OwenBloggers: Nat

Drinks with Tutu

I attended a conference this weekend and was fortunate enough to sit down with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He asked me what I was doing with my life and when I replied “getting my MBA” he said “oh, so you want to be rich?” Initially I was thinking, well heck yes! That is the point after all right? Then I remembered who I was speaking with: a religious and political leader in South Africa, a world renowned author, and oh yeah… a Nobel Peace Prize winner. So I quickly jumped to my story about how Vanderbilt is sending MBA and Divinity students to India to study methods of alleviating poverty. He kind of smiled, looked around, and then said “you young people are all we have.” Then he jumped up and left me to finish my drink. It got me thinking that Tutu has managed to create a nice business out of peacemaking.

After we spoke, he left the next day to receive the 2007 Mahatma Gandhi Global Nonviolence Award. For any of you prospective students out there you might want to consider going to South Africa and Lesotho in the future with Project Pyramid. You will be the people deciding where in the world to take the class next and I am sure people like the Archbishop would be interested in your work.

5 nuggets of knowledge

Let an old 2^nd year weigh in on some of the uncovered secrets of Owen…

1. You can find some excellent Chinese cuisine outside of Nashville at a place called China Chef. They have some great spicy pork stomach that the Chinese students ordered for me.  Sucker. 
2. The entire lobby floor is made from cork to dampen noise and vibration. Too bad they had to kill all those cork trees.
3. Vanderbilt was just rated No. 3 cutest girls in the SEC. Yet 94% of all undergraduates can not tell you where the business school is on campus.  Something tells me this is a good thing. 
4. Owen is the only school at Vanderbilt that does not have to pay for individual printing. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to pay 5 cents per page like everyone else.
5. They have a full length beer pong table in the hallway behind Averbuch auditorium. Because you never know when you need one.