also have been realized on several other campuses. Our regional campuses are doing an excellent job of working closely with local residents and providing the programs that their communities need."\nDonald Hossler, vice chancellor of enrollment services, said a University-wide effort is responsible for the increase. \nHe said the admissions office has a nationwide reputation among prospective students as one of the most personalized admissions processes of any institution. Hossler said many of the colleges on campus practice effective follow-up activities to encourage interested students to attend.\n"Once (prospective students) are admitted, they are really interested in hearing from the school they are interested in majoring in," Hossler said. "It's the ability to interact with students and faculty … currently enrolled students are the best source of information."\nHossler said he and his team also use a social science approach to recruiting students, using a wide variety of research techniques to recognize people who are interested in IU and sometimes more importantly, Hossler said, those who are not.\n"This is not an exact science, but the office of institutional research uses varying statistical techniques to find students who will be most interested in Indiana University," he said. "Students in Northern California who attend private high schools and whose parents make $300,000 or more want to go to elite privates … Let's not waste our time or money."\nSimpson said in addition to IU's hard work, the reputation of the academic programs and the beautiful campus market themselves. \n"IU is a tremendous value in terms of the very moderate cost," Simpson said. "We have 100 programs in the top 20 on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country … a very powerful package."\nOverall, students on all IU campuses total 93,775, a 1.3 percent increase over last fall.\nSimpson said he would put IU's recruitment effort up against that of any university in the country.\nSimpson said this discredits IU's low ratings from the US News and World Report college rankings and a recent University of Florida study.\n"We're seeing students vote with their feet by coming to Bloomington," Simpson said. "The bulk of the credit has to go to enrollment services … we need to stop and look towards enrollment services and say you folks ought to be very proud of the tremendous job you've all done"
(09/06/00 5:56am)
Scheduled just days before the presidential election, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired Army Gen. Colin Powell will speak at 4 p.m., Nov. 3 at the IU Auditorium, Union Board announced Tuesday.\nPowell's lecture, "Challenges of a Changing World," will focus on issues concerning America's youth and not the election, said Union Board public relations director Vaughn Allen, a junior.\nPowell is chairman of America's Promise since 1997, an organization committed to "pulling together the might of America's companies, public service groups and children's service providers; their talents and their resources, to strengthen kids," Powell said on the group's Web site. "Not just their minds and bodies, but their character as well."\nUnion Board lectures director Carrie Smith said Powell is a man who represents "the great American" for many young people.\n"For a lot of us, especially people in our age group, we remember the Gulf War, and we remember him from the Gulf War," Smith said. "He made everyone remember how proud they were to be an American and what they stand for."\nLt. Col. Wayne Pollard, a military science professor, said Powell, a product of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, is a self-made man who is an inspiration. While he could have gone into the corporate world after leaving government, he decided to fulfill his philanthropic interests, Pollard said.\n"He just shows you that the sky's the limit," Pollard said. "He has a way to really turn on an audience. He has optimism that really is uncommon, and the interesting aspect is he really is the antithesis of a military personality ... Colin Powell is known as a warm, compassionate, empathetic leader." \nSmith said Union Board lists Powell as one of its top choices every semester to come speak to students but until the IU Foundation also expressed interest in bringing him to campus, Union Board had not been successful.\nBarbara Coffman, director of planning and communications for the IU Foundation, said IU is lucky to have Powell as a speaker.\n"Union Board has wanted Colin Powell forever, and we're very fortunate because the timing coincides well with an event we're having to honor people who have been very supportive of the University," she said. "We were able to schedule it so it worked for us and it worked for Union Board."\nCoffman said the Foundation's event will be a private dinner for IU donors and other important people to the University, although she could not name those attending. She said Powell will also give a short speech at the dinner in addition to the lecture at the Auditorium.\n"I think he's just an outstanding individual who has been incredibly successful ... and has a broad vision and a commitment to philanthropy in a very big way," Coffman said. "All of his work with America's Promise shows a commitment to young people and that's very impressive"