A Fulbright Year in Romania, 2008-2009

The Rest of the Story

2010-07-17T02:50:00.002+02:00

Thank you to all who have visited, and especially to those who have followed this blog, and left such fine comments. The successor blog, "Da Da Da Da Life Goes On," is found at dcmcd2.blogspot.com.

Let's Improve Romania's Image

2010-01-17T17:50:00.012+01:00

In the Facebook Cause "Let's Improve Romania's Image," one Vincent Kuiper recently posted a recommendation that Romania emphasize its "beautiful girls and cheap beer" to attract student visitors to the country, whom he feels may one day become foreign investors. This was my response:

Vincent Kuiper may have more marketing insight than I, but as a 66 year-old American who spent the 2008-09 academic year teaching in Cluj-Napoca and traveling throughout Romania, I have another perspective. The Romanians are hospitable. The Romanians are diverse. The Romanian countryside is spectacularly varied and beautiful. Romania is rich in both culture and cultures, having had in its history the influences of the Greeks, the Romans, Mongolians, Turks, the French, Germans, Celts, Russians, Serbs, Austrians, Hungarians, and God-only-knows how many others. Rural Romania, especially in the north and southwest, is characterized by family farms still being farmed with human and animal muscle. The haystacks and stork's nests are present-day models for the illustrations I saw as a child as my mother read to me from Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Romanian education is excellent. My university seniors in the Englishline at Babeș-Bolyai University's Faculty of Economics were well-read in the classics, competent in mathematics, and a delight to work with. If Romania has a long-term problem, it is that the country's business community is not yet large enough to employ all of the qualified graduates of its many fine universities. Talent-seeking foreign companies would do well to invest in such a country.

Romanian culture is colored by the religious traditions of the Romanian Orthodox church, which along with the Roman Catholic church has leant a strong sense of values to the majority of Romanians. The 40-year nightmare of Communism was unable to kill the Romanian spiritual core, hence Romanians appreciate their freedoms more than do we who grew up taking freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and free elections for granted.

Romania still has its share of problems, of course. But in my view it is about to soar into prominence as a productive and culturally advanced member of The European Union, in which Old Europe's charm and work ethic still prevail.

Yes, Vincent, the Romanian women are self-assured, confident and charming, and many are very lovely, as well. And yes, a bottle of Ursus Dark in a pub costs only one buck. But those facts are but surface decorations on this emerging jewel of a nation.

Allandra de Aiud

2010-01-12T04:59:00.006+01:00

Tonight I met Allandra de Aiud in an online play money poker game. Watch out for this lady. She cleaned my clock! But I must say that her English is excellent, and that at the table she put a nasty heckler very neatly in his place.

To answer your question, Allandra, I drove Klaus through Aiud on several trips from Cluj to Sibiu or to Bucharest, and on one trip with my wife Shirley that took us all the way to Calafat and back. As you peruse this blog you will learn of my many travels in your wonderful country over the past year.

I hope to hear from you again, either online or in person, as Shirley and I intend to return next spring to visit our friends in Romania.

If you want to keep in touch, please leave me your e-mail address in a comment. (I promise to delete that address from the blog in the interest of your privacy, so please make it the whole of one comment.)

Noapte buna!

Oldrider

Comment:
allandra_popa said... Thank you for all your nice word about me,:)))well mostly about my game. It was interesting to meet you and sorry for cleaning you up.:) I've started to read your blog and it was truly impressed to find out about your work. It must be really fascinating. I'm anxious to read all your impressions about our small and colorful country, because I'm sure it was something totally different from what you were accustomed, but not in a bad way. I would love to keep in touch on e-mail and even meet you and your wife, but only if you make a quick stop in Paris on your way to Romania. If not in a couple of years I want to come to New York and maybe then. But until hope to hear from you.

Alexandru & Alexandra

2009-12-13T19:25:00.003+01:00

MICAN Alexandru of Bistriţa has played a major role in this blog, as he was both my student and sometime tour-guide during my Fulbright Year. Prof. PhD. MUŢIU Alexandra of UBB-Cluj was one of his second-year professors at UBB, and was my teaching partner in the Englishline Management Accounting course at UBB last spring. This past week, the three of us had a chance to renew friendships here at Plymouth State University, where Alexandru is an MBA candidate and a graduate fellow, and where Alexandra came to meet with her PSU/UBB Joint-MBA Program colleagues, and to do research on our methods of teaching accounting, which I can honestly report to have long been a strong point of the Plymouth State business programs.

Yesterday, Shirl, both the Romanian Alexes, and I visited Cambridge and Boston, including a tour of the Harvard Business School. The "dear old halls" of alma mater are, I was pleased to see, as stately and well-kept as ever.

To my Romanian friends, I reiterate: we love it when you visit. Please come to New Hampshire and spend some time with us!

Craciun Fericit!

Postscript: Romanian Visitors to New Hampshire

2009-09-08T15:28:00.005+02:00

Shirley McDougall and I are happy to report that already we have hosted three visitors from Transylvania at our home near Plymouth, New Hampshire. In July Lucian BOGDAN, my Teaching Assistant in American Studies at UBB-Cluj, made a two-day side trip to Manchester, NH, on his way home from an American Studies conference in Philadelphia. He and I drove the long way home from the airport, stopping in Portsmouth to see the colonial architecture and NH's seaport, then had boiled lobsters for lunch in Kittery, Maine. From Kittery we came north to Campton via the shore of Lake Winnepesaukee, from Alton Bay to Gilford on Route 11. The next day was sunny and warm, so we rode on my 1982 Honda Silver Wing Interstate up through Franconia Notch to Littleton for clam chowder at the Littleton Diner, then over to the Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, where the famous WWII economic conference was held.

In August we hosted my former FSEGA student Radu BENCHEA of Sibiu, who flew up from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to visit us prior to heading back to Romania after a summer working as a pedicab driver in that resort city. While with us, Radu also made a three-day rail trip to visit relatives in New York City, so he got to see that not all of America is sun, sand and bikini-country.

This month we have hosted new FSEGA grad Alexandru MICAN of Bistrița, who has been admitted to the PSU MBA Program as a full time student. Alex was one of my guides (along with his friend Dora FAUR) on our long weekend in Moldavia, back in October of last year. Alex has also seen some White Mountain geography during the past two weeks, and has now moved into his own apartment right next to the PSU campus. Alex has played golf with me three times already, and scored his first par on a hole, just yesterday. Is the game of golf really that easy?

So, all my Romanian friends, please take notice: our invitations were seriously given, and your visits will be welcome.

Goodbye, Romania (not "Goodbye Romanians")

2009-06-18T16:15:00.000+02:00

It has been a beautiful drive. Shirl, Klaus and I are safely back in Fellbach. We left Cluj only the day before yesterday, and already our home in Romania seems a thousand miles away. Oh, yeah. It is a thousand miles away. But we’re still in Europe, some 3,500 miles from our American home, so are we really going to leave Europe and fly to New England, or are we just on another Fulbright adventure, and will Klaus be taking us back to our wonderful apartment in our adopted city to see our good Romanian friends as he has faithfully done for the past nine months?

Goodbye, Romania! But not “Goodbye, Romanians.” We will keep in touch. We have Yahoo mail, we have our University work connections, and we have our lives to share.

If you get to New Hampshire, please do not forget that our big old house in Campton has a guest room, and we love showing off our beautiful home state to visitors.

Farewell, Latest Lover!

2009-06-14T16:50:00.005+02:00

Though it traces its roots to a Jesuit school founded in 1581, prior to 1919 all teaching at the university we know today as Babeş-Bolyai was either in Hungarian or in Latin. Ninety years ago, with the unification that incorporated Transylvania as a region of Romania following World War I, the new Romanian-language Babeş University was founded in Cluj. About forty years ago, under the Communist government, Babeş-Bolyai University was formed by the merger of Cluj's Hungarian-speaking institution of higher learning with its Romanian-speaking one, and together they formed the amazing multicultural, polylingual university in which I have taught this year.

To celebrate the Nintieth Anniversary of there being a Romanian University in Cluj, Rector Marga today hosted an absolutely glorious musical event at the UBB Auditorium Maximum. The concert lasted almost three hours, and I wept each hour. First, I was moved to tears by the beauty of the music provided by the Transylvanian Symphony Orchestra. Then came a romantic operatic duet performed by a magnificent tenor and soprano from Bucharest. Then, I wept with emotion at having to leave Romania when traditional folk signers came on stage in their regional finery, and sang Romanian tunes.

I will detail the concert in a later post, for it deserves a full report. For now, suffice it to say, 'tis trrrrue: "We Scots ha'e but two emotions, weepin' and angerrrrr." Today, mine wa' weepin'.

And, to make perfect the event as a cultural culmination of my Romanian Fulbright adventures, during the standing ovation that followed the finale (Brahms' "Academic Overture," which ends with the famous theme known as "Gaudeamus Igitur"), the world-famous Romanian soprano Florentina Văduva tossed a rose from her bouquet to the audience, and I caught it.

Upon reflection, of course it was I who caught Florentina's rose. If this year has taught me anything, it is that there are no coincidences. She was but Fair Romania, bidding farewell to her latest lover.

Final Fulbright Days

2009-06-13T16:57:00.011+02:00

We are facing the final days of our adventure in Romania. Yesterday was the final Friday. The highlight of the day was my dinner at Agape with Prof. Marius Jucan.

Marius Jucan is a Prodecan (vice-dean) of the Faculty of European Studies, and founder and head of the Program in American Studies at UBB. He is also author of a number of scholarly books in both Romanian and English, a member of the original UBB delegation that visited Plymouth back in the early days of our cooperation, a veteran of the Romanian Army under Communism, an ardent advocate of democracy, and a brilliant conversationalist. One of his books in Romanian is entitled Maştile libertatii, America în scritorile lui Thomas Jefferson, which translates roughly as, "The Faces of Liberty, America in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson."

Shirley was not up to joining us, so Marius and I enjoyed one of those rare occasions when two guys of sixty-or-so get to have some wine, eat whatever they want without apologizing for it, and talk about whatever comes to mind. I treasure such occasions.

At Graduation with Marius Jucan
Today I stopped by Marius' office and gave him three books on American History that my brother Walter was kind enough to send me for use in my course. Two were autographed copies of the paperback editions. I know that Marius will read them. He is that kind of a man. But I don't know if he will agree with Wally on all that they contain, for Marius definitely thinks for himself.

Walking back to Piaţa Mihai Viteazul at close-to-midnight, Marius and I encountered two young men standing and talking on the sidewalk. It was PETEAN Flaviu and BENCHEA Radu, two of my beloved graduates from the Englishline at FSEGA. I introduced them to Professor Jucan, then learned they were waiting for the bus to take Radu to Budapest where he would catch a flight to Fort Lauderdale to work for the summer. There are no coincidences, only a very small world. Have fun, Radu, and while you are there, look up my son Brian in Miami Beach!

Visit Went Well - Packing Proceeds

2009-06-12T13:51:00.005+02:00

Visit went well

Trent Boggess flew to Budapest yesterday after three cordial days of meetings (and social mealtimes) here in Cluj. The teaching team for our Joint PSU-UBB International MBA is gelling, with the next step to come at the end of the month, when Roxana Wright will return to spend a week here to provide training in online course delivery of our specific MBA curriculum. A renewed Agreement of Cooperation between UBB and PSU was signed Wednesday by Rector Andrei Marga, and is now being hand-carried back to Plymouth's president Dr. Sara Jayne Steen, who was unable to make the trip at this busy time of year. After the signing, we were invited to join the Rector at a reception for the Vietnamese Ambassador to Romania over lunch at the Pyramids, UBB's nicest restaurant. (Trent has a story to tell about that event, so I'll say no more about it at this juncture.) On Thursday morning, I presented a talk on the ACBSP's Baldrige-based approach to quality management and continuous improvement in higher education to the UBB Quality Assurance Council, headed by Vice Rector Andrei Marcuş. Then, I took Trent back to the Faculty of Economics, where he bid farewell to our colleagues and to our program partner, Prodeacon Dr. Mihaela Luţaş.

Packing proceeds

After a delightful home-cooked meal with his parents last Sunday, Lucian Bogdan, my volunteer teaching assistant in AE&B this term, and I went to Carrefour at Polus Center (a large shopping mall), where I acquired the biggest piece of hand-luggage I could find. It is a hard-surfaced check-in sized roller-case. It is now full to the sit-on-to-close level with my winterwear and formal suits, souvenir hand-woven wool blankets and Romanian flag (gifts from the Econ-Englishline Seniors), five "Romania" T-Shirts in bright yellow, which I had here for the kids but forgot to give them, my J&M dress shoes, protected on their Rochester Shoe Trees, of course, and everything else I didn't think I'd need before coming home. That monstrous bag is now in the trunk of Klaus. Probably, it will cost me extra on my flight home late next week.

So, today...

It is Friday, and I have stayed in the apartment, ostensibly to work on candidate reviews for The Fulbright Commission of Romania. But I have had trouble staying awake today. A day without meetings? Unheard of! "Rest, old man, while you have the chance," my body keeps telling me.

Tonight Shirl and I will dine with Prodeacon Marius Jucan of the Faculty of European Studies, and head of the American Studies Program. We will be brainstorming further avenues of cooperation between our universities.

The end may be in sight for the Fulbright Year in Romania, but as Mort Sahl used to say, "The future lies ahead."

The Senior Song

2009-06-08T10:00:00.006+02:00

Fellow nostalgists ('tis a term just coined) will enjoy my musical gift to the UBB Class of 2009. Click on the link to hear it sung by the Amherst College Glee Club.

The Senior Song
by Jimmy Hamilton, Amherst College, Class of 1906

Strangers once, we came to dwell together,
Born of a mother, wise and true.
Now we're bound by ties that cannot sever,
All our whole life through.
Gather closer, hand to hand.
The time draws near when we must part.
Still the love of college days will linger,
Ever in each heart.

Chorus:

So raise the rosy goblet high,
The senior chalice, and belie,
The tongues that slander and defile,
For we have yet a little while,
To linger, youth, and you, and I
In college days.

We have climbed together up the pathway,
On to the goal where life doth wait.
Where in bright, and beck'ning fields of promise,
Lieth fame or fate.
Born among these dear old halls,
Friendships that can never die.
Strength to keep us faithful and devoted,
To our purpose high.

Chorus

Trent Returns

2009-06-08T08:44:00.006+02:00

[Note: the post of June 3, 2009, "At the Danube Delta" has been amplified, in case you would like to read more about our weekend in the Southeast.]

Our last full week in Romania begins today, Whitsunday, which is a new national holiday in Romania, but an examination day nevertheless for some of our Faculty of Economics (FSEGA) students.

For me, the day will be accented by a speech at the Aula Magna at UBB's downtown campus given by Nobel Prize nominee Leszek Balcerowicz, the Polish economist famous for inventing "shock therapy" as a way of converting former Communist Bloc economies into free market economies.

Following that event, I will go to the airport to meet Dr. Trent Boggess, chairman of the Business Department at Plymouth State University, who will be arriving for his second visit to our International MBA Program partner school, UBB's FSEGA.

This evening, Shirl and I hope to take Trent to an early dinner, then to his hotel to give him a chance to rest before a busy week of company visits and faculty meetings here in Cluj.

A Full and Festive Graduation Day: UBB American Studies Program,Class of, 2009

2009-06-06T15:26:00.016+02:00

Yesterday I gave my second graduation speech of the year, this one to the graduates of the Faculty of European Studies, American Studies Program. They had given me a day's warning that they would like me to speak, so I prepared brief remarks, which I will include below, just for the record.

With Professor Raluca Moldovan and Prodeacon Marius Jucan, congratulating the new graduates.

Cristina Guglia, the coordinator of the event, also asked me to send my remarks ahead of time for translation into Romanian, so that their parents and guests could hear them and understand what I had said. Rather than do so, I was aided by my colleague in accounting Alexandra Muţiu, who provided the Romanian version. (If any reader would like to have that version, please send a remark with your e-mail address, and I will provide it.)

Remarks made at American Studies Graduation:

Dean Gyemant, Professor Jucan, Colleagues in the Faculty of European Studies, parents, relatives, friends of our honorees, and especially, dear “about-to-be graduates” of Babes-Bolyai University:

I thank you for inviting me to say a few words at your celebration today. Let me begin by thanking your parents for raising such wonderful kids, and for sending those wonderful young men and women to UBB. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with the UBB American Studies students this term.

And thank you, students, for your active participation in our many discussions this semester.

The past few months have not been “the best of times” in America, but that fact has made this semester an especially good time to be teaching a course in American Economy and Business.

Given the excesses and corrupt practices represented by the “Sub-prime Lending” and “Bernie Madoff” scandals, among others, humility has been the only possible attitude for an American teacher of such a course. Yet, in the global financial repercussions of problems that began in America, the global importance of the American Economy was made obvious. Truly, as has been said many times, “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” So, for a European undergraduate interested in taking part in the global economy of the coming decades, to have focused one’s studies on understanding America was a sensible choice.

I hope that the three books you have read in our time together will continue to inform your views of America, and of the effects of Prices, “Animal Spirits,” and Central Banks on free market economies.

I hope that our wide-ranging class discussions of both American and Romanian cultures, of their similarity as topographically varied, diversely peopled, and naturally fertile countries, of their differing diversities, and of our shared “human condition” in many of its aspects, will be food for your thoughts as you progress through your lives.

Finally, I hope that you will keep in touch with “Professor Duncan,” the last American professor that you met in your undergraduate years at UBB, and keep him informed as you, no longer children, but now licensed adults, make your own paths in our shared, increasingly connected, and interdependent world.

Again, to you parents, as the father of six, I know what a proud moment this is for you good people.

Thank you, and may God bless us all.

Then, A Spontaneous Fulbright Dinner Party:

After the gradu-ation, at which Charles Harris, Ful- brighter and AmStuds teacher at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu was a welcome visitor/photographer, Charles, Kathy O., Shirl and I repaired to the bistro across the river from the apartment, and shared a festive dinner, our final dinner with each other for this Fulbright Year.

At the Danube Delta

2009-06-03T10:23:00.006+02:00

On 30 May, Shirl, Klaus and I took Cristina Mitrovici on her first visit to the Danube Delta.

It was a full day, and a beautiful part of Romania.

Cristina Liliana Mitrovici is a Fulbrighter based this year in Constanţa, the lovely seaside city and resort town near the southeast corner of Romania. She is from Fargo, ND, where she settled after leaving Los Angeles a few years ago. She and her husband escaped Romania during the 1980s, and have raised their children in the U.S. Now a citizen of the USA, Cristina teaches Spanish and media studies. She is a dear lady of high purpose and strong opinions, and was an excellent guide in Constanţa, starting with her having found us a wonderful place to stay in Mamaia Nord, a beachfront community just up the coast from the city line of Mamaia, which is similarly positioned relative to Constanţa.

Vila Tudor was one of few open hotels on the shoreline this weekend, as the season was to open on 1 June. But here, for 100 de lei, $33 per night, we stayed at a modern motel, in a two-bedroom suite with bath, king-sized bed, cable Internet and cooked-to-order breakfast. Hard to beat that.

Saturday morning I awoke early, had breakfast, then drove into town to pick up Cristina. She showed me her luxury apartment with a view of the Port of Constanţa, then we walked to the nearby cathedral. I could see what a magnificent city Constanţa has been in years past, but unfortunately many of the best buildings on the main square are being allowed to deteriorate. It seems that they are caught up in legal struggles between those from whose families the communist government had confiscated them and the present "owners," and hence no one is willing to risk the money it would take to refurbish them. Such an historic city deserves better. A statue of the poet Ovidius (Ovid), who lived till his death in Constanţa after having been banished from Rome in 8 AD by Emperor Augustus, stares sadly at the decaying piaţa.

Picking Shirl up at the motel, we proceeded north up a bumpy coastal road toward Valcea, where we parked near the port, and on the wharf found lunch, and a boat for charter. Cristina was invaluable in avoiding the "brokers" on the wharf who offered us boat rides at "only 50 Euro per hour." Once we found a skipper, for a fee of 400 de lei (100 Euro) we spent the three hours on the Delta, a Romanian version of an Everglades Air Boat Ride, sans alligators.

The Danube is the longest river in Europe, and is a big one, indeed, where it divides into three main channels and many smaller ones, and innundates a huge wetland reportedly consituting 2% of Romania's total area. The birds are varied (over 600 species), colorful, and very much in sight, and the views from the 150 HP Honda-powered 21' fiberglass boat were well worth the cost.

At the day's end, we stopped to see the archeological site Histria, a small seaport city where Homeric-era Greek artifacts reveal that the port was in continuous use as early as 600 BC. The inlet at Histria was eventually cut off from the Black Sea by the build-up of a sandbar, and today there is a freshwater lake where once there was a sheltered harbor. The site has been abandoned since Medieval times.

(Images will be added after we figure out Shirl's new camera, and/or after Cristina e-mails me a few of her shots.)

To The Southeast for (then with) Shirl

2009-05-31T09:53:00.013+02:00

As those who may have been following this blog with map at-the-ready will have perceived, Klaus and I have thus far reported on visits to all major sectors of Romania save the Southeast, where Romania meets the sea.

Today we are in Mamaia Nord on the Black Sea, just north of Mamaia, which is just north of Constanţa. We are in a very pleasant resort-motel called Vila Tudor, featuring its own access to a freshwater lake for fishing, a trail of about 150 meters to a beach on the Black Sea, an aviary, a sand-floored football “cage” (think beach soccer in a tennis court), a cat stalking birds on the roof of a nearby cottage while being screamed at by four unintimidated crows, and a two-bedroom “apartment” with refrigerator and air conditioner (but only luke-warm water, probably easily remedied, but I haven't complained) costing 100 de lei per night. That is $33.

Shirl is back in Romania, and is sitting on the bed behind me. I can see her in the mirror. She looks wonderful. She is almost over jet-lag, after two active days, and two full nights of sleep since her arrival on Thursday afternoon. Yesterday, we set a new Easternmost Point record aboard a chartered speedboat in the Danube Delta.

The First Few of the Last Few (Days)

Last Tuesday afternoon at 4:00, my American Studies students took their final exam. I asked them to write essays on questions relating to any two of the three recent books on the economy that they had been assigned in our course, American Economy & Business. Lucian Bogdan and I stayed at the Sala Einstein to grade the essays, and then went to the apartment to record the grades on my computer. Lucian agreed to deliver the grades to Ioana Hosu at the European Studies Faculty the next day, and took the grading spreadsheet home on his flash drive.

On Wednesday morning, I went to my office hours, met with Alexandra, my colleague and teaching team partner in Managerial Accounting, and drafted a final examination for that course. It was about 2:30 when I got home to the apartment. I had agreed to meet Charles Harris in Sibiu at his American Culture Club meeting that afternoon at 5:00, three hours to the southeast. Charles had offered me a couch to crash on that night, almost half-way to Bucharest, where Shirl would be arriving from Amsterdam at 1:40 PM on Thursday.

I had no chance of being on-time for Charles' meeting, but I rapidly packed, carried my bag, computer and small cooler across the piata to Klaus, and took off southward on E81, the familiar road to Turda, Aiud, Alba Iulia, Sebeş and Sibiu. Once clear of the Cluj traffic, I called Charles, and warned him I’d be late. “No sweat,” he said, “It is finals week, and I doubt any students will have time to attend anyway.”

The ride went well, and I arrived at Lucian Blaga University, Faculty of Letters and Arts, before 6:00. Charles met me on the street. He’d been right. No one had made it to his meeting. “I need to go to McDonald’s,” he told me. Damn. I had eaten a McD’s lunch already this week, and had been looking forward to one of Sibiu’s outstanding restaurants. But I was a good sport. We called our new mutual friend Roxy Fera, Keene State grad that she is, and found her delighted to join us at McD’s. Roxy is having a tough time finding a job since returning to Romania from her four years in Oman, and was nigh onto flat broke. So, we fed her. Times are tough in Romania, and a person in her thirties, even with excellent language skills and a fine education, is going to have to look long and hard to find a job that pays a satisfactory salary.

We dropped Roxy at her old high school, where she would be playing in a basketball game that night, and returned to Charles’ place for the night.

By 4:00 AM Thursday, I was wide awake on the couch. My alarm was set for 6:00. What the heck, I am awake. Might as well take off, and remove all time pressure from the rest of my trip. I woke Charles momentarily to say goodbye, and left for Bucharest.

It was a smooth ride through the slowly brightening dawn, with the silhouetted Carpathian Mountains providing majestic relief to the east. By 9:30 A.M. I arrived at the Casa Victor, Fulbright’s hotel-of-choice in Bucharest, found the perfect parking place available on the street immediately in front of “Receptie,” and found my room already available for me. Perfect. Time for a nap before going to the airport. Before napping, I asked myself whether I should drive Klaus to pick up Shirl, or leave him in the Perfect Parking Place, call Dan the Taxi Man, and have him do the driving. I knew it would be an expensive luxury to take a taxi both ways to OTP, but that perfect parking place had been the ONLY parking place I’d seen in the vicinity of the hotel. I called Dan.

Shirl’s plane was on-time, and she came out of customs looking like a seasoned tourist. You’d think she routinely stayed up all night. We hugged, then rolled her baggage cart out to the lot where Dan had parked the taxi, and was waiting.

Thursday afternoon and night, Shirl slept a well-deserved sleep, declining my offer to take her to dinner at the Italian restaurant just up Porumbaru Street, “Trattoria Verde Pizzeria.” So, I went alone. Calamari fritti. Good stuff.

On Friday morning the mission was to visit the Fulbright Commission, for Shirl had not yet met Dorina, Mihai, Corina, Anca or Loredana, the wonderful folks who take such good care of the Fulbright Grantees, both American and Romanian. In addition, Mihai had arranged for me to be interviewed by a reporter from Hotnews.ro, in connection with my Fulbright year in Romania, and about the new joint PSU/UBB MBA Program.

The meetings at the Commission went well. While I was being interviewed, Christina Mitrovici, a Romanian-born Fulbrighter from Fargo, North Dakota, arrived to ride with us back to Constanţa, where she has been spending her Fulbright Year. By about 1:30 PM, we’d said our final goodbyes to the good folks at Fulbright-Romania, and were on our way east toward Mare Neagra.

Cristina's colleague, whom we met at her University and who guided us to our motel, had made us a reservation here at Vila Tudor. We found it most welcoming when we arrived in Mamaia Nord. We were tired. Cristina accepted a lift back into Constanţa with her friend, so Shirl and I hit the sack, exhausted.

Saturday deserves its own post. Until then!

Romanian Higher Education and President Hutchins

2009-05-26T07:44:00.013+02:00

Final Exam Day

My first-ever American Studies course will end today with a final essay examination. All but four registered students have made at least one appearance in class during the term, and I have been receiving e-mails from others who are desperately seeking the readings (distributed earlier) for their last-minute cramming. If any students happen to read this post before the exam at 4:00 PM this afternoon, I want to remind them that the final exam is worth 70% of their grade, so they are not in the running for a grade above 7 in the course unless they have been participating. However, a thoughtful, well-written pair of essays on the exam could net them a 10 on the exam, and a course grade of 7, even though they have never attended the lectures or the seminars.

Ramblings on Romanian Higher Education and President Hutchins

When I was but a lad, my late mother Carol Brueggeman McDougall, AB, University of Chicago, 1935, told me about her University's president Robert Maynard Hutchins. Hutchins was a rebel among American educators of his time. (See link.) In pursuit of less "practicality" and more pure intellectualism, under his leadership the U. of C. adopted what my mother called "the European model" of higher education. In her time, attendance at classes or lectures was purely optional, and only the final examinations were graded. Students were expected to act like interested learners, self-motivated to read and to think on their readings, then to expound intelligently at the term's end.

Faithful readers will recall that during the fall semester, I withheld judgment on the Romanian system of higher education, which closely resembles that which my mother experienced in the early Nineteen Thirties in Chicago. Today, I see merit in it, especially for those whose pre-college education has been comprehensive and demanding.

I find my students at UBB generally far better-prepared for college than most at PSU. They even write English more competently than most of my American students. And here in Romania, one can use analogies to classical literature, ancient history, or the Bible with positive response from the students, rather than blank stares. I find this fact delightful in my Romanian classes, but sad for my country, for it bespeaks the waning of American competitiveness in an increasiingly English-speaking global economy. And sad, also, because it bespeaks the collapse of high expectations and of academic standards in the public school systems of New Hampshire, if not of America.

I now conclude that the Romanian system of higher education can work very well. I have met too many Romanian intellectuals for whom I have high regard to believe otherwise. And I have enormous respect for my well-read, well-spoken late mother, a product of such a system.

My chief remaining doubt is about fairness. Is it fair that the absent students are granted the same diploma and academic rank as the diligent students? In Romania, one can work full time, earn three years of business experience, cram and squeek through exams, and get a college degree. Or, one can do one's assignments, read a lot, think a lot, broaden one's world view, deepen one's intellect, and graduate three years behind in the business or professional world, with the same degree. Is that fair? Certainly, that question tests Hutchins' view of the real purpose of a bachelor's degree program. One would hope that the serious students will enjoy life more fully.

Continuing my ramble, I now applaud the legendary one-room schoolhouse, in which one educated woman (almost exclusively, in those times) often taught eight grades of primary and grammar school to the American youth of yesteryear, aided in the lower grades by the best of the upper-grade students. With the respect and backing of parents, these teachers gave, and gave, and gave of themselves, and helped America raise generations of literate, hard-working, thoughtful, and yes, morally conscious men and women with a solid grounding in the writings of the seminal thinkers of Western Civilization. Abe Lincoln may have had exceptional talents, but he was no fluke.

In that academic tradition were the Wilmette Public Schools in my childhood home town in Illinois. Our schools were large, our classes 30 to 35 strong, but our teachers were strict, and in control. They delivered. And I do not remember ever having a teacher's aide in a classroom. Of course, if we got into trouble in school, our parents backed our teachers. There was a cultural norm at work: elementary education was important. I do recall that after World War II, when we moved from the East Coast back to the Chicago area, my mother chose Wilmette because she had three sons (later, four), and Wilmette was known for its fine schools. So, perhaps I am again indebted to my mother's caring judgment.

What about high school? Does anyone in America read Homer in public high school anymore? Plato? Caesar? Cicero? Hell, does anyone in a New Hampshire high school have an opportunity to study Latin? Most of my Romanian students read and speak three or more languages. In learning other languages, they have come to understand grammar. My mother and father taught me to speak grammatical English, but high school Latin taught me grammar.

I may be sounding today like a frightful snob to some of my American readers, but I suspect that the American K-12 public school system has at least as much to learn from the Romanian school system as the Romanian system of higher education has to learn from its American counterpart.

Paul Tomiţa Golf Club in May

2009-05-24T22:42:00.002+02:00

Golf with Vasile was great fun today, though I did not shine on the front nine. Warmed up, fed, and relaxed, I shot a 50 on the back nine, with two consecutive pars as the only good holes of the day. The very challenging course is much improved from its November condition, though definitely in the European tradition. It reminds me of golf in Scotland. Beautiful views, nasty rough.

Shirl's coming back! (Yay!) I am hoping to drive to Sibiu on Wednesday evening and stay with Charles. Then I'll not have to drive at night (before dawn) to meet Shirl's plane in Bucharest.

At UBB, Prodeacon Mihaela Luţaş has invited me to return next Winterim to teach two compressed courses in January. That is going to be difficult to arrange, but it is something I will consider. At some point I must return to Cluj, as I have learned to love this city. I was walking from the Faculty of Letters lot this week looking at the colorful Renaissance Revival buildings, Eastern domes, and steeples of Piaţa Mihai Viteazul with feelings of my impending loss. But, on the other side, there is the view of Plymouth at night as one descends Ashland Hill on I-93, there is the beautiful PSU campus, there are the White Mountains, there is the Beebe River, there is Mad River Coffee Roasters, and there is home.

Have a good Memorial Day, America! God willing, I'll be manning the grill on the 4th of July!

Bleary-eyed and Out-of-touch

2009-05-23T09:30:00.003+02:00

Nancy Sherman is back in-country. I met her at CLJ yesterday afternoon, and drove her "home" to Oradea, where she is going to be spending the next month on her extended Fulbright grant. The original idea was for her to come to the apartment to sleep off her travels, then catch a train to Oradea today. But I love to drive, and she was up for finishing the trip in the comfort of a BMW rather than in a dirty rail car.

So, we headed west. We had a light dinner at the same roadside restaurant where I met the folks with the trumpet violin back in October (See "Half-Told Tales"), and found it as pleasant this time as last.

We arrived in Oradea at about 10:00 PM. It took a bit of finding to locate Kate Palmo's place. Kate is the Peace Corp volunteer who has been working in Oradea this year, and with whom the Sherman-Hayes family had become good friends in the fall. Nancy will be staying with Kate this next month. After a bit of undirected searching, Kate came out to Dacia Boulevard, and walked toward us, until we met up. I towed Nancy's big suitcase as far as the lift door in Kate's bloc, then bid my farewells, and turned back toward Klaus, and home.

The trip home was smooth. I trailed a small van at conservative speeds as the in-a-hurry types roared by us. For fun, I dialed Shirl in the US on my Vodaphone as I drove, achieved a great connection, and we chatted about family business until the phone ran out of Euros. I arrived home in Cluj at 1:09 AM. Not bad at all.

This morning I have spent here in my office at UBB, working on an exam. Now, I am off to Iulius Mall to buy more time on my cell phone!

Tomorrow: Sunday golf with Vasile Tamas in Pianu de Jos! I cannot wait to see the Paul Tomiţa Golf Course in good condition. It should be at its best tomorrow, as there is a tournament there today. I shall report.

Photos by Jesse of our Trip to Sibiu, Pensiune in Raşinari, and ride to Palţiniş

2009-05-20T23:16:00.015+02:00

My four beloved visitors are safely home now in Colorado, Vermont and New Hampshire. While in Romania, they took hundreds of photos, so this is but a sampling. To follow the trail chronologically, please start at the bottom of this post, which covers May 14, 15 and 16, prior to my returning for FSEGA Englishline's graduation (see prior post).

Alex's new friends at Palţiniş

Palţiniş

Raşinari

Alex

Piper

With Charles and his colleague at the East-West Conference at Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu.

Architetural Details of Phoenix Pensiune, Raşinari

Old Sibiu

Klaus' cousin

Transilvanian Delivery Service Workers

Natural bridge on hillside in Colţeşti

Conacul Secuiesc, in Colţeşti. (Recommended highly. I have now taken seven guests there in five visits.)

Limmers at Cheile Turzii.

Cheile Turzii comes into view.
(The Turda Gorge)

Full Klaus

As we left for Sibiu on Thursday, we made a stop at Motoland in Cluj where we found a fine- looking 1995 BMW R1100GS in Red. I am tempted.

Alex, Cally, Melinda, Duncan, Roxy and Piper met for dinner Wednesday night at Gente Pizzeria in Cluj. (Moni arrived later!)

Englishline Graduation at UBB

2009-05-17T10:48:00.022+02:00

On Saturday, 16 May, shortly after the kids and I had returned to the apartment from our trip to Sibiu, Melinda Pleşcan called to invite me to ride with her to our Englishline students' graduation ceremony at the Auditorium Maximum in the central downtown building of Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai. I had planned to walk, as it is only about half a mile (750 m) from the apartment, but I gladly accepted Meli's invitation. (Any five minutes with this charming lady is not wisely refused.)

As soon as we entered the buildng, we saw the about-to-be graduates in their caps and gowns, lining up in the foyer. They saw Melinda and me, and spontaneously applauded as we passed by. (Clearly, they agree with me about Melinda.)

Then, in the grand hall itself, we were guided to the front row, where Monica Zaharie was already seated. I do not know that she had saved us seats, but there were two available, so we sat with her. The autumn's gang of three was reunited at the end. It seemed fitting.

Then, I saw Moni's notes. She had prepared her remarks. Oh, oh.

I had been told that I would be expected to say a few words at the ceremony, as, like Monica Zaharie, I had been voted one of the Englishline's "Dearest Professors," which is a rough translation of the Romanian words which mean, literally, "soul dean." It was a wonderful thing. (And Melinda, too, received the same honor at the Faculty of Business, where she taught in the spring.) I was feeling warm feelings for my Operations Management and Labor Management students. But what was I going to say? And would I be called to say it from the stage, to all the students and parents?

Then, as is so often the case, Prof. Mihaela Luţaş came to my rescue. She came down the row and welcomed the three of us, then asked if she could introduce me as "her best American friend." I told her to do so if she liked, but that I would be trying not to be too personal in my remarks. I felt more confident. One oratorial decision was made.

Then Mihaela and Monica were called to sit on the stage, and the Fonzie of the management class, Flaviu Petean and the lovely Finance major Oana-Maria Pop took over as Master and Mistress of Ceremonies. For the parents' and grandparents' sake, the ceremony was conducted chiefly in Romanian. The first person introduced was Prodeacon Luţaş, then Monica Z. representing the Management program, then her counterpart from the Finance program. Each made short remarks, well received by the students and by the audience. Then a list of all the professors the students had studied under at UBB was read, singling out those who were voted "Soul Deans." And, in spite of my American grading structure, my insistence on proper citations, my insisting that the students buy their cases from HBS, etc., I was so-named and my name was applauded by the graduates. I felt a deep emotion, but I held my composure. I knew I was about to have to speak.

The first "dearest professor" to address the group did so on a recording, in English, from a far land. I heard he was in China. He gave what would have been an eloquent graduation speech, had it been the graduation speech. But it was a bit too long for an English speech to a Romanian audience. "Keep yours brief," I said to myself. Another decision made. It was coming together.

So, my turn came. As I had just come home that day from Sibiu, where I had delivered a talk at a roundtable on "Is the United States an appropriate model for Romanian Democracy," I was tempted to repeat that five-minute talk. But I decided to wing it, instead. As best I can remember, I said,

"Hello, everyone.

When I first came to Cluj last September, I arrived in a car (auto, maşina) that I had bought in Stuttgart. In our family, we give our cars names, and I had named my car Klaus. I drove east through Austria and Hungary to Budapest, then on to Cluj. When I arrived here, I saw a sign welcoming me (and my car) to "Cluj, Kolosvar, Klausenburg." It was a coincidence. It was perfect. And it set a pattern for my year here at UBB. There have been a great many coincidences, and each has turned out to be perfect.

That brings me to the first thing that I want to say to you graduates, and to all the Romanians in the Hall. I have been asked a hundred times when I have met you and other Romanians, "Do you like Romania?" or "Do you really like Romania?"

I love Romania. [The audience applauded, so I did not add what I wanted to add: "You are a smart, loving, caring, hard-working, generous, and justly proud people with great traditions, fascinating history and diversity, strong religion and instinctive hospitality. You are willing to go out of your way for each other and for a stranger from afar. You have made me welcome beyond my fondest dreams, and for the rest of my life I shall consider many of you my personal friends."]

And [ I continued], if my time here brings about no other change, I want you all to change your question of foreign visitors. Please, stop asking, "Do you like Romania?" I want from now on to be asked, "Do you like Romania as much as I do?"

I went on to recognize MC Flaviu Petean for his natural leadership, which I predicted would one day make him President of Romania (The first Maramuresian president?). Then I closed by reminding my students of the definition of "businesslike" that I learned many years ago from a Chinese fortune cookie:

"Businesslike: calm, factual, clear, brief, and honest."

If you live like that, you won't go far wrong.

Finis!

With Dora Faur and Alex Mican, of the Bucovina and Easter posts.

For Dr. Zach

2009-05-14T08:13:00.001+02:00

Please review the previous post. Pictures (by Jesse) have been added. (More pictures of the gang will follow with the next story, telling of The Botanical Gardens of Cluj, and our trip to Sibiu.)

First Objective: Check!

2009-05-11T21:50:00.010+02:00

The first objective that I had for the visiting clan was to give them an opportunity to understand the meaning of the "land of contrasts" that is Romania.

On Saturday, having met at Ferighy Airport's Terminal 2A, having learned that the bags would indeed all fit into Klaus' trunk, and having "niced" (thank you, Piper) the police into not ticketing us for parking illegally, we drove into the city of Budapest. Then, after determining that our hostel reservation was at a place to which we could not drive, we stopped for refreshment at a small beergarden near a major suspension bridge over the Danube. After one round, with my having a Coke Light, the waitress kindly gave us permission to leave our car there overnight. So our second round was five beers, not four-and-a-Coke. We then found our way to the Domino Hostel, which was clean and quite adequate for a post-flight place to sleep for one night. Its location, on Vaci U., the pedestrian mall of downtown Budapest, was outstanding. All five of us stayed in one room with three bunkbeds for a total of 84 Euro, about $22 each.

On Sunday morning, towing or toting our luggage, we walked from the Domino Hostel back across the Danube bridge to the shady lot where we had parked Klaus overnight. Our next two hours we spent walking in Old Buda, on the hill above the Danube, overlooking the city. That is Alex at the castle in the picture.

Klaus then took us unerringly out to the M3, a flawless motorway heading east. We made excellent time through Eastern Hungary, and had entered Romania at Petea and passed through Satu Mare before stopping for lunch.

Eastern Hungary is quite beautiful, with many very well-kept villages and farms, and not a few forested areas. Deer-crossing signs are common, reminding us of New Hampshire. But, unlike Romania and New Hampshire, Hungary is mostly flat.

At the border we had to wait and be quizzed about the swine flu. All with American passports were being checked. I explained that I was living in Cluj, and that the others had all been screened at the airport upon entry to the EU. They returned our stamped passports, and we were in Romania.

Romania does not disappoint.

From our light lunch at the "Fast Food Shack," we drove to Negresti Oas to have an ice cream at the Regal Restaurant, and renew my special acquaintance with Saint Carmen the Waitress, Savior of Abandoned Computers. She grinned ear to ear when she saw me.

From Negresti Oas we continued east, along the frontier with Ukraine, past where I sang with the drunk Ukrainian musician back in October, and on to a feast and great night at the Popasul Din Deal in Ocna Sugatag. By then, the contrasts of life styles of city and country folk, of dress between younger and older folk, of modes of transport between horsedrawn wagons and new Audis, and of road conditions between newly-paved and treacherous had all become known to our newcomers.

As we approached Sigheti Marmatei, we found ourselves crossing the Sapanţa River. I perceived an opportunity. We reversed course for less than a kilometer, and turned toward the Merry Cemetery, not new to this blog, but certaiinly worth showing to my guests.

On Monday, we started our day with a prayer at Bărsana, and then drove slowly home by the new route that we first discovered when Dietmar was driving Shirl, Ferdi, Klaus and me back to Cluj six weeks earlier. Maramureş. The northern mountains. Northern Transilvania. Finally Cluj, and a stop to change money at Banca Transilvania in the Iulius Mall. Starbucks coffee. Alex at a rotating sushi bar. The chic girls of Cluj.

Need I say more?

View of our apartment bloc from the Roland Garros, a riverside cafe across the Someş Mic.

Projects, Prenostalgia, Progeny and Plans

2009-05-07T21:43:00.004+02:00

The big happenings of the week:

Mr. Ovidiu Cristian, a doctoral candidate at FSEGA with both business experience and excellent academic credentials, was made project manager of the PSU/UBB Joint MBA Program implementation on the UBB side of the partnership.
Mihaela has put Ovidiu in touch with the people at the UBB Media Office, and progress is occurring rapidly.
A UBB Press Release has been drafted, and should go out Friday to the Romanian media.
I have become actively involved in two casewriting efforts, both with small companies in Romania. They are very different companies with completely different issues, and that is auspicious from a casewriter's point of view.
On Saturday, four American visitors will arrive to spend over a week in the region: my sons Jesse (30) and Alex (24), my daughter Piper (young and beautiful), and our great family friend Caroline Wheeler (also young and beautiful).

I heard this week that both Charles Harris and Nancy Sherman have been granted extensions to their Fulbright grants. Of course, I am happy for them both. Congratulations!

Meanwhile, I am experiencing pre-nostalgic feelings. Last night I had dinner with Monica and Melinda, my beloved fall-term teaching assistants, and it felt a bit like a reunion. We all are sensing that our lives are moving on to new phases. But, both these ladies were central to my early adjustment to and love for this country, and they both know that our friendship is not in danger of fading.

After yet more yummy pizza in the west end of town, M&M came along to the Carrefour Hipermarket at Polus Center to help me pick out some bedding and dishes to equip my apartment for the five people who will occupy it for a few nights in the next week. On the way back toward downtown, I mentioned that I would be driving early Saturday through Oradea on the way to Budapest to meet the arriving McDougall Phalanx. Monica told me that she and Horatius were also headed to Oradea on Saturday. Bravo! They will save bus or train fare, and I will have their excellent company for the first few hours of my seven hour drive to Fereghy Airport!

The four to arrive Saturday and their host have quite a plan for cramming good experiences into the coming week. I wonder how many of our objectives will be achieved!

Weekend in Sibiu: Muzeul Civilizaţiei Populare Tradiţionale "ASTRA"

2009-05-04T21:20:00.014+02:00

May 1st, Unu de Mai, is Labor Day (or Workers' Day) in much of the world, and very much so here in Romania. For me it meant no classes, and I stayed home and got into a blue funk. So I Skyped my counselor, Shirley, and after chatting for over an hour, I was myself again. I do not know how she does that, but she has always been a tonic for me. Thanks to Shirl, May 2nd and 3rd turned out really well.

Having shaken my blues, rather than stay home all weekend going stir crazy, I contacted Kathy O, who joined me for a pizza while I had Spaghetti Bolognesi, as I knew Shirl had enjoyed it, at Gente's. During dinner, Kathy described some Dacian ruins near a town called Haţeg, that her friend (now our friend) Simona B. had once taken her to see. So, I called Simona and Charles Harris, and hatched a plot to go to Sibiu on Saturday. As it happened, Simona had to go there anyway for an afternoon-evening conference, but said she would be happy to guide Charles and me to the ruins, which are near her family's home, on Sunday.

I mounted Klaus early, got a bit lost finding Simona's place in Cluj, and we hit the road at 7:45. The traffic was light, and we made excellent time, reaching Sibiu by 10:15. There we met up with Charles, and with Simona's colleague Marianne, who was to be at the conference with Simona, and her hostess for the night.

(See picture: Simona on my right, Marianne on my left. All pictures in this post are by Charles Harris.)

Simona and Marianne went off to their day's work, and I joined Charles in his apartment, where I heard the latest Fulbright scuttlebutt, which included the fact that our stipends for April wouldn't be available until May 5th, meaning many Fulbrighters were keeping their landlords waiting for May's rent. Then, Charles suggested we invite his new acquaintance Roxy Fera, a graduate of Keene State College (!), to join us for lunch, and a visit to one of Sibiu's most interesting museums. Never one to turn down a chance for pizza, let alone with a USNH alumna from (and in) Romania, I concurred, and we headed off to Pompadore's Pizza.

At Pompadore's, Charles called his buddy Sorin Ungariu, who also works at Lucian Blaga University, so we went to the museum as a foursome. Here are a few pictures taken there (that is Sorin on the left).

The museum visit turned out to be wonderful, featuring a building or farm machine or old industrial structure or machine (wool fullers, wheat threshers, steam tractors, etc.) from every judet (county) in Romania. The weather was bright and breezy, there was a wedding going on in the park, and we stopped at one point for ice cream by a lake. For about two hours I walked with the Sibiu native Roxy, who proves to be a well-traveled woman of 33, who not only had four years of college in New Hampshire, but also three years' teaching (of English) in Central China, and four years' living and teaching in Oman, on the Persian Gulf.

We four then gathered (adding Roxy's new puppy, whom she had gone home to take out for a walk) at Charles' place for a dinner of mici (cooked by Duncan once he figured out Charles' previously unused oven). We enjoyed a beer or un pahar cu vin rosu sec, and parted about 10:00.

On Sunday, footsore, Charles and I were only mildly disappointed when Simona called to excuse herself from the day's guiding. She was not feeling well. So, I headed home to Cluj early to save her having to ride sick on a bus. As we drove, Simona felt a bit better, so we took a lovely Carpathian route that neither of us had seen before. Maybe I'll take my four young visitors to Sibiu by that route next week.

Curricular Development

2009-04-28T20:30:00.005+02:00

Here is what we have been up to "in our spare time." I copied it today from the Plymouth State University MBA website.

International Business

A Unique International MBA Experience

The new degree is the result of a collaboration between Plymouth State University and Babes-Bolyai University—Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai (UBB)—of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. UBB is one of the largest, most reputable and dynamic higher education institutions in Romania, with more than 45,000 students and 1,700 faculty members.

The online MBA degree with a certificate in International Business delivers a rich, multi-cultural learning experience paired with a rigorous curriculum and diverse faculty. Taught entirely in English, the degree is one of the few ACBSP-accredited MBA programs that reach across borders without the complications of international travel.

The 10-course format provides a succinct foundation in business, as well as a rich international business perspective. The degree program is grounded in online collaboration-based courses that draw on knowledge and experience of U.S. and non-U.S. students. Courses are taught alternatively by PSU and UBB professors; the diverse backgrounds and experiences of both professors and students create productive and lasting international learning exchanges.

The MBA degree with a certificate in International Business is designed to fit the needs of both professionals and individuals making the transition to the business world, with courses offered sequentially over two years of studies.

A Student-Oriented Learning Model

The online cohort format supports the creation of a cross-cultural learning community, as students from around the world will be invited to apply for admission. The international cohort model will consist of approximately 10 U.S. students and 10 non-U.S. students who will progress simultaneously through the degree program, participating in coursework, projects, and online discussions.

Designed for aspiring professionals in management or staff positions in both businesses and public institutions the MBA with a certificate in International Business provides a substantial foundation for a career in a local or multi-national enterprise. Successful graduates will be well prepared to assume functional management positions at a senior level in organizations engaged in international trade. This would include senior level positions in finance, sales, marketing, operations management, supply chain management, human resources, and product management.

Program of study

Beginning in September of 2009, the 10-course sequence is as follows:

Required Courses
BU 5220 Legal Environment of Business* - 3 credits
BU 5700 Marketing Techniques* - 3 credits
BU 5190 Accounting for Managers - 3 credits
BU 5110 Managing Organizational Behavior* - 3 credits
BU 5210 Economic Analysis - 3 credits
BU 5120 Financial Analysis and Decision Making - 3 credits
BU 5510 Operations Management - 3 credits
BU 5630 PT: International Business* - 3 credits
EC 5615 Global Economics* - 3 credits
BU 5720 Seminar in Executive Management - 3 credits

*Courses required for the International Business Certificate

Total for MBA with a Certificate in International Business - 30 credits

Contact Information and Program Advisors

For additional information contact:

Craig Zamzow MBA, CSBC
Graduate Program Coordinator
Director of the Small Business Institute
(603) 535-3020, e-mail the coordinator

Dr. Roxana Wright
Assistant Professor of Management
Graduate Program Advisor, Partnership with Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai
(603) 535-2790, e-mail the advisor

"To everything there is a purpose..."

2009-04-28T06:31:00.004+02:00

I have returned to Cluj after a five-day round trip to Kansas City. The ACBSP Board of Commissioners meeting went well. After the meetings ended, I had to spend Saturday afternoon and Sunday until 4:00 PM in town, or my air ticket home to Cluj would have cost double. So I rented a car, went out to a mall, bought some books and provisions (peanut butter and sugarless Smuckers jam), and on Sunday hit the Argosy Casino for an hour, where I sat at a 4/8 Hold 'Em table, doubled my money, and left having recovered the car's cost twice over. I proceeded to the airport. There I got to security, where I was caught holding, and sent back to the ticket counter to check my duffel full of PBJ. But, it also contained my computer, so I traveled light, but anxious that this loyal old HP might not arrive with me after two changes of planes. (Obviously, it made it.) In the waiting room at O'Hare's Gate B17 (an inauspicious gate from which to fly to Munchen), I met an American Army Captain with 18 years' service, who was born in the Phillipines, was of African-American/Asian descent, and had earned his ranks from Private to Captain in 18 years of service. God Bless America. Then, in line, I met John (Ioan) L. of Chicago, a native of Bistriţa, Ro., where I had spent the previous weekend. We shared a coffee during our two-hour layover in Munich, and flew together to Cluj. At 36, John has become a sizeable property-owner of apartment blocks in Chicago. He is a really fine businessman who shares many of my interests, not the least, motorcycles. I have invited him to be a guest in my American Economy and Business class next week. The beat goes on.

Waterin'

2009-04-26T11:41:00.007+02:00

Still on Monday, 20 April

When I'd returned to our building, climbed 64 steps, and was unlocking the door to our apartment, our neighbors Eugenia (Jen) and Gheorghe (George), appeared on the balcony and invited me in for some zuica.

I said, "Sigur! Moment!" More procrastination.

This would be my first visit to their apartment, immediately next door to ours. I went into ours, hung my leather jacket, and then came back out to join them. They ushered me into the dining room, introduced me to their granddaughter, Dora, and we all sat at the big table and toasted the years to come (La Mulţ Ani!) with some zuica, the potent homemade plum brandy famous throughout Transylvania. We discussed life: their daughter's recent death from leukemia, the Easter weekend, my love of Romania, Shirley's plan to return, and much more. The charming Dora, still in high school, and wanting a career as a dental technician, was our intepreter. She did very well. Then her Aunt Elena, Jen's sister, arrived and joined us, and the next I knew I was invited to stay for dinner.

During my third Easter Feast, someone mentioned that this was the day that Romanian women were to be watered. I guess this is a spring tradition, perhaps derived from some ancient fertility rite of their Pagan ancestors. But thanks to my listening well in Bistriţa, I knew what it meant.

A few minutes later, between dinner and dessert, I excused myself for a minute next door. I went and got the new spray-bottle of cologne that Augustin had given me the day before. Concealing it in my hand, I returned to the dining room, sprayed a bit of perfume into Jen's hair, and she immediately smiled, and kissed my cheeks. Then I watered the other two ladies present, reaping four more kisses.

'Tis a fine tradition, "Watering the women," if you ask me. We Scots should adopt it, and blame it on the Picts.

Watering the Women?

2009-04-24T04:18:00.012+02:00

Still Monday, April 20 (though reported Thursday night from Kansas City)

Klaus' parking having been paid, I returned to the apartment, ate my ovâz with Splenda, milk and cinnamon for breakfast, and went back to sleep for two more hours. I was reasonably sure that Klaus would be neither bothered nor ticketed on a day that was effectively a holiday in Cluj, and I had a leftover deficit of sleep from Sunday's long schedule.

The main mission of the week was to prepare for the ACBSP's April Board of Commissioners' meeting, then fly on Wednesday to Kansas City and attend it. But there were two whole days left to get the reviews finished, and I had already made a good start by reviewing the self-studies of the candidates for accreditation prior to the pre-visit conference calls which occurred in February. So I procrastinated on this bright, warm day.

At sometime before Wednedsday, Klaus needed to be put away at the Faculty of Letters lot and I figured I would be spending Tuesday grinding out my commission work, so I walked back across the Piaţa, picked Klaus up, and drove him to the Faculty. I parked in front, on Horea Street, and tried to go in the gate, only to find it locked. Fortunately, a student came out from the building, opened the gate, and let me in. I found the guard's office inside the building open, but empty. I continued on out the courtyard door, and walked up the hill to the auto gate to confirm that it was truly locked, and not just closed. The padlock was in place. I would need to find the guard. When I returned to the main hall, the guard was in his office. I asked him to open the gate, told him I would be gone all this week, and indicated that my car was out front. He nodded his understanding, and we parted out the opposite doors, I to the front, he to the rear of the building. After I'd driven around the three blocks that it took to reach the gate on our newly One-Way streets, the guard let us in, and I bedded Klaus down, thanking the guard, and exiting through to Horea, as the front gate was again locked behind me.

I turned toward home and pulled a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my brow. Peripherally, I caught a flash of white falling from the pocket to my right side. I stopped and looked to see what I had dropped. It was a business card, one of my new ones that Carmen had ordered for me, with my UBB job title and address. I went back a few steps and retrieved it from the sidewalk. A few steps farther on, a man with a familiar face accosted me, pointed back to where I'd picked up my card from the sidewalk, and proceeded to break into tears of emotion.

He is a man of 60-something who frequents this part of Horea Street, and usually appears to be both unemployed (retired?), and drunk. Today, at about 2:00 PM, he seems overly emotional, but not visibly bombed. I ask in English why he is so emotional. He points again back up the sidewalk. I say, "Because I picked this up?" I show him my card. He says "Da," accepting my card and seeing that it reads "Profesor Fulbright," and "Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai." Still weeping, he takes me by the arm and motions me to come with him.

We walk quickly into the entrance to the Brasserie, a luncheon restaurant in a "close" (as it would be called in Edinburgh), a narrow tunnel leading from the street through a building into its courtyard. We come out into the sunlight of the courtyard, turn right, and walk through the open door of a ground floor apartment. Sitting there is a tan-skinned woman of 50-something, and two men, who appear to be enjoying a chat over a cigarette. No signs of anything save a neighborly chat, so I sit at the kitchen chair I am offered.

The one-room apartment is small. There is a half-refrigerator behind me, a double bed on the opposite wall, shielded from the "kitchen" side of the room by a bookcase covered with a posterboard, and walls decorated with posters, pictures, and all manner of brick-a-brack. Not too clean, not filthy, and anything but luxurious. The toilet must have been to the right as we entered the outer door.

I say to the woman, "I am Duncan."

My "escort" opens the fridge and offers me an orange juice. He introduces himself by touching his chest, "Eu Alexandru, Ungariu. Nu vorbesc Engleza."

One man leaves, and the woman says, "He is Hungarian." "You speak English? " I ask her.

She rotates her wrist in the air, "Cum si, Cum sa." "A little?" "Da."

I ask her name. "Vilma," she says, "Sotie (Wife)." "Vilma, Vilma. Fred, Barney, Vilma."

"Da, da," I say, "You are his wife, Wilma."

"Sunt Roma," she says.

"Romanian?" I ask, misunderstanding, thinking she was contrasting herself with his Hungarian ethnicity.

"Nu, nu. Roma. Roma." Then, just as the light turns on in my slow mind, she says, "Gypsy!"

Wilma finds two Easter eggs, and gives them to me. I thank her, "Mulţumesc."

She looks at me. "Roman Catholic?" she asks.

"Protestant," I confess, "but I attended Easter services at Calvary Church last week."

"Oooh, Kalvaria!" comes from Alexandru, with a deep sob and another outpouring.

It is the Hungarian R.C. church. Once his church? Maybe still?

The other visitor says his goodbyes, and leaves. I am alone in their ground-floor studio with Alexandru, his gypsy wife, and a glass of fizzy orange juice. I do not know if it is fizzy by design, or by fermentation. I sip it just a bit. Tastes fine. But I end up leaving the rest.

Alexandru the Hungarian proceeds to tell me his life story. He tells me he had been a barber, first showing me his kit, which he pulled out from the shelves behind the posterboard. It contains a shaving brush, straight razor, shears, and an electric clipper. I guess that wasn't all that long ago. He pulls out a small notebook, leather-bound, and opens it, showing me a list of names. "A duke from Czechoslovakia," he says as he points at one name. "General _____," pointing at another. I get the picture. He once had a distinguished clientele. His tears flow like rain, recalling past glory. He then tells the story of his three former wives, all now dead, weeping over each as he does so. And about meeting Wilma, with whom he has lived many years, but, tapping his ring finger, never has formally married. I sit and listen, gleaning what I can from his Romanian-Hungarian tale. I must have listened for fifteen minutes or more.

Finally, looking toward me, Wilma says, "Om bun." I look her in the eye and say nothing. She says it again. I nod my thanks, "I am learning what I can," I say.

Wilma then gets out a legal-looking document, wrapped in a plastic sheet protector, and brings it over to me. It indicates something about her medical condition. She lifts the waist of her blouse to show me several scars from abdominal operations.

Then, she shows me another legal document, and I am able to read something about its source. Some government agency for social services and housing. "Nu home," she said. "August. Nu home." She was mixing languages, as I so often do over here. I try to read the document. It appears to give them the right to live there, and its terminal month is August, 2009. The contract is in the name "UNGARIU Alexandru." So Ungariu was his name, not an Ethnic adjective.

Now I guessed she was asking for money, or letting me know of the need, at least. Alexandru again took my arm, and asked me to come with him. We go out into the courtyard, and turn left through the door he opened into the next room. Inside lies a person under a blanket. I cannot tell if it is a man or a woman. The hair is long, there is no beard, but the face is masculine looking. Clearly, he or she is a deathbed case.

We go back to the apartment. Wilma makes me understand that they are that person's caretakers. Now, finally, Alexandru decides that he wants me to really understand. He goes out and comes back with a young (30-something) man in a black shirt and black trousers. When he enters, the young man says, "Hello."

I reply, giving my name.

"Lawrence," he says. "We own the restaurant."

"Nice place," I tell him. "I have had lunch there."

"You should be somewhat careful," Lawrence says.

"I am aware of that," I reply. "I am a big boy."

"Money is a problem for them," he says, "But drinking is his main problem."

"That one I fully understand," I said. "I will leave a few lei, and meet you in the tunnel."

By that time Alexandru sat at another small surface, and, rocking back and forth tearfully, is scrawling an inscription on the back of a black and white photo of himself and Wilma, perhaps thirty years before. In the picture, he is in uniform. I ask, "Romanian Army?" "Da."

I accept the picture and its inscription, leave 20 de Lei on the table next to my orange juice, and as Wilma praises Jesus, I say good bye, and leave.

Lawrence is waiting in the tunnel. "Who is in the next room, a man or a woman?" I ask.

"It is a man."

Then Lawrence thinks for a minute, and asks, "What is the word for the head of a town? Not governor?"

"Mayor?" I suggest.

"Yes, mayor!" says Lawrence, as his wife Cristina joins us from the stairwell that leads upstairs. "The mayor of Cluj is paying."

"Paying?" I ask.

"He is letting them live here and paying them to watch the old man. They feed him and clean him."

"I see," I say. "And after August, he will be dead, and they will be homeless?"

"Probably."

I thank Lawrence for interpreting, and for breaking the spell that had kept me most of an hour in that apartment. I exit the tunnel, and turn south toward home.

Once home, I finally get my Easter Monday chance to water three women. But that is yet another story.

Paşti Fericit! (Happy Easter!)

2009-04-20T22:15:00.011+02:00

I haven't eaten so much, so much lamb, or so many eggs in eons. Easter is very special in the Romanian Orthodox tradition. I would say, more special than Christmas. For it was the Resurrection that truly launched the Christian religion. After all, we all were born, but only He is risen!

The fresco to the left is not a "Madonna and Child," but the Mother of the Madonna and her child, Mary, Mother of God. The church in Bistriţa where I attended both Midnight and Morning services this Easter was the Biserica Sfânta Ana, or The Church of Saint Ana, in the Orthodox tradition, Mary's mother.

It is a church of elegant, understated, domed design in a small greenspace on a main thoroughfare in the middle of the city. At the midnight service the street had to be cordoned off by the police, as the crowd was immense. The service, which lasted two hours, was held on the front steps, immediately beneath the painting shown. I was there with the Mican family, Alexandru and his parents Augustin and Claudia. I was enchanted by the chants, and delighted by the choir, so even after standing for over an hour, holding a lumânare (candle) as a parade of priests, parishioners and children marched three times around the church did not cause my hip to ache. A small miracle.

When we returned to Casa Mican, we were first served a bite of consecrated wine-soaked bread: our communion Host. Then, we ate. Lamb soup, and a marvelous spread of goes-with-its whose Romanian names I was told, but cannot tonight recall. Suffice it to say it had cold cuts and fresh greens and salad, and it was more than satisfying. It was yummy, though a lot to eat just before bed.

We arose (too soon) on Sunday, and dressed in our best for the 10:00 service. Since I could not follow the priest's words, which differed from those of the night before, the highlights of the Easter morning service were the park bench that Alex led me to so I wouldn't have to stand for the 2:15 that this service took, the Romanian girls and young women in their Easter outfits, and the people we met at, and walking by, our bench. Among them was Alex's grade school English teacher, a lovely woman just my age, who graciously accepted my praise of the job she had done for Alexandru, whose English is excellent. Also among them was a small slightly hyperactive boy, who seemed to love everyone, and who gladly jumped onto my knee, and then off, five seconds later. His mother and I met, and chatted awhile. She told me he was diagnosed as having a mild form of autism, and that he is expected to outgrow it, and be normal after a few years. I pray that is so, for he is a sweet kid, and deserves a full life.

After Church, we drove through Bistriţa, stopping to see Augustin and Claudia's two small cosmetics shops. I heard some stories about their business that led me to invite myself back to write a case on this family business that started in 1991, just after the end of the Communist era. Then, it was time for the Easter Feast. More Lamb, mashed potatoes, several salads, home-baked desserts. Again, too much food!

Finally, about 3:30, Alex and I went the two blocks to Casa Faur to see Dora (of Bucovina trip fame), her parents Teodor and Varvara, her lovely 17 year-old sister Mihaela, and Ronny, her 18 month-old West Highland White Terrier. We sat on the back porch looking out on a glorious day, and we spent an hour chatting, while playing with the effervescent Ronny. Dora took a bunch of pictures, so look for them in the days to come.

Oh, the eggs! Remember the "Christ is Risen!" "Indeed, He is Risen!" egg-knocking ceremony from last week at Chicago's? It happened at both houses in Bistriţa. Tradition, indeed. And the eggs were beautiful. Dora uses small spring leaves to make patterns on the Easter eggs, and the effect is striking. Again, I will provide pictures.

It had taken me three hours to drive to Bistriţa on Saturday. Sunday evening, it took under two to return to Cluj, replete with three eggs from each family, and a lovely flask set and small bottle of Celine Dion cologne from Augustin, picked up at his store, which he implied I could use to "water the women" on Monday.

Once back to Cluj, I parked at the Piaţa M. V. lot, schlepped my luggage the three blocks home, lugged them all up 64 steps, unlocked three doors, texted my safe return to Alex Mican, e-mailed it to Shirl, and went to a much-needed sleep.

This morning I awoke to a silent city of Cluj, and learned that Orthodox Easter is three days long in Romania. Yet today has a story all its own. Perhaps I will find time to tell it tomorrow.

On Mortality and Aging

2009-04-17T13:30:00.006+02:00

E-Mail received today from my older brother George ("Skipper") McDougall:

Young 'uns:
Don't look now, but today I am exactly two-thirds of a century old.
All downhill from here....
--Graybeard

My reply, sent to all my brothers, to Shirl, and to my six wonderful offspring:

Dear Unca' Skip:

You have just perceived that? I became similarly mortality-conscious on 25 August, 1978. (Three-score and ten were all I'd been promised.) Shirl will attest to the truth of my memory.

As you have seen, my reaction was merely to twist harder on the throttle. I am still at full throttle at 65, and now expect Shirl's love and the sheer joy of life to carry me to 100. If they don't, no regrets. It has been one Hell-of-a-ride.

Love, and lots of good cheer to all,

Duncan

The "Week Between the Easters" Pre-Break-week Break

2009-04-14T20:41:00.003+02:00

I had a whopping four of 40 students in class today. They blamed the week between the Easters for their classmates' absence. We had a short discussion of the differences among ethnicity, nationality and citizenship, then broke early.

"Ris'n with Healing in His Wings"

2009-04-12T19:21:00.011+02:00

The title of today's post is an Easter reference in the third verse of the Christmas carol "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."

I awoke, ate breakfast, and read for two hours before bathing and dressing for church. Walking to the lot to get Klaus, I found its main gate well and truly locked, and retreated down the hill to Horea Street, where I found a taxi waiting to take me west to Manastur, and Calvary Church. The taxi driver was of Hungarian culture, but spoke idiomatic English, as he had worked construction for three years in New Jersey.

The old church (the first one was built here in 1060-63) was splendid in the bright sunlight of this perfect Easter morning. I sat in joy as the priest chanted mellow-voiced, and the choir sang beautifully in Hungarian. But the Mass is the Mass, and a Baptism is a pretty straightforward ritual, so I observed these sacraments with a joyful heart and spiritual comprehension, in spite of my inability to translate the liturgy literally.

Colleague Kinga Kerekesh had met me on the walkway up the hill to the church, and sat at my side during the Easter Mass. I was blessed by her beautiful soprano during the responsive chants.

The service ended with the congregation's unison singing of the Hungarian National Anthem, "God Bless the Magyars."

After church, Kinga and I went for our lunch to Chicago's Restaurant, a couple of blocks closer to downtown Cluj, in Manastur Gardens. Kinga hadn't known that I was a Chicago boy, but had known this to be the closest nice restaurant to her church. It was built by a man from Chicago, the waiter said, but sold five or so years ago to Romanain owners. The posters would have floored my brothers. The New York Central 20th Century Limited. The South Shore RR. The "L". On one post in the dining room was an old photograph of a familiar-looking piece of architecture, clearly of "The Chicago School." I went closer. Sure enough, it was The Rookery, the office building at 209 S. LaSalle Street that was famous as the only all-masonry skyscraper in Chicago, and the building in which my father's law offices had been when he returned to Chicago after his Navy years during World War II.

Our Easter luncheon opened with a Kerekesh Family ritual. From out of her purse Kinga brought two deep-red easter eggs. We were each to hold one, she explained, and bang them together to break the shells after one of us said, "He is risen!" and the other, smashing the eggs, "It is true!"

For lunch, I ordered steak. (What else, in Chicago?) And it was the best beef I have yet found in Cluj. But the meal, including soup and a salad, was too big to finish. Still, I will go back. Good restaurants are rare, and deserve to be patronized.

During lunch I asked Kinga about the Hungarian National Anthem at the church. "We sing it every Sunday," she said, "It has religious lyrics." There ensued a most interesting conversation on the difference between citizenship and nationality. I will not go into all my thoughts on this conversation, but they were many, and I believe I have learned today a new perspective on ethnic diversity, and on the Balkan/Central European mind as distinct from the American mind. I will share some of my thoughts with my Fulbright colleagues when we meet next month in Sibiu.

I close my Easter post with these wishes for my brethren and sisters in this land: May ethnic diversity be embraced! May His Healing mend all our hearts!

Spring Flowers and Leaves along the streets of Cluj

Easter Weekend Number One

2009-04-11T11:15:00.012+02:00

Easter Egg from Putna Monastery in Bucovina

Easter means more to most folk in Romania than it does to many in the USA, especially here in Transilvania. Not only is Christianity more generally embraced here, but also here the holiday lasts for two weeks. The Hungarian- culture population and the local Protestants celebrate Roman Catholic Easter, which falls on 12 April this year. The Romanian Orthodox church celebrates Easter a week later, and as the Orthodox Christians are in the majority here, the week following 19 April is our University's Spring Holiday.

In typically warm and kind-hearted Romanian fashion, my colleague Kinga, who last fall taught the Hungarian line 3rd-year students the Labor Management course in parallel with my Englishline section, has invited me to attend Easter service with her tomorrow morning. The service will be mainly in Hungarian, but I expect it to be close enough to the American Episcopalian service that I will be able to follow. Tomorrow afternoon I will report, and will provide pictures of the church, which is an old one atop a defensive earthenwork on the west side of Cluj. I cannot wait to see it from the nave.

Mircea Quote

2009-04-08T09:52:00.003+02:00

Mircea writes:

"I try to image how you looked like while: '...spoke my confession of what a jerk I have been half my time on Earth,...'. Don't worry, it is the cabbage! Most people have ciorba de varza problems, especially if they make it salty and spicy. But I agree, it's gooooooood.........."

Thanks, Mircea. While cooking it, I had sorta wondered whether that accidentally-big shake of cayenne pepper might have been a bit excessive.

Bad night. Good day.

2009-04-07T21:36:00.003+02:00

Last night I awoke twice with what felt like heartburn. My stomach felt extremely acidic, my chest was hurting a bit, and there was no Tums in the apartment. Suspecting a diabetic imbalance, I checked my sugar. It read 91 mg/dl. Close to ideal. I ate a piece of bread and peanut butter, and returned to bed. When next I awoke, I stood up and added to my symptoms were that I felt dizzy and woozy. I made my way unstably to the bathroom, and then drank a full glass of water, and took one enteric-coated aspirin, just in case. I went back to bed, noting that it was about 4 AM. I put two pillows under my legs, and removed the one under my head, said my prayers of thanks for the great life, wonderful wife and children, and spoke my confession of what a jerk I have been half my time on Earth, then fell asleep until morning. Arising after 8 AM, I checked my sugar again. 70. Too low, but no symptoms.

Probably I was reacting last night to something I ate yesterday. Could it be my delicious ciorba de varza? Shirl, is that sour stomach anything like you feel when you eat cooked cabbage? I hope that is not the problem, because I have learned to love that ciorba, which is very low in calories, and virtually fat free.

Today I worked a full day, but drank less coffee than usual, and made several extra climbs up the stairs at the faculty and at BOGDAN Lucian's 5th floor walk-up apartment, where I met his parents after our American Studies class. Those climbs all went fine, so I am no longer worried about my heart.

Shirl, Lucian is planning to visit Philadelphia in July, so I have offered to drive down to Wally's for golf that week, then bring Lucian home for a few days' holiday in NH. Least we can do to repay his setting up our WiFi network, right?

On the work front, thanks to Mihaela at UBB and Trent at PSU, new task forces are already beginning to implement our new joint project. We can feel the momentum building. Stay tuned!

Productivity Renewed!

2009-04-06T17:59:00.004+02:00

Never underestimate the power...

After reading Shirl's response to yesterday's post, I arose today at 7:00, made breakfast, did my dishes, went to the Faculty, researched the "top 100 Romanian companies" and American companies doing business in Romania, put about twenty of those companies on a spreadsheet, sent it to both Romanian and American colleagues working with me on "the project," got from the 'net the e-mail address of Nicu, the man in Cluj who represents USBiz.ro, a site that provides information on "The American Business Community in Romania," went home to retrieve my wallet, that I had left in another jacket, stopped by the local frizerie for a haircut, only to find it crowded (Easter haircuts? Tons of kids.), ate lunch of grilled ham and cheese at home, returned to meet with Prodeacon Mihaela at 2:00, presented my spreadsheet and marketing idea, suggested using marketing students to help us fill in the list and propose a strategy and an information campaign, got Mihaela's support, and with her an appointment to meet tomorrow with Professor Ioan, a fellow Fulbrigher and head of the marketing department at the Faculty, learned that Nicu is one of Mihaela's former students, got his phone number from Mihaela, called him and made an appointment to meet Wednesday at 5:00 to discuss both the "project" and my case research goals, and then called Horatius, the entrepreneur with whom I am already working on a case study, to set up our next interview on Thursday afternoon. After that, I drove home, got my hair cut (well) by an Hungarian-Romanian barber of about my age, stopped in at a travel agency to begin researching how to get Shirl here late in May, then both of us home again from Germany late in June, made a delicious ciorbe de varza, and blogged it all, so that I can now shower, play some guilt-free online poker, and sleep like a baby tonight.

The next time I am asked the key to productivity growth, or how to cure the economic crisis, or how to treat the blues, I will know the answer: a comment from Shirley on your blog.

Shirl Leaves; Funk Falls

2009-04-05T13:07:00.007+02:00

[Note: This is the second new post published today. Please read the one dated April 4 first. Thank you.]

Shirl left on Tuesday, and though it was a busy week, it was so much less so than any week in March that I found myself asleep for untold hours at strange times of the day. It was as if I were in a blue funk.

Happily, Shirl made it home without incident, and reports that all is safe and secure at our New Hampshire home. But the Cluj weather has finally turned beautiful, and Shirl should be here, with her warm smile brightening my life.

On the positive front, we are moving forward with several academic pursuits. I have begun research of an entreprenurial case study here in Cluj, and have found two American companies operating in Western Romania that may cooperate as well in my casewriting goal.

My American Studies course is beginning to come into focus, with the help of several pblications sent me by the U.S. Embassy in sufficient quantities for my class. One is a booklet called "What is a Market Economy," another a little tome called "U.S.A. Economy in Brief," and the third a very practical primer called "Trade Terms," on the INCOTERMs, the language of world trade.

Working with Professor Muţiu in Management Accounting is thoroughly delightful. I admire her clear lecturing style. I hope that my discussions of cases and problems get through to the students as well as she does in her lectures.

Finally, we are continuing to develop our new PSU/UBB joint effort, which I cannot yet describe in detail, but which promises to deepen the long-standing cooperation between our institutions, and to make a solid impact on students on both sides of the Atlantic.

There, I have finally caught up!

Now, Shirl, let's see if we can arrange to fly you back here late in May, and then, in June, drive together across Hungary and Austria, see some Austrian or Bavarian Alps, visit the Schmid Family in Fellbach, and fly home together from Munich or Stuttgart! I think it would be a shame not to take that opportunity, and I really want you back in Romania. It was better with you here.

Herren Schmid von Fellbach waren hier!

2009-04-04T04:13:00.025+02:00

Today is 5 April, and I am today committing to catching up this journal. My psyche is suffering from too many unrecorded memories!

With Ferdi and Klaus at CLJ (D. Schmid Photos)

Our German friends Dietmar (aka "Gig") and Ferdi Schmid visited us last weekend (27-29 March). They arrived Friday afternoon via Malev at Cluj International (CLJ), and after a brief tour of the city, came to the apartment to meet Shirl. After that, Klaus took our visitors to the Hotel Confort, where they checked in and took a ten minute power nap, while I sprinted home to get out of the "UBB Conference on the Financial and Economic Crisis" keynote speaker's suit in which I'd met them, for such had been my early afternoon duty.

That evening we invited my colleague (and Shirl's friend), newly promoted Assistant Professor Melinda Pleşcan, to join us at the Iulius Mall's nice restaurant Hanul Dacilor for supper. Melinda is a brilliant young woman who wears great shoes, so I thought that she might one day make a good Romanian rep for nico, the Schmids' brand of shoe care products. Besides, their visit to the Il Passo shoe store at the Iulius Mall made Gig's trip to Cluj 100% business.

On Saturday we took a leisurely course via GPS "shortest route" to Ocna Sugatag via Mara, both in Maramureş County. Of course, "You haven't been lost till you've been GPS lost," so we were guided to a mountain road still covered with snow, and marked "not maintained for winter travel." We had to backtrack some 20 Km, but eventually found our way to Maria's little store in Mara, where we met again the family of Maria, her son Ioan, and her granddaughter, Denisa. We confirmed for Pat Hayes that his October family photos had arrived, and Gig snapped a new one of Shirl and me with Maria and Denisa, to record our visit.
Having traversed the mountans, we checked into the new pensiune that the Sherman-Hayes family and I had dined at in Ocna Sugatag, Popasul din Deal, where we later had a great dinner and a fine rest.

But before dinner, we drove to the famous wooden monastery at Barsana. There Ferdi met deer, and we both befriended the local dogs, who were sweet creatures badly overdue for a bath. Here are several Barsana snapshots:

On Sunday, we ate a good breakfast at the pensiune, then headed back by a more easterly route (no seasonal pun intended) to the airport in Cluj, having had a short but most enjoyable visit. Gig, who races BMW 3-series cars as a hobby, did a superb job of driving us there with time to spare. I wanted to let him bond with his foundling Klaus, as I hope to leave Klaus with Gig as my future Eurocar, once I return to the States.

Until we meet again in Fellbach in June, dear friends, Tschüss!

10,000 Words that don't quite account for our missing Timişoara.

2009-04-02T16:38:00.003+02:00

Monday, 23 March 2009. The ride home in pictures.

Our Pensiune on the road from Craiova to Targu Jiu.

The view from our room. Flatlands.

Who says there is no red cedar in Europe? (The vent covers in the dining room. It may not be Juniperus Virginiana, but it sure looks the same.)

We get "GPS Lost," but manage to avoid becoming "ditched in a Dacia."

Hunedoara has Corvin Castle.

Complete with a grizzly legend,

and fair maidens,

a magnificent setting,

and marvelous details.

Finally, home in Cluj, we found snow and pigeons.

Touring the Southwestern Frontier

2009-03-30T15:33:00.012+02:00

The wide Piaţa in Calafat, with the War Memor- ial in the fore- ground

The next morning was Sunday, 22 March. Shirl and I proceeded south from Caracal to Corabia, then turned west along the Danube Valley. The weather was simply beautiful, with temperatures of a comfortable 14.5 degrees C. (about 50 F) in bright sunshine. The Danube's floodplain stretched off to our left, intensely farmed virtually all the way to the river, with the hills of northern Bulgaria visible beyond. For most of the ride along the frontier, the Danube itself was too far away to be seen, so at Bechet we turned left on the short road to Port Bechet, and paid a fee of 20 lei to get the right to cross over into Bulgaria, planning to drive the other side as far as Vidin, then to reenter Romania at Calafat. What they didn't tell us at the tax stop was that there followed a 90 Euro ferryboat ticket. Our weekend's supply of cash wouldn't support that price (of about 400 de Lei), so we reneged, and turned back from the ferry office, receiving a coupon rather than a refund from the border police on the Romanian side. (The price for Romanians was only 210 de Lei, but with an American passport and German plates on Klaus, I thought I had best not argue that my Permis de Şedere made me a Romanian resident.)

We continued west along the Romaniian bank of the Danube to Rast, where we again turned to the Port in hopes of dipping a foot into the Beautiful Blue Danube. As you can see, we found such a place immediately beside the Frontier Police boat station, where a number of locally-owned rowboats were also moored.

From Rast we contined to Calafat, the south-westernmost city in Romania, and stopped for a late lunch in this attractive city, which looks and feels almost Mediterranean. Though it was still only about 50 degrees F, the bright sun and clear air made it quite beautiful, especially after a long winter of rain, snow and grey days in Transylvania.

Not yet ready to call it a day, after lunch we looked at the map over coffee, debating whether to head north toward Timişoara, or east toward Craiova. The decision was made on the basis that we would phone Kerry the Fulbrighter/Playwright Glamsch in Craiova, and if he were able to have dinner with us, go there. Kerry was available until 8:00, so we drove the 90 minutes of Euro Highway (good two-laners) to Craiova. Entering the Craiova metropolitan area, we passed the following sign, and had to stop. (Frank, if you read this post, please call my friend Bill Cargill at CB Construction in Campton, and refer him to my blog. I hope he can help me gain access to this subsidiary to write a Harvard-style business case study. Romanian business students desperately need relevant and recent local cases to discuss in their classes. Please ask Bill to e-mail me. Mulţumesc! )

We met Kerry in downtown Craiova, and went out for a wonderful meal, at which our long-budding friendship came to be cemented. Shirl, too, had long wanted to know Kerry, having also followed his beautifully written blog, "Romania, Romania, Romania."

The day ended at a brand new Pensiune on the road toward Targu Jiu, as we had decided to head for Hunedoara in the morning.

30 March Comment:

From the content of the last two posts, you'd think I have had nothing to do of late but travel. The truth is quite the opposite, which explains why I have told this story over a week after the fact. There is presently too much going on in my life to allow time each night to report the day's events. Perhaps, I shall one day catch up. As this night ends, I face tomorrow, and Shirl's departure back to New Hampshire. Of course, I shall miss her. Shirl has bonded with Romania and the Romanians in her short month here more deeply than I could ever have hoped, and in doing so has bonded still more deeply with her husband.

Off-Target Trip to Timişoara

2009-03-25T09:07:00.013+01:00

Shirl at Cozia

Saturday, 21 March: After our night in Sibiu, and after a lazy morning at the Pensiune Hermannstadt spent drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with staff members Mitros, Tibi and Leo (a Jawa rider), we took Klaus south. Forsaking the road to Timişoara, we chose instead to head down E81 to see the Danube River Valley, and that world-famous river that forms the border between Romania and Bulgaria. We did so partly in pursuit of spring, which was just present on the calendar, but not yet evident in the weather up in Transylvania.

Stopping only to view an old German John Deere tractor, and to visit the monastery at Cozia, it took half of the afternoon to reach Ramnicu Valea, at which point we chose Ro 54, a much less- traveled country road that went due southward, avoiding the main roads that diverge there, westward toward Craiova and eastward toward Bucharest.

Now south of the mountains and into Wallachia, Romania's historical southern region, formerly a kingdom in its own right, we found ourselves enjoying bright sunshine and farm fields in cultivation. Traffic had all but evaporated, and the driving was thoroughly pleasant past black fields just burned-over, brown and lumpy fields whose soil had just been turned over by tractor-towed harrows, and bright spring-green fields of newly sprouted crops. It must have made a wonderful patchwork, if viewed from a light plane, and I commened to Shirl that I had brought my pilot's license and logbook with me to Romania, and might arrange an hour or two of dual before coming home to New Hampshire, if time permits. The landscape grew flatter as we continued southward, first reminiscent of central Iowa, then later of western Illinois: alluvial land in the flood plain of a major river.

We stopped for the night in Caracal, finding a pleasant pensiune (the "No Name") with a jovial young manager named Ovidius. We had dinner there, resting well in a modern room. And before leaving the next morning, we exchanged e-mail addresses with Ovidius, and told him that if he ever gets to Boston, he should try its No Name Restaurant. And that recommendation goes to all readers, as well. [You won't see it advertised, but it has been on Boston's Fish Pier since 1914. Take a taxi, and ask for "the No Name." Order the broiled sole. You will thank me. [If you prefer to pay four times as much for less-fresh fish served more elegantly, Jimmy's Harborside and Anthony's Pier 4 are on either side, within 500 meters.]

Three-Day Sojourn Southwest

2009-03-20T22:29:00.003+01:00

This week saw a few months work reach a successful climax. I am not yet at liberty to describe the project, but soon I will fill you in. Some readers may even benefit personally!

The project has entailed much extra work for a goodly number of committed folks. As one of those, I end the week physically tired and emotionally exhausted. As a result, Shirl and I this afternoon escaped in Klaus to a Pensiune in Sibiu. We have just had a huge dinner with friend Charles at a Saxon-Romanian restaurant, and are tomorrow turning westward toward Timisoara. From there our course is yet uncertain, but we needn't return to Cluj until Tuesday about noon, if we so choose. So into the uncharted (by us, at least) southwestern sector of Romania we go. We may even cross into Bulgaria for awhile, or dip our toes into the Danube River. Whatever we do, as spring is now here, and the days are pleasant and warming, we will come home to the apartment well aired out, and mentally refreshed, God willing.

Silence 'Splained

2009-03-16T21:52:00.002+01:00

On Friday my PSU colleagues Trent Boggess and Roxana Wright arrived from the states to visit UBB. We have been in conferences and meetings, and I've been too beat to blog.

The news today is that FOUR visitors will be joining me for nine days in May. Sons Alex and Jesse from New England, daughter Piper from Colorado, and our great friend Caroline (Cally) will all be here at once. I foresee one heck of a week.

Meanwhile, Shirley has taken to Romania like a duck to water. I think Shirl and I will be back here often, as time goes by, "God willin', and the creek don't rise."

Sure hope so.

Day of Peace

2009-03-12T17:32:00.009+01:00

Romanian Orthodox Cathedral (1923-33)
and Avran Iancu Statue, Cluj-Napoca (1)

There were no events on today's calendar. That made it a special day for me here in Cluj. As last evening we'd had dinner with Kathy O., a fine event indeed, and then run her up the hill to her apartment in Klaus, I had parked after 8 PM (when it is free) in the Piata M.V.'s public lot. Hence, I had to go to the car before 8 AM today to prevent a tow or a ticket. Shirl and I had hoped to spend our free day strolling through downtown Cluj, but it was raining a bit hard this morning, so Shirl slept in while I went out to take Klaus home to the Faculty of Letters. As I did so I called Mihaela L., but caught her in her car on the way to work. When she arrived at FSEGA, Mihaela called back. I told her that I was looking for some books sent me by my brother Wally well over a week before, addressed to me at the Faculty of Economics, and that they had not yet appeared. Mihaela kindly said she'd check to see if they had arrived. Soon she called again, and explained that they had arrived in Cluj, but were being held in the post office's customs department (VAMA). She gave me its address, Str. Aurel Vlaicu nr. 3.

By that time Shirl was up and networking from the kitchen, now linked to the Internet via our new cluj-mcd hotspot, and I was negotiating air tickets through Travelocity to make my next (April) 4-day dash to Kansas City and back. Lazy man that I am, I had Skyped Shirl from the "office" corner of the bedroom, and we were communicating via chat. "Want to go to lunch and pick up Wally's books?" "Sure, give me a minute to pull on some jeans!"

So, we went across to McDonald's for a Big Mac, then grabbed a cab to Customs. Though I showed the post office agent my Permis de Sedere, he asked to see my University ID, or a business card, as the package was addressed to me at the Faculty, and my Permis de Sedere showed only my Romanian home address. I was able to convince him by telling him who had sent the books, and from where, so I retrieved the books for a 1 Leu "storage fee," as they had been there over three days.

Back on the street, I called Carmen Tagsorean, and asked whether we might come over to the Center for International Cooperation (CIC) office, so she and Shirl could finally meet.

Carmen is always busy, but was generous enough to give us a very pleasant invitation. Ten minutes and another cab ride later, we were at her desk, sipping tea and coffee. In fact, quite a bit of work went on as we chatted, for she gave me the latest draft agenda for next week's planning meetings, Carmen ordered me some business cards with my UBB title and work address, and I showed her how to access HBS Publishing, and search for cases and articles. She had been asked by a colleague if i might know of a case on the insurance industry, and while in her office we found that HBSP lists over 170 items when one searches the topic "Insurance."

After our visit to Carmen at the CIC office on Strada Avram Iancu, the weather had softened enough that we walked about two Km home to our flat, visiting Piaţa Avram Iancu and its cathedral on the way. It was a most pleasant stroll, save that Shirl stepped in a hole in the pavement on the sidewalk, hurting (but thankfully not spraining) her ankle. Once home, we shared a supper of ciorba de linte, and mici sizzled in a skillet.

Today has been just as Shirl described the interior of the city's magnificent Romanian Orthodox Cathedral: peaceful.

(1) Photo Source: http://www.beyondtheforest.com/Romania/CJ4.html

Klaus' Friends

2009-03-09T10:08:00.002+01:00

Klaus wouldn't start this morning. When I parked him Saturday night at the Piaţa lot after returning from Colţeşti, I had left on the ceiling light, which I'd been using to look for the GPS pouch in the glove box. I didn't find it, because Shirl had stuck it under her seat with the mount. Over the weekend, the battery had gone flat as a pancake. I opened the hood, and couldn't find the battery. I called Melinda, but she was about to teach a class. I called Alexandru and woke him up, and he agreed to go to a parts store, buy jumper cables, and come to my aid. He is a fine friend, indeed. An old Dacia pickup pulled into the adjacent space. The man got out, went to pay for the parking spot, then returned to ask me my problem. Then another man (Marc) joined him. Before long, half the men in the Piata M.V. were gathered at my car, a set of cables appeared, and I called Alex just in time to save him an unnecessary rescue mission. To make a long story short, we found the battery under the rear seat, Klaus came to life, and I bought some good men some Pepsis. See why I love Romania?

Romania Re-Examined: A Continuing Process

2009-03-08T22:02:00.007+01:00

Tonight I have for you several updates on my earlier post on Romanian university practices:

1. At the Re-Examination session for my Operations Management class last month, I was approached by a student who had never attended, and had not written a case analysis. He was, however, aware of the "Word to the Wise" that I had posted to the Englshline Yahoo Group in November. He clearly had a good understanding of that message, for he asked if it were possible for him to pass the course simply by passing the make-up final. I told him that since it was worth ony 25%, he would be wasting his time, but that he was welcome to take it if he liked. He decided not to stay, but, as Melinda monitored the one student trying to earn a 5 in the course by getting a 9 or 10 on this exam, he and I had a chat in the hallway about why he had not been attending. "I have a job with a company that markets MTD Power Equipment, an American company that makes lawn mowers, lawn tractors, and snow blowers. It is based in Cleveland, Ohio, but I work in marketing for its distributor here in Romania. I have been developing a plan for launching a new line of chainsaws, and I have not been able to take time off for classes." I told him that I own an MTD snow blower in New Hampshire, and that I think their simple, rugged and inexpensive equipment offers excellent value. "I respect your choice," I told him, "but that does not mean that you can get academic credit when you haven't done the assigned academic work." We parted on good terms, with his planning to find another time to take this required course.

2. System Engineer Darius at the Faculty of European Studies was helping me post some files last week, and we got to talking. I showed him my blog post from 20 February, "Romania Re-Examined." Darius said, "You are right, of course. But when looking for a job, what do employers ask? They always ask, 'What is your experience?' And if you have no work experience, you will not get the job. That is why so many students do not attend classes and seminars." "Fine," I said, "that is a valid life choice. But then, how can they expect also to earn a university diploma, if they do not participate in the courses?"

3. Then there was the comment I received to "Romania Re-Examined" from Ms. Diana Constantinescu. Diana is a serious student who feels that the present system of grading and of granting degrees in Romania devalues her hard work in learning the course knowledge that the professors are there to deliver. She urges me to stick with the American system of requiring multiple student outputs, and of grading based on each student's performances in all the learning activities of the course.

4. On Friday I taught my first Management Accounting session and seminar, as I had been in Kansas City the previous Friday. The students at this class impressed me. At the break between "Course" and "Seminar" I passed out my first-day caselette, and gave the class an extra twenty minutes to analyze it. When we resumed, several who offered their opinions proved well-schooled in the fundamentals of business cash flow analysis, and quickly saw several paths to solving the liquidity problem that the one-page caselette had posed. I had more students in that day's session than I had yet seen in my classes here in Romania: 40 were present. After the seminar, talking with my teaching teammate Prof. Ph.D. Alexandra Mutiu, I learned that we had 79 enrolled in the course. As is typical, we had only about 50% in attendance. I hasten to point out that it was the attending students who had impressed me so favorably. I have no idea whether any of the ones not present could have analyzed the case as quickly or as cogently.

5. After class Prof. Mutiu volunteered that she, too, had seen my blog post of 20 February. She also agreed that it was accurate. I told her what Darius had said about the importance of work experience in employers' recruiting processes. As she had also read Ms. Constantinescu's comment, Alexandra added her belief that, however hard it might be to find their first post-university position, a year after going to work the students who had worked hard in the University and attended their classes would move up the promotional ladder faster than the others, and end up in higher places in most organizations.

6. I then asked Alexandra about the practice of offering a three-chance final examination, commenting that to make it fair to the early-takers, it was necessary to write three completely different examinations, as even though they are collected each time, much information about the course's prior final examination (an oxymoron) would surely get out to those planning to take the second one, or the make-up. Alexandra's response was immediate: "Of course the questions get out. Students use their cell phones to photograph the exam, or to Fax their friends from the exam room."

Let the discussion proceed. I am still withholding judgment.

Piper's and Women's Day

2009-03-07T12:39:00.002+01:00

Today is daughter Piper McDougall's birthday, so let me begin by wishing her a happy day, and a beautiful spring in Aspen.

It is Women's Week in Romania and tomorrow is 8 March, Women's Day. We men are recognizing our better halves with daily gifts, and showing appreciation for their loving attentions to our needy selves all year long. So, today I bought Shirl a new frying pan... a really nice one that should heat more evenly than the cheap thin aluminum one that came with the cookware set I bought at Auchan last September. I wonder how I'll get this one home.

I am today on Shirl's Macbook, and it is having I/O delay problems, so it has taken me fifteen minutes to write this short post. More will follow once I am on my beloved HP.

Shirley's Here!

2009-03-04T12:32:00.004+01:00

There is much to report. The trips of 25 Feb and 1-2 March went smoothly, Lufthansa (comfortable) over and United (cramped) back. Munich is the best transfer point for Cluj, because the connections are perfectly timed, and the airport well-designed. The highlight of this transatlantic flight, for me, was seeing the southern tip and islands off Greenland, and then flying all across the frozen mountains and valleys of Labrador, true wilderness devoid of any visible signs of Man for hundreds of miles. I may have flown so northerly a route before, but if so, clouds had blocked the spectacular views.

On the way back after the ACBSP board meetings, I flew to DC in the company of "LTC Jen", a delightful career Army logistics officer and Iraq veteran on her way from Ft. Leavenworth to Richmond, Va. We talked for the whole trip, finding many mutual interests, such as parenthood, logistics, and history. Shirl was waiting to meet our flight when it arrived at Dulles, so I was able to introduce those two young mothers. Jen has since e-mailed that upon her arrival in Richmond, she found the city "paralyzed" by eight inches of snow, and Ft. Lee closed, giving her a "snow day."

Shirl and I had a light supper between flights in DC, then boarded UA 902, n0n-stop to Munich. Checking boarding passes, I discovered that our pre-requested (through Travelocity) adjacent seats had not come through, and we were assigned seats across the wide-bodied Boeing 777 from each other. Shirl and I wanted to sit together, so the gate agent reassigned us to a center-section pair, with Shirl in the center. The plane took off on time. By an hour later, we perceived UA's pricing strategy: make steerage truly uncomfortable so experienced passengers will pay the premium for "Economy-Plus" seating. These Economy seats were so tightly arranged that one could harldy move. Fortunately, Both Shirl and I had interesting seat-mates. (And no, that is not self-congratulatory.) I was sitting with Ms. Judith B., an MBA from The Darden School at UVA, and CEO of a marketing firm presently operating in Istanbul. She was brilliant. We had a good chat, sharing stories of our mutual acquaintances in the U.S. business school community, and of our respective careers. Shortly after our in-flight dinner, all four passengers on Shirl's right and left fell asleep, effectively trapping her in a cushioned corral. God love her, she sat there quietly, and let us all sleep.

We got into Munich a bit early, because one passenger's medical emergency caused our flight to be cleared into the airport without any circling in queue. We never learned, back in steerage, the nature of the problem, but the paramedics came aboard and offloaded the troubled passenger while the rest of us waited in our seats.

About an hour later we boarded a STOL four-jet AVRO commuter airliner flown by Lufthansa's Inter-City subsidiary for the short hop east to CLJ, which was only a 90-minute flight across Bavaria, Austria and Hungary. Going out on the 25th I had enjoyed some views of the Austrian Alps, but Shirl missed seeing them, as on our eastbound flight the clouds obscured the mountains.

Shirl has been here about two days now, and has already met Monica Z. and Lucian B., two of my teaching assistants. She seems to like the apartment, and has taken to Romania as quickly as did I. We're looking forward to planned dinners with Mihaela and Mr. Lutas, Victoria and Florin Moldovan, and Melinda and Monica with their respective beaus.

We are now off to lunch, and an afternoon in the country, as it is a sunny afternoon. I will prepare for Friday's class on Thursday. (What else is new?)

Shirley's Coming Over!

2009-02-27T13:18:00.004+01:00

It is early Friday morning in Kansas City. Today, and tomorrow morning, will be devoted to the meetings of the board of directors at the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) here at the Marriott-Airport at KCI. Tomorrow afternoon I will go to Borders or B&N and buy some books (and to a supermarket to buy peanut butter), to take back to Cluj for my own use in teaching, and for my volunteer teaching assistant and serious scholar Lucian Bogdan. Early Sunday morning, I will head to the airport and catch a United Airlines flight to Washington-Dulles International Airport, where I will meet my beloved wife Shirley for our trip back to Cluj-Napoca.

Shirl is coming to Cluj! What shall I say to her, other than, "Thank you, I love you, I have missed you, and it will be wonderful to have you there to share with me all your perceptions of the beautiful city of Cluj, and the remarkable country that is Romania?" I should probably say that Romania is different from America, so do not be surprised by anything you see that seems strange at first sight. The ornate and stone-solid buildings with faded paint and crooked doors that characterize downtown Cluj. The ubiquitous fences that surround every home. The Dacia 1310s that seem to run forever, no matter how great the gaps between body and doors, hoods and trunk lids. The stylishly dressed women in the city, and the women in the country, who have no interest in other than traditional dress. The dour menfolk, who remind one in their faces that earning a living and supporting their families has been a lifelong struggle for most.

And I should tell Shirl about the Romanians' food. Their delicious soups, and the many ways Romanians prepare pork and chicken. The plentiful fresh produce and fruit. The myriad varieties of sausages. The concern of the people for the freshness of their food, and their distrust of leftovers. (In America we say that a split pea soup is at its best on the third day. In Romania a student friend looked at me as if I were crazy when I told him that. Home refrigeration is relatively new to the nation. They are used to shopping, and cooking what they buy, every day.

And I should warn Shirl not to be put off by the entrance to our old apartment block. It is right downtown, and is over a century old. The door is crooked (of course), and creaks as it opens onto the trash barrels. There may be a homeless man there. He comes at least once a week to comb through the trash bags. He may be seen eating what he has found. Then, there will be the 60-odd stairs that you must scale to reach the second floor above the street (third floor, in the U.S.) Fear them not, for they get much easier after a few days, once they become "the way home, and almost there."

And, my Love, I hope that you will like our apartment, for once there, you will find that the Moldovans have done a great job of making it graceful and cozy and modern in ways that are remarkable, indeed, in such a building. It is the nicest living space of any I have seen housing my fellow Fulbrighters in Romania.

I cannot wait to share Romania with you, the woman who means more to me than I know how to express. I know that the long flight across to Europe is a hard thing for you to face. I know that the prospect of a month away from our New Hampshire homestead, our dogs and our children is more than a little daunting. That is why I am so grateful to you for making the trip.

Romania, the Romanians, and I will work hard to make it all worthwhile.

Inquiring minds want to know...

2009-02-25T00:52:00.002+01:00

"How did a nation with only a 300-year history come to be a world leader?" "Is it true that America's leaders can precisely control the economy either upwards or downwards in order to prevent another Great Depression?"
I got some really good questions from my students today in my American Studies course. I like these students already. They are thinkers. This course is going to be a tonic!

I may be off the air for a few days, as I have to go to Kansas City tomorrow to attend another ACBSP meeting. But this time I will be meeting Shirl at Dulles and flying home to Cluj with my bride! Unless I get a chance to post from KC, catch you next week!

Learning to Teach (and Vice-Versa)

2009-02-23T22:05:00.005+01:00

It is Monday. A new semester has begun. My first class is tomorrow at the Faculty of European Studies, and will meet from 4:00 to 8:00 PM (with a break or two) in the Einstein Hall at a building that was once a synagogue, and which houses the faculty offices of the Hebrew Studies Department. My course is called American Economy and Business, and is part of the UBB American Studies Program.

This course will be a new prep for me. I am going to be learning along with my students, a common experience in my 28 years of teaching. I believe I have taught at least fifteen different courses, so taking on a new prep is not so daunting as it may seem to some. Look back in the archives, and you'll find a post called "The Hard Life of a Utility Infielder. I am so called by my chairman back at PSU.

So, wish me luck, dear readers, for I will soon learn if I am young enough still to do so!

Contrary Hypotheses

2009-02-22T15:50:00.017+01:00

Graph of the ratio of Annualized Sales/Average Inventory for U.S. Manufacturers

Data source: The Economic Report of the President, 1999. U.S. Government Printing Office.

Today I shall make a new use of the blog. I will use it go on record as being aware of two possible weaknesses of an hypothesis that I have recently presented in an article just accepted for publication. I apologize to my regular readers if what follows proves to be boring stuff. It is excerpted from an e-mail sent this week to Dr. Willem Spanjers, head of the International Network for Economic Research (INFER) in the U.K.

Dear Dr. Spanjers:

I am most grateful for INFER's acceptance for publication of my article, "Operating at the Rate of Consumption: Did Inventory Reductions in U.S. Manufacturing Prevent Recessions During the 1990s?" ...

Just to make sure there is a record of my having thought about such things, I want to share with you two contrary hypotheses offering possible explanations for the behavior of manufacturing inventory turnover as described in my article, "Operating at the Rate of Consumption." Please comment, and then save this message in the INFER files, lest I ever have to demonstrate that I am a thinker as opposed to an ideologue, or manufacturing chauvinist. You may even want to consider publishing this missive in a newsletter, as these hypotheses might provide directions for research, should anyone decide to follow up on my piece.

Contrary Hypothesis No. 1: The increase in the ratio of Cost of Goods Sold to Inventory between 1982 and 1997 was the result of the shift of American manufacturers from FIFO to LIFO accounting, coupled with inflation of the US dollar during that period.

The apparently systematic and prolonged increase in the ratio of sales dollars to inventory value from 1982 through 1997, as seen in The Economic Report of the President and reported in my article, may be an accounting mirage that resulted in no way from, or only partly from increased physical turnover of goods in inventory at American manufacturers. Assuming no change in the average Gross Margin ratio of the manufacturing sector as a whole, the pattern of growth in Sales/Inventory as reported in the subject article would be matched closely by the pattern of growth in Inventory Turnover, defined as the ratio of Cost of Goods Sold (CGS) to Inventory. We know that there was during most of those years both inflation in the American dollar and a continuing tendency of American corporations to shift from First-In-First-Out (FIFO) accounting for the cost of goods sold to Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) accounting, done to reduce income taxes by increasing reported product costs to their inflated levels. The long term effect of this shift in accounting practice would be to relieve each year from inventory the current manufacturing costs of items sold, leaving in ending inventory records the less costly units made previously. This method of accounting was permitted for income tax purposes, and if employed for tax purposes, was required also on the financial statements. Hence, all companies employing LIFO accounting could be, ceteris parabus, expected to show increases in inventory turnover as their CGS inflated each year. I have little doubt that this hypothesis will explain in part the effect reported in "Operating at the Rate of Consumption." The interesting question is whether it explains it all.

Contrary Hypothesis No. 2: The increase in the ratio of Sales to Inventory between 1982 and 1997 in the United States was the result of the outsourcing of low-margin manufactures to other nations.

The apparently systematic and prolonged increase in the ratio of sales dollars to inventory value from 1982 through 1997, as seen in The Economic Report of the President and reported in my article, may be the effect of the export by American Industry of such low-margin industries as consumer electronics, shoemaking and textiles, leaving in the sector a higher-margin mix of manufactured goods, such as pharmaceuticals and software products. In other words, my use in the article of the proxy Sales/Inventory instead of Inventory Turnover (CGS/Inventory) may explain much or all of the observed change. If the export of low-margin industries has been continuing steadily since 1982, then the average gross margin (Sales - CGS) of America's manufacturing sector might have been increasing steadily, creating the observed effect.

In closing, I know that a clever researcher with sufficient time will be able to address both of these contrary hypotheses and demonstrate either their validity, or lack thereof. I have simply never found time to do so. I stand ready to discuss these and other related ideas with any who may wish to pursue them, and to encourage their efforts.

Sincerely yours,

Duncan C. McDougall

Plymouth State University,
Plymouth, New Hampshire, USA 03264

Romania Re-examined

2009-02-20T07:45:00.009+01:00

A characteristic of the Romanian system of higher education is that students who have failed, or failed to take, their final examination in any course have the right to pay a special fee, and "re-take" it. This week is the time when those re-exams are being given for the undergraduate fall term courses at the Faculty of Economics.

Prodeacon Luţaş has explained that the rules, as written, state that only the value of the final examination in the course's grading scheme can be earned in this re-examination. Hence, I expect few students to come in today for my two re-examinations, for they are worth only 25% of their final marks, and few students who have failed can possibly pass simply by passing the re-examination.

I have learned, however, that in practice some, if not most, professors here weight the final examination at 70% to 100% of the student's grade. In a system where a 5 out of 10 is considered passing, this high weight enables semester-long no-shows to earn both a passing mark and full credit for the course after having "cut" 100% of both the lectures and the seminars during the term. So, arriving today at about 8:00, I entered a crowded lobby at FSEGA. Maybe there really are the reported 15,000 students enrolled at this faculty. Maybe we see half of them only during this final week of each semester.

Several pedagogical observations follow:

by making the final the whole grade, teachers are relieved of taking attendance,
of grading any student papers or written work during the term,
of grading a midterm exam, and
of keeping records of those mid-course learning activities.
Students, on the other hand, are relieved of doing any formal writing, and
are free to work full time while enrolled in University.

While I do not like the lack of written work, which I have found both challenging and quite important to both American and Romanian students, and though it is far different from what I am used to in American higher education, I am not going to be quick to judge this Romanian system. Perhaps this system is highly efficient. Perhaps the students learn more business by gaining work experience all term and then cramming for finals than they would by attending courses at the University.

Interim Report

2009-02-18T17:06:00.006+01:00

Dr. Locaciu agreed that if my foot was already feeling much better, the cortisone might prove unnecessary. So today I stayed home to let my foot heal further, and made it a productive day by writing the required Interim Report on my Fulbright Year.

With the help of this Internet memory device called a Blog, I found the remembering and the writing quite easy. The difficulty came in gaining access to the CIES website's Senior Fulbright Reports page. It seems that my username is a five-digit serial number that was assigned me at the point of my being chosen for a grant. I searched for about 90 minutes through all the paperwork I have received from Washington and Bucharest, and could not find such a number. This morning I called Mihai at the Fulbright Commission in Bucharest, and asked him for my Serial Number. He begged off... that is something only Jean in Washington would know. Finally, at about 4:30 this afternoon, 9:30 EST, I telephoned Jean in Washington. Of course, the ever-efficient and supportive Jean McPeek gave me the missing number in about five seconds flat.

Mihai, when are you going to bring Jean to Romania? Did you know she has yet to come here? How about inviting her to Sibiu for our spring meeting?

Fortunately, Charles in Sibiu had shown me his Junior Fulbright Interim Report Form over the weekend, so I had been writing my report offline for much of the day, and happily, mine has now been submitted.

Just for the beauty of it, here is a picture of Cluj as seen from Hotel Belvedere, taken last November by Charles Harris. (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Sensible Shoes

2009-02-17T18:08:00.007+01:00

Plantar faciitis is a pain in the heel that comes from a hard landing, as in launching oneself off a desk on a classroom stage to catch a marker pen tossed to one by a student in the back row, or from walking normal Romanian distances of two-to-three miles a day when used to a sedentary American lifestyle.

The ailment had been in my left foot for over a month, and had not been getting better, causing me lots of pain and costing me lots of fun. My inability to walk without a severe limp finally caused me to tell Shirl about it, and she reacted wisely, nagging me into going to see a doctor. I asked at the Faculty, and learned that the good Dr. Dan Locaciu, Chief of Cluj's Clinic of Orthopaedics and Skeletal Trauma is a Rotarian, and as such a friend of my Prodeacon M. Luţaş. Mihaela arranged an appointment for me last Thursday. But then it snowed over most of Europe, and the doctor returned late from a conference in Warsaw, riding all night on that midnight bus from Budapest Airport, and having to operate on patients the next morning. So, my appointment of last Thursday had to be postponed, I had no relief this past weekend, and missed much of what's to see in Sibiu as a result.

Upon returning from Sibiu Sunday evening, I was sick of hurting, and thought to Google "Heel pain." Up popped plantar fasciitis. I went to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons website, and learned a bit about the condition. Clearly it was the most likely diagnosis of my problem. I began self treatment as recommended by the AAOS . Ice, ibuprofen, stretching exercises and rest. The very next day, yesterday, I felt a distinct improvement. This morning, the day of my doctor's appointment, I had very little pain, and a much-reduced limp.

So, today Mihaela took me to meet Dr. Locaciu. Mihaela had told me he was not going to charge me. So, my first question of the good doctor was, "Do you play golf." "Yes, I do," he said. So I invited him to join me in a round at the Paul Tomiţa Golf Course in the spring. He accepted. It will be on my nickel.

After an examination and an X-ray (to rule out a worse condition), Dr. Locaciu confirmed my self-diagnosis, and prescribed fancy innersoles and a cortisone shot. Interestingly, one goes to the Farmacie oneself to buy the cortisone and anesthetic in Romania, and brings it back to the clinic for the shot.

The innersoles are working well. I've had a pain-free afternoon. I no longer fear going to the kitchen for a drink of water. I have suggested putting off the steroid shot, as I believe my heel is healing well without. Tomorrow I will hear the doctor's word on that, and take his advice.

At the office today I learned that my ailment has been common among American visitors to UBB. We really do walk a lot over here, and if we are not used to it, we pay the price.

My advice to future Fulbrighters coming to Romania, invest in a good pair of soft-soled walking shoes, and break them in before coming over. I didn't.

In Sibiu

2009-02-14T15:55:00.008+01:00

In Western Transylvania, 150 KM south-southeast of Cluj-Napoca, surrounded today by snowy peaks of the Carpathian mountains, is the 2007 European Capital of Culture, the city of Sibiu. In 2008 Sibiu was listed in Forbes.com as eighth on a list of "The most idyllic places to live in Europe." Here is that citation:

No. 8 Sibiu, Romania

In the heart of Transylvania lies Sibiu, an important but little known city of 160,000. Outside Romania, Transylvania is best known as the sinister setting of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Yet within Romania, the region is known for the outstanding beauty of its Carpathian mountain landscape and its rich and significant history. In 2007, Sibiu was the European capital of culture, and apartments surrounded by cobbled streets and pastel colored buildings can be picked up for under 50,000 euros ($65,000).

Those two international events of recognition may have altered forever the prices of real estate here, but they have not changed the city center's wonderful architecture. A high brick defensive wall dating from the 15th Century used to surround Sibiu. Large stretches of the wall still stand, perforated only by its original arched gateways, and punctuated by three large towers, which were once a total of thirty on the entire wall. Behind the wall are many medieval buildings built by Germans, who were for centuries Sibiu's dominant inhabitants. During the Dark Ages they called the city "Hermannsdorf" until it was destroyed by the Tatars in 1242. About 1350, the rebuilt town was mentioned in a document as "Hermannstadt," its German name, still. There is a significant Germanic population in the area, which explains the prominent Reformed Church (Lutheran) in Piaţa Huet, although since World War II the population of Ethnic Germans in Transylvania has shrunk by 90%, from over 400,000 to some 40,000. Still, however, it is not uncommon to meet Romanians in this region whose second language is German.

Charles Harris is our resident Fulbrighter here, where he is teaching at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu (ULBS). I drove down this morning the three hours from Cluj to see Charles, and to accept his invitation to show me around his city. We toured today, and will have dinner tonight with his Romanian friends from the Law School at ULBS, Sebastian and Anda Spinei.

Klaus' New Shoes

2009-02-10T20:27:00.011+01:00

I awoke early and straightened up a bit, for at 9:00 I expected our friend and landlady Victoria Moldovan to visit, as Florin had called last night to tell me that she wanted to be here when the Gas Company men came to check the gas lines for proper installation. I did not realize it, but not only the refrigerator and microwave were new for our tenancy, but also the gas range and Junkers heater/hot water system. And after only six months, the gas company was here to make sure they weren't leaking.

By nine the place looked presentable, and I answered Victoria's ring of the doorbell. I offered coffee and a snack, but Victoria declined, and we sat in the kitchen and had a good chat. She is nervous today because her daughter-in-law in New Jersey is due any day to give her a grandchild. She will be flying to New York this weekend to spend two weeks with the young folks, and help her son Mihai and the new mother with their baby.

But life is a cycle. Victoria also told me the bad news that my next-door neighbor Gheorghe recently lost his 40 year-old daughter Dianna to leukemia. She was diagnosed only four months ago. Dianna's teen-aged daughter will now be living with her grandparents here in the building. I had noticed that Gheorghe had not looked himself the last couple of times I had seen him, but I hadn't known why.

Victoria stayed with the gas men when they came, while I went across the corner to mail a letter to Mihai Moroiu at the Fulbright Commission, then we both left the apartment for our respective day's business.

I went to the Faculty of Economics to turn in the first semester grades, then waited for the Erasmus student who had asked to meet me. He did not show up, but I got a start on one of the Self-Studies I need to read in preparation for my duties as an ACBSP commissioner. Then, on the way home, the adventures started.

I have owned Klaus now for five months and about 7000 Km. As I am a religious oil-changer in all my vehicles and other piston-powered machinery, I had bought six liters of ridiculously expensive oil for Klaus on Sunday, along with a filter two days earlier. I was planning to change his oil this week. But first, I decided to check out the route to the University apartments, where at 9:20 on Wednesday I had agreed to pick up Kathy O. and her luggage, and help her schlep them to her new apartment, which she has now rented. So, I mounted up the GPS, and it found the area for me. But the building I had seen Friday was nowhere in sight. A woman on Strada Propilor saw me looking around, and kindly asked me in Romanian and in German (Klaus' "D" license plates often educe that reaction) if she could help me find something. I asked in English if there were a Babeş-Bolyai apartment building nearby. She said "Da," then put one finger in the air to tell me to wait, and called her daughter from the house. The tall and nice-looking daughter turned out to be a law student at UBB who speaks English. She walked me half-a-block, and pointed out the white-and-blue buliding a block west and across the main street from where I was parked. Perfect. I knew where to come in the morning.

It's still early. Let's do some exploring of the west side on the way home. I am south of the Someşul Mic. But Klaus' parking lot at the Faculty of Letters is north of that river. I am at the west end of town, so I must head east, and cross the river. Let's follow that taxi, and take this left. Hmm. This seems to be a big parking lot of some kind. The taxi pulls off toward some big low buildings to the left. Keep driving south. There is a way out at the back of the lot. It seems iffy. But, the river is just at my right, so if I keep going I'll find a bridge. The pavement is getting rough. Good old Romanian potholes. Klaus knows how to dodge those. Oh, oh. It is now a mud road, and the holes are bigger in diameter, and filled with water. No telling how deep they are. Finally, there is no visible right-of-way ahead, so we turn around. As we retrace the muddy path, Klaus bottoms gently a time or three, but comes through it dirty but unscath... whoops. What is that scraping sound? Could it be the muffler dragging? We are back on the main street to downtown, and Klaus feels and sounds unhappy. Better turn off on a side road and check him out.

I pull over, put on the parking brake and flashers, and get out to look under the car. But no need to kneel. The left rear tire is flat as a pancake. "Whew." say I. "Just a flat." But it is rush hour, and I don't relish the idea of changing the tire in the street right now. Then I look at the store on my right, and it says, in Romanian, "Filter and Oil Changes." I go in and explain my predicament to the kindly, fat, 48-looking attendant. He does not understand, and thinks I need an oil change, right away. He finishes up the car in his one service bay. I go out and open the trunk, set up the reflective triangle, pull the spare tire out, and start to search for the jack and lug wrench. I remove the wheel cover, and discover that I do not have a 17mm wrench long enough to loosen the lug nuts. I go back into the shop to ask to borrow one, and my recent acquaintance motions me to bring my car into his newly empty bay, with a service pit in the middle. "OK," I say, because I could use the help, and wanted an oil change anyway. I can probably return the oil I bought, and I can use my new filter. And, most especially, I can change my tire in safety.

We succeed in finding Klaus' camoflaged jack and lug wrench, then get the like-new spare onto the axle, and tightened down. My friend goes to work draining the oil, and I go into the store (magazin) to buy the oil. I pick out the best... Mobil synthetic 5W-40, six liters. Big bucks. I whip out my BancaTransilvania VISA card. "Nu, nu," says the lady, "Cash. Only cash." She directs me to the nearest Bancomat (ATM), "Only 500 meters away, at the Faculty of Agronomy." I walk. A nice fellow who happens to be also in the store, but who speaks no English, escorts me all the way there, then refuses a 5 Lei note which I offer, "Pentru un bere." The machine yields 400 lei, and I walk back, managing, somehow, not to get lost, for it is anything but a straight route through city streets and across a bridge and past an old factory building, etc. I pay 265 lei, including service, then go back out to the service bay where my friend makes a point of showing me that he has, in fact installed the new filter I had provded, then has me watch as he pours the new oil into the crankcase. (That sort of makes one wonder, doesn't it.) I put the old wheel into the trunk, bid the oil shop good bye, and go looking for a Vulcanizarie, as I am not going to be long without a spare tire.

I had seen a sign for a tire store on my way to work, so I drove downtown to Piaţa Avram Iancu, and headed on east on Str. Dorobantilor. Sure enough, there was the Vulcanizarie. I parked, pulled my damaged tire (on which I had driven several hundred meters, and which I did not expect to be reparable), and wheeled it into the shop. The owner spoke quite good English, for which he apologized, as do many such Romanians. He asked where I had left my car, waving his hand at all the parking space he had available. Okay, I went and drove the Km of one-way streets necessary to bring it into the shop. When I returned, his employees had removed the tire from the rim and determined it to be unsalvageable, no surprise. So, we went into the office and discussed options and prices. Winter or summer tires (Klaus was wearing winter treads)? Contis or Michelins or no-names? I picked a pair of middle-grade (190 KPH-rated) winter tires. Might as well keep the four consistent, and had them mounted on the front, and the others rotated to the rear. VISA Debit Card? "Nu, Cash." Three hundred meter walk to the Bancomat, and another 300 back.

Klaus came home muddy, but freshly oiled and newly shod.

I considered driving out to the mall where I had bought my own jugs of oil to attempt to return them, but I was by that time sore, tired, and hungry. So I took Klaus home to his lair, put him to bed, then strolled yet another 700 meters home in the dark of 6:25 PM.

When I entered the building, I found Gheorghe standing in the foyer by the mailboxes, where the light is dim. I looked him in the eyes, gently touched his arm, and said, "Gheorghe, I am so sorry to hear about your daughter. This morning Victoria told me of your loss." Gheorghe does not speak English, but he understood my words. We two walked up 60 stairs slowly, side by side, in silence.

Back to Colţeşti

2009-02-08T16:33:00.009+01:00

Sunday. I could not face another day at this wonderful but eye-tiring laptop. I decided to see the territory southwest of Cluj, the territory we'd been in Friday, but so late that it was too dark to see much. I shunpiked. Deep mud in places. Kept Klaus rolling, though, and made it up the back way to the Viewpoint for the Chiele Turzii, which waitress Erszike at the little hotel in Colţeşti says they call "Turda Gorge" in English. (Smile if you must, but don't laugh, Americans.) It is a really beautiful natural rock formation. As my regular readers could already tell, I had lunch back at the small hotel in Colteşti (see yesterday's post). This time I made friends with both Erszike and the manager, Stefan, who owns a 125cc Simson motorcycle.

Reno Reports to Romania

2009-02-07T19:55:00.013+01:00

Transilvanian winter, just west of Aiud
(Photo from here: LINK)

Late lunch Friday was taken just a block away from the apartment at the Marty Restaurant, a modern, bright streetside cafe on Strada Horea that I have walked past scores of times on my way to get Klaus, or to return home from his parking place. Kathy O., a newly arrived Fulbrighter from the University of Nevada - Reno, and her Romanian friend Simona B., met me there at 2:00 to kick off the weekend.

Not really a newcomer to Cluj, as she has brought student groups here for several years, Kathy knew the Marty to be a good place. Lunch proved good, if unspectacular, after which I volunteered to drive the pair around Cluj a bit as Kathy researched the cost of having a decent mattress made for an apartment she had seen with a sacked one on its non-standard bed frame. As the pair searched for the mattress place, I found an oil filter for Klaus at a parts store (Piese de Auto), but refrained from paying 40 lei per liter for 6 liters of oil. I will check the hipermarket's prices before paying $80 for an oil change.

The first mattress-maker had closed up shop, so we went to a second. There the ladies succeeded in finding what they would need... if Kathy took the subject apartment. But, since she was still looking, no purchase was made.

Leaving this store, we decided to take a random ride on a nice afternoon, so I simply went straight up the street we were on. It climbed a gentle grade, turned to dirt, then mud, and continued southwestward out into a developing area, with fine new homes still under construction in small neighborhoods, with countryside in-between. In one such patch on the right, two deer were grazing, visible chiefly by their big white hindquarters. European White-tail deer don't have to flick their tails to reveal their white butts! We turned around, as the road appeared to be deteriorating into a bog. As we came back down, we saw that there was, in fact, a whole family, or small herd of deer, calmly munchng on the wild brown grasses and shrubs in the field. Nice.

By this time we had gained enough familiarity with each other to perceive that we weren't ready for the afternoon to end. Simona suggested we drive south to a Hungarian-culture village that she knew to be a nice one, some 50 Km south, a bit off the road to Alba Julia. It was a beautiful ride in the late aftenoon past white cliffs rising above the fields, as in the photo (from http://leosuteu.rdsor.ro/apuseni/rimet_e.html)

The Hungarian village of Rimetea had all its houses and buildings painted white, and all had green doors and trim and red tiled rooves. It was clear that this village would spring to life beautiful once the flower boxes were filled with blossoms. But it was midwinter and almost dark, so the effect was not as Simona had hoped it would be. And we were all by now in need of a WC. Fortunately, Simona remembered a "fancy restaurant" just a couple Km farther on. She was right.

In the tiny country village of Colţeşti (colts-esht'), at the end of a muddy though recently-regravelled-but-not-yet-graded lane, we found what can only be described as a lovely small hotel with the unpronouncible (to me) name of Szekelko Kuria Conacul Secuiesc. Check the link. 'Tis a country of contrasts, indeed. We had there tea (or for me, coffee) and dessert. A thoroughly enjoyable way to bring our Friday to a close.

Goodbye Semester One

2009-02-06T10:00:00.003+01:00

"O Frabjus Day!" to quote Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock. I have completed the grading of my two fall courses at UBB-Cluj.

It is about 11:00 AM Friday, so I hereby am declaring it "The Weekend." I did my final grading at home, here in the Apartment, so will now get showered and dressed, for I will be lunching with a new senior Fulbrighter, Kathy Obenchan of the University of Nevada - Reno, who has joined us in Cluj for the spring term. She is an old hand in Romania, as this is her fourth or fifth visit. I doubt that I can show her anything new about Cluj, but maybe Klaus can help her see the surrounding countryside.

Whoops, I forgot something. My very next task will be to log into the CIES website and see if there is a mid-term report form there, as one requirement of a Fulbright grant is to submit both mid-term and final reports of your research and/or teaching experiences. Then it will truly be "The Weekend."

Upstanding Citizens in Europe

2009-02-05T16:59:00.009+01:00

I apologize for having kept you waiting, dear readers, but it has been yet another hectic three days of meetings, exams, trans-Atlantic negotiations, and work, work, work.

I need to tell you about a couple of people I met last Sunday on the way home to Cluj from Finland.

Ahmed

In the Helsinki airport I met a tall, light-skinned African man who told me he was a "White Somali" named Ahmed. We were sitting at the gate, waiting to board our flight to Budapest, Hungary. Ahmed clearly needed to talk to someone, so I listened, even after the silent frowner sitting between us rose, and went elsewhere to wait.

Ahmed said he has nine children, and a residence permit in Budapest, where he lives with four of his children, and no job. Technically, he says he has refugee status, as he shows me a UN ID card, because the White Somalis are presently a persecuted minority in their home country, and as such he receives a modest stipend from a refugee-relief agency. But, he also has a wife and five other kids in Somalia. So, Ahmed has been in Eastern Europe since 2005, hoping to find permanent work as a truck mechanic, so he can afford to bring his family from Somalia. He shows me a truncated finger to prove that he is a real mechanic. Then he says that he spent the money to fly to Helsinki because a Somali contact here had put him in touch with a potential employer, and that employer had told him to come on up for a talk. But once in Helsinki, that person had not appeared at the meeting place, and had not answered his telephone. So, Ahmed was heading home empty- handed.

That was an expensive disappointment, you say? Well, listen on, my friend.

In no way was Ahmed asking for a handout. He was clearly a proud man.

Ahmed can't find work because, while he can speak Russian, English, Arabic and several African languages, he can't read or write at all. He says he went first from Somalia to Moscow, then walked across Russia and the Ukraine to Hungary in 2005 and 2006. He nearly froze along the way, which took him the better part of two years. And every time he could work for a few months to save some money, the Ukrainian gangs would come and steal his money. He called them "bullies." But the police would do nothing for him. He thought them probably in cahoots with the gangs. Then, we were called for boarding.

We boarded to distant seats on the Finnair Airbus 320, and I didn’t see Ahmed again.

Loizos

At the Budapest A/P I had a five-hour wait for my connection to Cluj-Napoca. I sat in a café near an outlet where I could power-up my laptop, and tried to access a wireless connection. Wireless was apparently out of service, so I played some MS-hearts. Nearby, a gentleman was sitting, and our eyes met. “Having a good trip?” I asked. “Not so far,” he replied in a recognizable Greek accent. “All my luggage was stolen, right from my side, in a Madrid Airport Hotel.”

As I soon learned, Loizos is a 67 year-old “Big Animal” Veterinarian from Nicosia, Cyprus, who had flown to Madrid to meet with a sheep breeder. It had to do with a shared interest in breeding sheep with a genetic resistance to a certain disease. But in Madrid, while he was talking with the desk clerk at his hotel, a thief or thieves had picked up his bags and disappeared. “And the hotel manager did not even apologize to me,” he said. (This scene was right out of the movie “The French Kiss.”)

“The farmer in Spain had told me that he wanted to meet with me, and said since he did not speak English well, he would hire an interpreter,” Loizos went on. “But when I called him from the Airport in Madrid, he said he did not have the money for an interpreter, and would not be coming into the city for our meeting. So I am flying home.”

Loizos and I talked for a couple of hours. He is a brilliant man, with a no-nonsense mind, and an iconoclastic wit. I really enjoyed the time we spent together. I promised to put him in touch with my equally brilliant and skeptical Amherst College (1961) roommate John Marshall Sellers, DVM, a farm-animal veterinarian in the Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Those two up-standings needed to be blogged. (I’ll try not to make you wait three days for the next posting.)

Ice Fishing with Arto and Tuula Linnas

2009-01-31T21:02:00.007+01:00

Arto Linnas at Home
Today I was privileged to spend a day at home with the Linnas family. After a good Finnish lunch featuring fish soup made of Made, a local lake fish, we bundled up and marched out onto the ice of the lake on whose shore their house lot sits. The fish traps and under-ice nets had to be checked, so we all accompanied Westies Willy and Poppi out to the fishing area, about .6 Km from home across the ice.

The nets and traps yielded some 15 fish, seven of them large enough to keep.

One was a Pike, who became the first course of our dinner, followed by wonderful moose steaks from Arto's frozen stock of meat from last fall's hunting.

I took a couple of shots to show that at mid-day, the sun was only a few degrees above the southern horizon, then a few more to show the beauty of the sunset, along about mid-afternoon.
Sun near its Zenith, and setting shortly thereafter

After fishing, Tuula "sat sauna" to warm up, while Arto cleaned the fish and I sat with him in the kitchen. When Tuula came back up to the house, Arto and I went to the wood-fired sauna building and scalded a bit as we drank the traditional beer-with-sauna, and talked of The Winter War, Finnish industry, and many other subjects. Arto then turned chef, and prepared a first-class dinner, at which we were joined by their 32 year-old engineer son and his engineer girlfriend. All in all, it was a fine day. Tomorrow, I head back to Romania!

More about Varkaus

2009-01-29T18:59:00.013+01:00

I'll open today's posting with a few shots of the stately evergreen trees of Finland, to which I referred last night. These are on the Savonia University campus.

Here is my host, Professor Tuula Linnas, who arranged with Fulbright-Finland my invitation to Varkaus for this week.

I have, since posting yesterday, learned that there is a small downhill skiing facility in Varkaus. It is not a mountain, but it is a high-enough hill to allow one to learn the fundamentals of downhill skiing. Tuula drove me today to see the city's remarkable Museum of Mechanical Music, and on the way back to the apartment on the Savonia U. campus, she pointed out the lighted ski runs.

The Museum of Mechanical Music is run by an expatriot German named Jurgen Kempf, who is my age, and who moved to Finland some 25 years ago. He has since then made a career of finding, fixing, researching and displaying music boxes, player pianos, and all manner of pre- phonograph music machines for dance halls, and for the drawing rooms of the wealthy of Europe and America in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. He even has examples of Wurlitzer Juke Boxes of the 1950s that play 78 RPM records. Jurgen, his Finnish wife, and I will be dining together tomorrow night, so I will tell you more about him later on. For now, enjoy the pictures of the amazing machines he has restored to working order.

Impressions of Finland

2009-01-28T20:56:00.007+01:00

Varkaus, Finland

It is white with fresh snow here, clinging to the shapely evergreens, and very beautiful. The terrain in Finland (at least in this part) is flat, forested, and mostly rural. It is a totally modern country, heavily industrialized and very prosperous. Finns are technically savvy, and have a high work ethic. My hostess Prof. Tuula Linnas tells me that in several recent years, Finland has led the world's nations in export value per capita. Hence, Savonia University of Applied Sciences is much in demand as a place for future engineers from around the world to train, and in one of my lectures yesterday 13 countries and all the populated continents save Australia and South America were represented among the students and faculty members present.

Finland this week is not nearly as cold as is New Hampshire: -1 C. today in Varkaus, versus -8 C in Plymouth. Of course, that can change quickly in both places. But the -20 F. temperatures in Plymouth of one week ago would be -29 C, and I don't think weather that cold has occurred here this winter, in spite of the fact that Varkaus is almost 19 degrees of Latitude north of Plymouth.

They tell me that the North Atlantic Current brings remnants of the Gulf Stream's heat to the West Coast of Northern Europe, explaining its climate, milder than New England's. Still, I see how it is that Europeans are more concerned about climate change than the Americans. To be 19 degrees of latitude north of NH and this much warmer is surprising. I brought longjohns to Finland, just in case, and find myself wearing not even my topcoat.

While they are friendly-enough folk, culturally the Finns seem a bit reserved at first meeting, again reminiscent of New Hampshire natives. I may have surprised Professor Tuula Linnas with a bear hug at the airport Monday night. But I was tired, extremely glad to meet her after a month of pleasant e-mail exchanges, and culturally still in my Romanian mindset. (Tuula, who has been to Romania, expressed gratitude that I did not go for the kisses on both cheeks.)

The Helsinki Finns, other Finns and Northern Europeans and many Russians have summer homes in the small towns around the many lakes in this part of Finland. There are numerous spa towns, and in the winter one can ski (also in the summer, in underground ski-domes). The skiing, of course, is Nordic, for mountains for downhill skiing are lacking here. In fact, one point in Finland is over 1300 m above sea level (in NH, we'd call it "a four-thousand footer"), but that cold mountain is up in Lapland, above the Arctic Circle. Where most Finns live, the country is flat, but dotted with a reported 60,000 lakes. Eat your heart out, Minnesota.

In Finland

2009-01-26T20:45:00.004+01:00

I rose at 03:45 this morning, and decided to have a good breakfast before my three-flight, two-layover (Budapest for over 5 hours, Helsinki for 2.5) trip to Varkaus. On this journey I "logged time" in two new craft: a SAAB 2000 an ATR 42-500, both really nice twin-engined turboprops with six-bladed props. The latter is high-winged, like a Fokker Friendship (or a big Mitsubshi MU-2). The Saab is a long, sleek critter with great speed. The seven-hour drive to Budapest became a 40 minute trip. Both had impressive acceleration down the runway, a benefit of powerful engines driving an aggressive set of propellors through cold winter air, and both climbed out like the proverbial homesick angels.

Arriving after dark in Varkaus, I have yet to get pictures of Nordic scenes or Finnish folks for you. I'll try to do so as the week progresses.

Professor Tuula Linnas of Savonia University met me at the Varkaus airport, a wonderful small-city facility with a building to walk to across the ramp after going down the plane's airstairs. I love it.

Tuula has shown me to an on-campus apartment which is much bigger in square meters than our Cluj flat, but I'd guess about the same "in the cube." It has two bedrooms and a sauna. Then Tuula was kind enough to take me to a homey Italian restaurant for dinner. We leave at 8:30 tomorrow morning to drive up to Kuopio, where I will deliver my first two lectures for Fulbright-FI, and Savonia's students.

So, before the soothing heat leaves my body, I am off to sleep.

And The The Beat Goes On

2009-01-24T11:34:00.006+01:00

Friday I gave my exams. You will recall that the students get to choose between two administrations of each. Five students showed up in Labor Management and three in Operations Management. The students all passed the exams.

One Fulbright-Finland lecture on Global Business is now in the can. Two are in progress. It will be a busy weekend of research and lecture-writing, because I fly out at 06:30 Monday for Budapest/Helsinki/Varkaus.

So, I am taking a noon break today to have lunch at McDonald's with a special student, Raluca Teodora of Bistriţa, whom I got to know well when we traveled with her friend Alexandru to Moldavia in October (see picture, taken by Alex as I was about to dissect a much- needed orange outside of the monastery at Suchevita). Dora needs to talk, and I need lunch. She has yet to take the exams, so I am unsure whether the talk will be academic or personal, but it will provide a welcome break.

My son the writer!

2009-01-22T18:14:00.004+01:00

I cannot top Jesse McDougall's Obama Inauguration tale. His long-suffering girlfriend is named Caroline (Cally) Wheeler. Cally is a trooper, an athlete, a fine artist, and a wonderful lassie, if ever there were one.

Click Here for Jesse's first-hand account of Inauguration Day in Washington, D.C.

A New Day Dawns in D.C.

2009-01-20T12:29:00.010+01:00

It is Inauguration Day in America. I am feeling the excitement.

I have just invited Mircea Maniu, fellow Fulbrighter, good friend and UBB colleague to join me at the apartment to watch the swearing-in ceremony. Here is his invitation:

Dear Mircea:

The Inaugural show starts at 10:00 AM EST, 5:00 PM here. The swearing-in is scheduled for noon, or 7:00 PM Cluj time.

If you would like to view the event with your resident American friend and experience an atypical evening and a typical supper at the McDougall Apartment, come at about 6:00, and I'll feed you Ciorba de Linte, Salată de Varză, şi Carnaţi Afumaţi cu vin roşu sau alb, sau bere blond. The service will be far from elegant, but the food will be plentiful. If you want to contribute, you may bring ice cream for dessert.

Buzz the buzzer, and I'll come let you onto the floor. If I don't come right away, call my cell. (I haven't had a visitor arrive here yet, so I do not know if the buzzer works.)

I would really like to share this event with you. Please RSVP when you receive this invitation.

Duncan

I am hoping that Mircea will accept.

The World comes to Cluj

2009-01-17T15:44:00.012+01:00

This morning I spent on the computer, working in Blackboard at Plymouth State University, where I have stored banks of test questions that may help Melinda and me put together a good final examination in Operations Management. Once that was complete, I walked North on Horea Street to the Faculty of Letters, and took Klaus (Or did he take me?) to the Polus Center, and Carrefour, the famous French "hipermarket". I did a bit of shopping, finding some gorgeous ground beef for my spaghetti sauce.
On the walk back to Piaţa M.V., I heard a loud- speaker blasting an angry voice as I approached the final corner. As I turned the corner, I saw that the world had arrived in Cluj. A crowd of perhaps 150, many dressed in traditional Arab clothing, were holding a war protest rally in the square. They were speaking in English, Romanian and Arabic, and the television cameras were rolling. Clever media move. Just yesterday CNN had a promo on for an upcoming special asking if wars today are won and lost in the media.

Of course, from the viewpoint of people in Gaza, these folks have a lot to protest. Sadly, so do the innocent Israelis on the receiving end of random unguided missiles from Gaza for the past ten-or-so years. I can only applaud the Cluj police, who were there to keep order, and clearly also to protect the right of free speech in Romania. I snapped a picture, then headed back upstairs to resume work on exams. As I reached the second floor (third floor in America), I got my camera out and snapped some pictures of the animals, both my pigeon neighbors, and Pooh and Tigger, as seen on my human neighbor's towel.
Thank God for a simple life, and for spaghetti tonight!

The End of the Beginning

2009-01-16T08:06:00.010+01:00

It is almost time to write my mid-course report to the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (C.I.E.S.), who manage the Senior Fulbright Program. And this week has been the last week of classes in my first term at Babeş-Bolyai University. Hence, I am in a reflective mood. What have I learned? What have I accomplished? What have I still to do, to ensure that my Fulbright Year is all that it might be? I'll let you know when I find words that are not soaked in sentiment or trite.

Jesse McDougall Goes for the Dunk (Winter 2008)
I have just Skyped Shirl. She reports that it is -20 Degrees F. in New Hampshire at 2:00 A.M. That is -29 Degrees Celsius. Welcome to a typical New England winter. No wonder the French pioneer Acadians re-migrated from the Maine Coast to New Orleans and became the Cajuns.

Want some proof? Plymouth State has a famous meteorology program. Here is their web report on Friday, 17 January, 2009 (http://vortex.plymouth.edu/):

Conditions at Plymouth State University

-17.2°F
Wind Chill: -17.1°F
Humidity: 71%
Dewpoint: -23.8°F
Wind: SW at 1.0 mph
Sunrise/Sunset: 7:17am/4:36pm
Current Conditions at 6:02am

Today I plan to learn how to use the Banca Transilvania's Internet banking system. I got the necessary PINs from the bank on Monday, but the "login" link on their website seems broken, as it doesn't take me to anyplace where I can enter those codes. And I will be chasing my January Fulbright grant payment, which has reportedly been sent to my New Hampshire bank (where the balance is fast approaching zero), but has yet to show up in my account. I am still hopeful that they got the routing and account numbers right, but am starting to get antsy about that.

The UBB tasks that remain are to write one more exam, to meet with Prof. Alexandra Mutiu and prepare a spring term syllabus for Management Accounting, to meet with the professor in charge of American Studies at the Faculty of European Studies and learn the ropes of teaching my spring course there on the American Economy, to meet with the Office of International Cooperation regarding the planning of a joint program between UBB and Plymouth State University, to deliver two exams in each of my two "fall term" courses, just completed, grade those exams, then compute the students' semester grades, and turn them in to the administration.

My PSU tasks are to prepare a budget for the ACBSP Annual Conference next summer in San Antonio, and to continue working with my department chair Trent Boggess as his liaison person on the proposed joint program with UBB.

Of course, I also have to prepare to teach in Finland, and at the end of next week go there to do so.

All of which makes me wonder what Barack Obama's "To Do List" looks like. I have it easy, I guess.

Early to Bed

2009-01-14T19:30:00.003+01:00

Good night, noapte buna, sweet dreams, und gute Nacht. Today was a busy one, but I have no real stories to tell of a routine workday, and I am planning an early morning at the faculty, prior to my last class of the term. Shirl, I will try now to Skype you, but in case I don't catch you online: I love you.
-Duncan

On Work and Family

2009-01-13T18:27:00.005+01:00

Got an exam drafted today. TA Melinda took the GMAT today in Bucharest, and did well, based on the instant feedback that ETS provides when the exam is taken online. TA Monica has drafted her seminar-related portion of the Labor Management final. These two Teaching Assistants have been wonderful to work with this term.

Got some difficult news today, on the family front. My niece Maria (40) in Massachusetts has been diagnosed with MS. We are somewhat experienced with that disease, as my stepmother is a 30-year MS survivor, a very brave woman who has proven it can be done. Also, my wife Shirley's sister, Maria's mom, is a nurse practitioner, and the medical resources in Massachusetts are very good. So, we are hopeful that Maria's future problems can be minimized, and that she can live a long and happy life. But, I wish I were able to give her a hug of encouragement today.

Maria, if you happen to see today's blog post, Uncle Duncan wants you to know that he loves you. Hang in there, girl!

Winter in Oradea

2009-01-11T20:51:00.038+01:00

After a good antipasto, pizza and conversation with Kate and Nancy last night at the Casa Corsarul (Corsair Restaurant), today I learned a whole lot more about the city of Oradea than I had on my several previous passes through. All but one of those were at night, and on all I was consumed with the cares of a traveler bound for Budapest or for Cluj, rather than being a proper visitor to Oradea. So, today I spent some good time out walking the center of the city with life-loving Fulbrighter Nancy Sherman as my guide.

Oradea is a Romanian city on the Hungarian border. Like Cluj, it is multicultural. It seemed every time I spoke up, a Romanian overheard and spoke to us in English, and several were middle-aged adults. This is a cosmopolitan place.

As for the pictures, Oradea's Piaţa Unirii (Union Square) was the main shooting location, followed by some shots taken on the drive back east to Cluj.

Hotel Vulturul Negru ****. (Black Eagle Hotel) (Three pics, as well as four stars.)

The statue of Mihai Viteazul, of which one seems to be in every Romanian city. But only this one has Nancy Sherman at his feet!

City Hall.

The Church of the Moon. The yellow circle is synchronized with the Moon's phases. The moon was full last night, I guess. It was too cloudy to tell.

A church across the square as seen from the courtyard at the Church of the Moon. (Double- click the image to see the full-sized picture.)

And Nancy's favorite building on the Piaţa Unirii, which she dubbed "the pink one."

Then, as I drove eastward in the mid-afternoon, the sun came out and provided some great light on buildings and landscapes alike.

A stork's nest means your house will be blessed with good fortune.

A lovely village church, in the valley just west of the Carpathians,

and the "Vegas" Restaurant, where our bus stopped on the ride from Budapest a week back. I ate there again. A late lunch of ciorba ţaraneşca cu carne de porc şi pâine, şi Cola Zero .

Gypsy Encounter

2009-01-11T08:33:00.008+01:00

Yesterday was Saturday. Nancy Sherman, connected to Yahoo, popped up on my screen as available to chat. I invited her to do so, but got no response. A bit later, Skype rang, and it was she. “How are you doing today?” and “How’s your hip?” were among the questions exchanged as we brought each other up-to-date. I knew that Nancy’s husband Pat and son Evan had returned to the U.S. after Christmas, so that Evan could take his final semester of Eighth Grade with his class in Peoria, and so that Pat could get back to work at Illinois State University in Bloomington. Nancy reported that she had a dinner planned with Kate Palmo, who is roughly my age, a Peace Corps volunteer, also working in Oradea. Nancy invited me to join in. That explains why, after lunch, I found myself stopping for a hitch-hiker in a village on E60/Ro 1, about midway between Cluj and Oradea.

The man was one of the Roma, known to Romanians as "Gypsies". He spoke incessantly in an unintelligible language, and was carrying a blue cloth shopping bag stuffed full of unidentifiable stuff. Though he spoke rapidly and strangely, he made it clear first that he wanted me to take him to a hospital in a town somewhere ahead, that he needed money (the sign for which, the rubbing together of the thumb and first two fingers, is seemingly universal), and that he wanted me to buy something that sounded like “pita” from his bag. We were entering the uphill switchbacks of one of the mountain ranges along this route. I was trying to drive, and trying to ignore this man’s constant poking at my right shoulder, to make me look at him as I heard his endless pleading.

After a few miles, I tried Spanish. He seemed to know some Spanish, and asked if I had niños. I told him I had six kids. He replied “Yo, cinco.” Now he asked me to give him something for his kids, whose mother, he said, had died in a machine (which I took to mean a car wreck, as a car in Romania is a “maşina,” ), and pulled up his shirt to show me a nasty scar that looked very much like a healed gunshot wound, though maybe it was his scar from that car accident. I was damned if I was going to part with the 200 Lei that I had withdrawn that morning, and needed for the trip, so I just stalled and kept talking with the man. Then he spotted the two little boxes of Belgian chocolates that I had in the console, bought as little gifts for Nancy and Kate. “Chocolata por mi niños?" he begged. I picked them up and handed them to him. “Okay,” I said, “Por sus niños”. He immediately began crossing himself, and praising Jesus, though I hardly think he was nominating me for sainthood.

I soon realized I had made a mistake. Now that he knew I could be talked into giving in to his pleas, they became even more intense. We were descending westward, and I really had to pay attention to the road. I decided to let Klaus help me out of my pickle. I sped up. I took the curves like a Romanian in a new Audi. (Anyone here in Romania will know what that means.) The Gypsy shut up. As we reached the next village (a mining town with no blue “H” signs in sight), my “friend” started pointing to the side of the road, saying “Aqui, aqui!” I stopped to let him out. Then I said, “Momento.” I reached into my bag in the back seat and gave him my sack of three beautiful apples and a large orange, acquired that morning at the farmer’s market at Piaţa Mihai Viteazul. “Por sus niños,” I said.

To his credit, the man stole nothing from me, and offered no threats. I think I’d met a professional beggar. But, if there was any truth to the man’s story, I couldn’t just give the kids candy, could I?

The a-word.

2009-01-10T09:37:00.008+01:00

My slightly younger brother Walter the Historian has for years used "hip-lock" as his pregame excuse, lest I might beat him at golf (which I do, rarely). The other day I received an e-mail from my slightly older brother George the Puerto Rican, reading, in part,

"Boku empathy readily extended. Hereabouts, euphemism is the name of the game: we attribute joint pain to "exercise-induced inflammation," "years of wear and tear" or "that 1998 meniscus episode"; the "a-word" is verboten!"

Well, brothers, call it what you will, it has been giving me fits this week. As I have reported, Romanian life is all about walking. Even as a car owner, I walk over a half mile to the bus downtown, or to the parking lot at the UBB Faculty of Letters, morning and night. And each day includes at least another mile's hiking around the halls at the Faculty of Economics, or around the piaţa or mall to shop for food, and whatever else is on the list. My tired old right hip, in which I had a cortisone shot only a few weeks ago, hurt so badly on the evening walk home from the parking lot on the last two class-days that I found myself looking for a place to sit and rest it. But there are no benches along the streets in Cluj, so I gritted my teeth and pulled a Johnnie Walker (i.e., I kept on walking).

I had trouble even walking just six city blocks. And that was after popping ibuprofen.

So, I took Friday off to rest my hip. I did not leave the apartment.

This morning I arose early and walked across to the open market, the hardware store, McDonald's, the bank, and on the way back to Napolact, the local dairy store. I was wearing my New Balance athletic shoes. I had taken no ibuprofen for over 24 hours, yet felt no pain. As the old Nike ad said, "It must be the shoes." The day's rest clearly helped, but it has to be the shoes, which were not here last fall, came back with me after Christmas, had not been on my feet during the week's two days of pain, and seem to reduce greatly the shock each step has been delivering to my right hip joint.

So, dear friends in Romania, if I appear at a formal dinner in a business suit and sneakers, please forgive the footwear. They are "orthopedic." And brother George, euphemisms be damned! It is Arthritis.

Yoked

2009-01-07T20:46:00.005+01:00

I returned to Cluj facing an awful lot of work to do before the start of the spring semester, including teaching my final four classes of the fall term, grading a stack of Labor Management papers, preparing and grading four final examinations (two in each course, as students must be given a choice of examination dates, and can make up failures from day one on the second date. Far be it from me to allow that second exam to be a repeat of the first!) Then I have to prepare three lectures for delivery during my week in Finland, prepare syllabi for my two spring courses, liaise with the International Cooperation Office regarding the UBB/PSU partnership, and with Professor A. Mutiu, with whom I shall be team-teaching Management Accounting next term, and probably more work that doesn't come to mind just now.

But yesterday I graded the Labor Management papers, and today I returned them, and gave my final lecture in that class. So I have pretty much gotten over the trip back, and have again put on the yoke. One step at a time, all the fields will get plowed.

Why My Bus Was Late

2009-01-06T00:36:00.009+01:00

"Everything happens for the best in this best of all possible worlds." [Pangloss, in Candide by Voltaire.]

The midnight bus from Budapest made two mandatory rest stops. At the first, we had ridden for about two hours, but were still 95 Km northwest of the Romanian border. The bus pulled into an all night gas station and convenience store, and the driver announced that we had ten minutes to spend there. When I returned to the bus with water and a bag of popcorn, the fellow behind me was awake. We rolled on, and I did a Cookie Monster on the popcorn, then proceeded to chat a bit with the young woman across the aisle, who had already spoken to me in excellent English. The fellow behind me chimed in, so I turned to my right, and we chatted through the gap between my somewhat reclined seatback and the upright one at my right.

Our conversation started with introductions, establishing that I am an American business teacher, and that he is a Romanian writer, Eugen Uricariu. Upon learning I was a business professor, Eugen expressed his opinion that the present economic crisis is "unreal," the result of a conspiracy among those who can benefit from the massive bailouts that are occurring around the developed world. I asked his age, learned he was 62, and I asked what sort of writing he did. He told me he had written a number of books, most of them novels, but some non-fiction. I asked again his name. "Eugen Uricariu," he said. To check, I replied, "Is that U-R-I-C-A-R-I-U?" "Exactly!" Eugen seemed surprised. "It is easy to spell in Romanian, once you get the pronounciation right," I said. I think that was how we established rapport.

From there to the second rest stop at "Vegas" Restaurant (sic) atop the Western Carpathian pass on the highway from Oradea to Cluj, Eugen and I discussed the world and other things, includiing the American election (Eugen has a daughter living in California), the situations in Gaza and between India and Pakistan, Obama's Challenge, both the book and the fact, our shared hope for Obama's success, Eugen's fears for the global implications of his Presidency's possible failure, the etymology of the words "ciorba" and "ambassador," and about as many other subjects as there were minutes in the three or four hours that we rode together while both awake.

Eugen has led a marvelous life. He is a world class traveler, even if he does ride the midnight bus from Budapest to Cluj-Napoca.

I also learned that Eugen and his wife have both taught at UBB. At one point he mentioned that he has an old friend still on our faculty, a fellow "who used to mess around in politics" named Mircea Maniu. That is a name my readers will recall, for Mircea was my first Romanian Fulbrighter contact, and he and I have become good friends. It was Mircea Maniu who drove me to the Autogara in December at the outset of my holiday trip home to New Hampshire.

As all of this was going on, Dna Uricariu (Mrs. Uricariu) rested (or slept) quietly across the aisle from Eugen. When we reached their town just west of Cluj, I was introduced to her, and Eugen and I parted new acquaintances, perhaps to become new friends. Eugen, if you see this blog post, please contact me. I would like to learn more of your travels to Easter Island, and to God knows what other corners of our world.

Back in Country, Welcoming 2009

2009-01-04T17:49:00.009+01:00

After a brief but very nice stop at my inlaws' home in Westborough, Massachusetts, Shirl drove me on New Year's Night to Logan Airport in Boston, where I caught the late flight to Amsterdam on Northwest Airlines (aka KLM, Delta, etc.). It was a good flight, though 100% full, thanks to an extended delay or cancellation by Air France of their flight to Paris. A full 757 lives up to its nickname, "cattle car," heavy and smelly, but effective in providing transportation for live mammals.

My seatmates were San and Apse, a young Indian couple. After a chat, we all got a few good hours' sleep on the flight, and arrived only a bit late into Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. That was a good thing, for my Malev flight to Budapest was scheduled for departure only 50 minutes after my scheduled landing. As I finally deplaned from the aft fifth of the cattle car, I had only 30 minutes to make the transfer. But Schiphol is a very fine transfer airport, and provides a special "early departure" line at Passport Control for people in my situation. I arrived at my gate on time, having walked from E concourse to the far end of C. Malev was just deplaning its incoming passengers, so we (there were a few others from my plane headed for Budapest) had plenty of time, as it turned out. Waiting with us was the U.S. Fencing team, on their way to Budapest for a bout. I must remember to Google "U.S. Fencing" and see how they did there.

So, at 2:30 PM on January 2 I was in Ferighy airport, Budapest, only to discover that my checked bag had not made the transfer at Amsterdam, and would be arriving later in the afternoon. I got the airline to agree to forward it to Cluj, and, as my bus to Cluj-Napoca, Romania was not scheduled to leave until 11:30, decided to forget the $25 fare I had already paid, and see if I could find an alternative way of making the 7-hour trip home, so that it wouldn't cost me 16 hours.

Perhaps Hertz had a Cluj car that needed to get home. Hertz couldn't have been more friendly in informing me that I could rent a car one-way to Cluj for a mere 595 Euros, provided I returned it on the 3rd. That's over $800. I didn't feel the time saving justified that, especially since I would have had to do the work.

Malev, the Hungarian Airline had a flight that evening, a fifty-minute ride, for about $350. No, thanks. I resigned myself to the wait. There was a plus to this outcome; I was able to retrieve my checked bag at 5:00.

On one of the terminal's uncomfortable, wobbly, and chilly steel benches, I waited. During the wait I made two fine discoveries: some really good Hungarian goulash soup at the snack joint, and Bonnie. Bonnie is a 50-ish Bulgarian woman who was returning home from her recent job helping with the children of relatives in suburban New York, to get a divorce from her husband of 24 years. Her next flight wasn't until midday on the 3rd, so she had over twice as long a wait as I on that godawful bench. So we talked, to kill the time. She was a very nice person, though a bit sad, and clearly strained by the difficulties she was going through.

Bonnie is a cook for and caregiver to her relative's two small children. I told her of my love of cooking, and we proceeded to discuss ciorbas and bean soups and borscht. Thanks, Bonnie, for the variety, for after making ciorba de fasole on my first night home yesterday, today I went to the market, bought more ingredients, and made myself a cabbage soup with onions and broccoli, flavored with smoked pork and spices. Both were excellent, and of both I have goodly leftovers for the week to come. I gave Bonnie my business card, and hope that she contacts me, for I consider her a friend.

At 11:15 PM I went to curbside, for I was not sure where the Orangeways bus would be stopping, and I surely did not want to miss it. It was cold and windy. I was glad I had on longjohns under my jeans. But 11:30 came and went. Three other Cluj (Kolosvar, to them in Hungarian) passengers were waiting with me, so I was confident that I was at the right place. Then 11:45 went. At midnight, a NEMETH TRAVEL bus roared past us, and stopped at Terminal 2B, about 100 meters to my right. On its side was written "Cluj-Napoca, Romania," in clear script. I hardly hesitated. "A bird in the hand," I said to myself. I headed immediately toward that bus, reaching it just as the driver was about to close the luggage compartment. I asked if he had seats available. "Do you have a reservation?" "No." "Okay, I can take your to Cluj." We talked currencies, and settled on $30 US. I paid. Theo loaded my bags.

As I boarded, I saw the Orangeways coach arrive at the other stop. No matter. I was committed. I sat toward the rear, on the right hand side of the bus, just ahead of a man who appeared to be asleep, and just behind another sleeping figure. The Orangeways bus rolled by, and left the airport, headed, as I knew, to Cluj via Debrecen, somewhat out-of-the-way, but by divided highway for the first 100-or-so Km.

When we departed, our driver took the direct route that I had driven in Klaus on September 18th, as I first approached Romania and my first night in-country, at Oradea, in the Hotel Iris. I felt I was in familiar territory, and quickly fell asleep. After a few hours, the man behind me awoke, and our encounter deserves a second posting, all it own.

Motorcycling

2008-12-29T22:42:00.021+01:00

In her comment to my last post, reader/blogger/motorcyclist Sparky asked about my listed interest in motorcycling. I replied at some length in the comments section, if anyone wants to go back to that page.

Sparky, I see your beautiful V-Strom in your blog, "My Thoughts Exactly,"

So, because you asked, here is a picture of my longest- owned motorcycle. It is a 1969 BMW R60US, bought new for $1215 in February of that year from my late-lamented friend and Finnish-American dealer-mechanic Eino Hokkanen of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Built in 1968, this Beemer has recently turned 40. I have owned some 20 other machines in the ensuing years along with this wonderful, 7:1 compression ratio, 30-horsepower, 590 cc workhorse. As a result, it only has a bit over 80,000 miles on it.

These pictures were taken by my son Jesse when he and his brother Jamie and I rode to Nashville and back in 2001. The picture above was taken on the 20-odd miles of gravel and dust known as Smoke Hole Road in W. Virginia, but known to us ever since as "The Deer Gauntlet."

Here are the boys' 1978 and 1985 Suzuki 550s at Smoke Hole Campground, site #13.

Preparing to Return

2008-12-27T21:06:00.006+01:00

Christmas has passed, and my return to Cluj approaches. Happily, I can report that Shirley McDougall and I have found a round trip for her from Manchester, New Hampshire to Cluj for under $1000, and we have booked her a trip over for the whole month of March.

I cannot wait to introduce Shirley to my Clujian friends, including, among others, our landlords Victoria and Florin Moldovan, my colleagues Mihaela Luţaş, Mircea Maniu, Alexandra Mutiu, Roxana Stegerean, Şerban Agachi, Rector Marga and Prof. Delia Marga, PhD students and teaching assistants Melinda Pleşcan and Monica Zaharie, the long-suffering and ever-helpful Carmen Tagsorean, my excellent Englishline students, and so many more who have made me welcome in their very special Transylvanian town.

In addition, I look forward to introducing Shirl to Klaus, and with the two of them to revisit Maramureş and its monasteries, mountains, farms and pensiones.

Of course, I also hope to make in March a trip to Bucharest, so Shirl can meet the wonderful staff at Fulbright-Romania, including Mihai, Corina, Mihaela, Anca and Loredana, not to mention Victor, and Dan the Taximan.

Finally, I hope that a goodly number of my fellow Fulbrighters will get to meet Shirl, and learn why I hope with all my heart that God grants us every day of that second 35-years of marriage that we promised each other online, last October 6th.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-23T04:52:00.018+01:00

Health and happiness in the New Year to all in Romania!

And to my dear friends in Fellbach!

Ferdi at the wheel

With his parents, Dietmar and Sabine

And Max

Home for Christmas

2008-12-18T03:45:00.008+01:00

I have made it to New Hampshire in time for the first snow that looks likely to stay around awhile. More is forecast for tomorrow.

So recently arrived am I that I am mentally still half-in-Cluj. I used half an onion tonight in making turkey salad. The unused half sat on the counter stinking up the kitchen for the next hour, because I knew I had no Ziplock bags in which to store it (in the kitchen in Cluj). When I realized where I was, I opened the kitchen drawer, pulled out a baggie, put the onion into it, zipped it shut, and placed it in the produce drawer in the fridge. And, I am still on Eastern European time, not Eastern Standard time. I have been up in the morning by 3:30 A.M., because that is 10:30 A.M. in Cluj, where I never sleep past 8:00.

My family has been great to see, and Preston gave me a warm and furry welcome, too.

Preston

Work Persists!

Before leaving Cluj I was asked by the folks at the Center for International Cooperation at Babeş-Bolyai University to explore the possibility of a joint master's degree program with the Business Department at Plymouth State University. I have today met with Dr. Trent Boggess, our chair in that department, and we have begun work on the joint degree idea. There is a definite interest here.

I still have to work on my lectures for Finland.

So, though still recovering from a 28-hour trip, I am far from idle.

Tomorrow Shirl and I are going to look at bedroom sets.

Please understand my intermittent posting.

As this blog is about my Romanian Fulbright adventures, I cannot promise a daily update from Stateside. But if anything important, or especially interesting, develops while I am here, I'll let you readers know. Meanwhile, I wish you all a warm and happy Holiday Season, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, and to all a loving time, be it in your homes in Romania, or here in the U.S.A.

"The World is So Full of a Number of Things..."*

2008-12-12T13:01:00.009+01:00

Today I "taught" Mihaela Luţaş's third-year Englishline class in Regional Development. Only China and Oana from my classes were there. The others are finance majors or economics majors, so I was meeting them for the first time. This time I had a chance to prepare a bit, and though my primary role was to be a "native English speaker" and to answer questions about America, I did have a short lecture prepared on the "Subprime Loan Crisis" in America. I guessed that there might be a question about that, as its name is a confusing misnomer, and as it has been widely seen as the trigger that set off the current recession.

The class was wide-ranging. As is my tendency, I went off on tangents that included my family, Fulbright programs, motorcyles, manufacturing management, conglomerates, the Iliad, and God knows what-all else. At the end, we spent ten minutes on the current financial crisis. I expressed my belief that this crisis was exacerbated by the left-leaning press' desire to make things appear as bad as possible in order to ensure a Democrat's victory in the U.S. elections, and that the American consumers would regain confidence once Obama takes office, and the press starts cheering again. One of the students told me of a DeNiro movie ("Wag the Dog") on a similar theme. I plan to find it and view it during Christmas break.

I hope that Mihaela's students enjoyed their class today as much as I did.
____________________________
*From "Happy Thought," in R.L. Stevenson: A Child's Garden of Verses.

Romanians are Great People Department Re: Computer Mishap #2 - An E-Mail from Pat Hayes (Evan's Dad and Nancy Sherman's Husband)

2008-12-11T22:06:00.011+01:00

Hi Duncan, from Pat in Oradea --

Well, we certainly didn't plan to try to top your adventure in retrieving a laptop, but try this on for size:

We made the Tuesday mid-afternoon train to Brasov; more snow in the mountains along the way, but the 3-5 centimeters Brasov experienced early in the day was mostly melted by early evening. We hopped in the first cab we spotted outside the station; the fellow was kind enough to notice Nancy had closed her coat in the door, so he graciously opened it so she could tuck the rest into the back seat with her. He spoke English rather well, so we chatted each other up on the 10-12 minute ride to the pensione that Jeremy had set us up in for the night. He even slowed down a bit to show us a couple of the better sights that he recommended we come back to see in the daylight. Got to our destination, unloaded our stuff, and headed in to claim our upstairs apartment.

Rendezvous'd (sp?) with Jeremy about an hour later and had a very nice dinner with him in a place that served rather respectable Mexican fare, along with lots of other Romanian/Hungarian goodies.

I think we made it back to the pensione a little after 10 and decided to check email before we settled down for the night. A complete and thorough search of the 2 rooms resulted in the inescapable conclusion that the computer (and it's backpack) never came up the stairs with us. 99% sure it wasn't left on the train, nor at the station... had to be in the cab. This was 3+ hours after we'd exited the cab ... didn't know the number or the cab company. Put a real good damper on what had been a busy, enjoyable day. Evan felt guilty because he'd been in charge of the bag, and Nancy felt responsible because she was in the back seat with him and the bag. I felt bad for both of them, and for all of us, because all of Nancy's RO research stuff was on the machine, several of Evan's games + 800-1000 of our best/worst photos from this Fulbright journey.

Nancy got a couple cab co. numbers from the front desk people and called. One of the dispatchers actually put out a call to all the drivers while she was on hold, but no response back. Nancy was quickly becoming a basket case, so she asked me to go back downstairs to the desk & see if we had all the likely/possible phone numbers. The staff (two waitresses and a bartender) was very sympathetic and actually helped me make a few more calls. No luck, tho' a couple did say call back in the morning to see what their co. grapevine may have come up with.

It was a gloomy set of omelets we consumed at breakfast. The morning manager suggested a long shot ... go down to the station and see if you can find the driver. Mmmmm, in a town of a quarter million people, with hundreds of cabs, that seemed ludicrous. But we had nothing else going, so we checked out, trudged over to Jeremy's apartment so Nancy could work on her talk that she was to give that evening at the local American Club at his university.
We followed his directions and took the #4 bus down to the station; decided to check Lost & Found to see if it might have turned up there. I think it was our psychological delaying tactic, as we weren't optimistic about going cabtocabtocab in the parking lot, looking at faces and telling our sad story to any driver that hadn't heard about it the evening before.

The info booths inside & outside the station yielded no help; we couldn't find the entrance to the police station inside the building, and the chap at the baggage holding room couldn't make out what we were after, so he walked us up to the money changer, who I think he was sure knew more English than he did. She did, a little, but she suggested nothing more than to check the info desk(s). Back to square one.

I thought we could both use a coke (or something stiffer??) at this point, so we walked over to the snack bar to survey the drink offerings. 5 seconds later our cab driver was standing there next to us -- he had come back down to the station to look for us!!! He said he had not initially opened the pack, once he'd found it late in the evening (it was still sitting on the hump on the floor in the back seat), but a couple of buddies said go ahead, it's probably not a bomb! Once he saw Evan's algebra book, he pieced the mystery together. He said if he hadn't seen us at the station, he'd have gone back to the pensione, so we probably would have gotten it back one way or the other, but really, we were just thunderstruck that we bumped into him. Right then & there I grabbed him behind the ears and gave him a big kiss right on the forehead... for Nancy of course.

Luciano said he'd been raised right in a good family, and made every effort to do the right thing. He has two sons himself, and knows that youngsters can lose things. What a guy!! He agreed to a photo side by side w/ Evan, so when I get the latest set of them uploaded, I'll forward it along.

Don't know if that tops yours, but we can add it to the Romanian Fulbright folklore, perhaps as another cautionary tale about alertness when traveling, no matter how comfortable you may have gotten with your surroundings.

Nancy did a nice job onstage that evening, got lots of response and questions from the assemblage of 15-20, mostly students. Had another great meal with Jeremy, made it to the train station with, wow, at least 12 minutes to spare, and had the usual rumbley overnight trip back to Oradea... slept off & on, adequately.

Best of holiday wishes to you!!

Pat in Oradea

Busy is Better!

2008-12-09T20:20:00.008+01:00

UPDATES: An important footnote has been added to yesterday's posting. Please read it. Also, a three-view diagram of an Antonov AN-2 has been added to "Bucharest," below.

It is fun being busy. I have long said, "Busy is Better." But boy, am I busy! Of course, I am gradually becoming one of that breed that I have labeled "World Guys." I wonder, are all world guys this busy?

As my readers know, I will be coming home for the holidays. It won't be all relaxation. Today I picked up three lectures to prepare during my time in the States. The Finnish Savonia University in Varkaus has confirmed my invitation to visit in January, and wants me to lecture on Global Business. That is among the subjects I have taught in the Plymouth State MBA Program, but I have been away from that topic for several years. So, while home over Christmas, I must plan a few days at Lamson Library.

Then there are my spring courses. I am not worried about Management Accounting at the Faculty of Economics, for I have been teaching that course at Plymouth ever since 1976, have kept up with the field, and have as a teaching team member Prof. Alexandra Mutiu, who is going to be great to work with. But, in the Faculty of European Studies, I will be taking on a course in The American Economy. That is a new subject for me, and I have to learn a lot in its preparation. I am counting on my colleague Trent Boggess to help, for Trent, an economist, teaches a related course at Plymouth State.

Oh, yes, then there is Christmas. My wife Shirley wants a new bedroom set. Shirl is right about our needing a new bedroom set. The one we have was bought (cheaply) at Sears in 1975, and it is ready to retire to a guest room. If we are going to spend our agreed-upon 35 more years together, we ought to invest in a solid set of bedroom furniture. Our present set can go upstairs to one of the four kids' rooms (that are gradually becoming guest rooms as our kids move out).

Phil Desmond, Plymouth MBA and owner of Brown Furniture, are you reading this? If so, the McDougalls are going to need a good solid bedroom set. We are not into high style, but we are ready for high quality. We'll be over before long to see what you recommend.

So, what do my readers have to do for the next few weeks? Let me guess: you are all busy as all get out. Be thankful. Busy is better.

Tons to tell and too tired to tell it. (But I'll try.)

2008-12-08T21:28:00.005+01:00

The Holiday Party in Bucharest was good fun. We met a number of former Romanian Fulbrighters, and the wine lubricated tongues, so the gab went on for several hours. Another good part of the trip for me was to visit the Museum of the Romanian Peasants. There on the pedestal holding a musical exhibit was written in red marker,

"Intre ei, ingerii cîntâ Mozart.
In faţa lui Dumnezeu, cîntâ Bach."

"Among themselves, the angels sing Mozart. In front of God, they sing Bach." I like that one.

The ride home launched early Sunday morning, following a 6:30 breakfast with St. Daniel the Cabbie. Dan has been the recommended taxi driver for Fulbrighters for ten years because he goes by an honest meter. As a cabbie in Bucharest, that alone has led to his canonization. But he is far more than just an honest cabbie. He came out at 6:15 on a Sunday morning to take me on a 7 Lei ($2.50, before his tip) ride to the Gara, after we'd agreed to that two mornings before, when he drove me from the gara to the hotel. So, as we didn't need to leave until 6:50, I invited him to join me for breakfast at the Casa Victor.

Once on the train I enjoyed my first daylight ride northward through the Carpathian Mountains to Braşov, then westward across Transylvania to Cluj. Climbing through the mountains there were rugged snow-capped peaks on our left, and the alpinesque villages that I described from my September drive along a parallel road, that being the first Romanian excursion in Klaus with the Sherman-Hayes family. This time I was curious whether one of these Carpathian ski towns was where my PSU colleague Professor Roxana (Dima) Wright, who grew up in Braşov, was a ski instructor when she met Rob Wright, now her husband (and a soccer coach at Plymouth State). Please, Roxana, tell us in the comments, was that fateful meeting in Timişol de Sus? Predeal? Azuga? Buşteni? Poiana Tapului? Sinaia? Or perhaps, all the way down in Crăsina, at the southern slope of the mountains? Or, was it in yet another part of Romania?

Monday

I picked up today my Permis de Şedere (license to stay). I am now legal in Romania for a full year. As faithful readers know, I owe this bureaucratic achievement to the help and patience of Carmen Tagsorean of the Babeş-Bolyai University Center for International Cooperation. Thank you, Carmen. We did it.

Also today I taught Mihaela Luţaş' first-year class, for this week she is teaching in Italy. There were about 35 students present, and after introducing myself, I asked for any questions they had about America, American business, or American education. The first girl to raise her hand asked, "What is a party school?" I defined that term as follows. "A party school is any institution with one of these two words in its name: 'c-o-l-l-e-g-e,' or 'u-n-i-v-e-r-s-i-t-y.'" I went on to explain that the most notorious party school in New Hampshire is the Ivy League school Dartmouth College, and that the difference between such a school and a state universiity is that the students at the state school drink beer, while the students at Dartmouth will drink Scotch. I hope I didn't mislead them too much.

I also took advantage of the opportunity to advance the cause of academic integrity by pointing out that we in the universities are all standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, and that those former students and scholars very likely did not get rich being academicians. So, all they have to be remembered for is their ideas. It is therefore right and proper always to give credit to the creators of any ideas or words of others that we find in our research and use in our writings. Moreover, it is dishonest and unethical not to do so. Finally, I told them that the standard penalty for a first violation of academic integrity in my home university is to fail the course, and that the second offense results in a suspension from the school. I was a bit preachy, but unfortunately, some of my students last week gave me reason to believe that the sermon was called for, and I felt that giving it to first year students might help them make good decisions in the future.

Finally, I told a couple of stories about the great Physics professor at Amherst College, Arnold Boris Arons, one of the best lecturers I ever have known. Arons' lecture on the 19th Century experiments done with horizontal charged plates and a suspended drop of electrically charged oil, I shall always remember. I do not recall if it was Maxwell, or Planck,* or another whose experiment Arons was describing. But I recall that the droplet of oil would move up and down in the electric field with acceleration that was measureable. This acceleration could be varied by adding or reducing the charge on the droplet. But, when Arons told us that the rates of acceleration in the constant electrical field could be made to vary only in steps, not changed smoothly, and thus, electric charge appeared to have a particulate nature, my classmate Ben Bump raised his hand. "Professor," he asked, "aren't you just talking about electrons?"

Professor Arons looked over his pince-nez glasses at the ceiling, stroking his chin, as if considering carefully Ben's question. "Electrons?" he muttered. "Electrons?" Then he turned toward Ben and roared, "Mr. Bump, What the HELL is an ELECTRON?" "Ideas first! Names after!"
_________________________
*UBB Physicist Titus BEU has solved this issue for me: the Oil-Drop Experiment was Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher's, and was performed in 1909. Hence, we have understood the electron's fundamental role for only 99 years. I'd say we've done pretty well with it.

Bucharest

2008-12-05T21:28:00.003+01:00

A first class sleeper is worth the $20 premium ticket. I slept well for at least seven hours on the train. Come 6:45 in the morning my one compartment mate and I awoke, about an hour before arrival, and had a chat. Turns out he flew cropdusters back under Ceaucescu, both Antonov AN-2s (see another picture in a September posting of such a plane in a Budapest McDonald's Playyard!) and helicopters. So, we did some hanger flying, and warmed to each other. We exchanged phone numbers, and I hope that we will meet again over a beer. (Image from Wikipedia.com)

Casa Victor could check me in upon arrival today, so I had breakfast, then soaked in a tub for awhile, and went to bed until 1:00 PM, then had lunch, and strolled with Charles over to pay a social call on the Fulbright Commission. The day has ended with a good dinner at an Italian restaurant with five fellow Fulbrighters: Charles, David Banville, and the Sherman-Hayes clan. Tomorrow we will visit the Romanian Peasants' Museum and fair, where I hope to find some small cultural gifts to take home to family at Christmas. Then comes the party at the Commission.

Back to Bucureşti

2008-12-04T16:40:00.002+01:00

If the Romanian Fulbright Commission has one key strength, it is their ability to weld the American Fulbrighters into a caring community of new friends. Mihai and Corina and Mihaela and Anca and Loredana and all the rest of the staff have kept us in the loop all fall, and have made sure we have been invited to events in our cities, and events in others' cities, as well.

Saturday night, at the Commission's expense, we all are gathering in Bucharest for a Holiday party, where we will join to celebrate Romania's unification, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chaunnakah, Eid al-Adha, New Years Day, and probably more. This weekend was chosen because it is likely the last one for which we will all still be "in country," for soon some of us will be going home to the States for our holiday vacations.

So, at 10:03 tonight I will again board the CFR's overnight train to Bucharest, and spend my weekly (for so it seems, lately) night being clicked and clacked to sleep. You know, it really isn't a bad way to travel.

Wally's Birthday is a Classy One

2008-12-03T11:33:00.006+01:00

My younger brother Walter Allan McDougall was born on 3 December, 1946. If you happen to encounter him today, wish him a happy birthday for me, and ask him why he looks so much older than his senior brother, Duncan.

Today I got to the office in time to have a quiet 3/4-hour to collect my thoughts before teaching a new (for me) case study on Lincoln Electric. I learned from Wickham Skinner some 38 years ago that the hour before class is best spent thinking through what questions to ask of the class. So, this morning I did exactly that, and came into class with an ordered list.

I quickly perceived that about half of the students who had come to class had not read the case. As this case will be one on which the class will later have a chance to write an essay, I marked all students present who were there, then asked those who were unprepared to leave the room. I explained that it was not fair for them to sit there and hear what the prepared students had to say about a case for which there would be a graded assignment passed out next week. They left, clearly surprised to be excused, and not happy about it.

My remaining students then tore into the case with a vengeance. It was one of the best class discussions that I have experienced since coming to Romania.

Happily, I have many bright students. It is a joy working with the Englishline students at Babeş-Bolyai University.

National Day

2008-12-01T14:38:00.006+01:00

Buna Ziua Naţional! 1 Decembrie 2008! 90 de Ani!
It is a glorious day in Cluj-Napoca, with a bright blue sky and mild autumn air for the celebrations. I attended the laying of wreaths at the foot of the statue of Avram Iancu, then went into the Ortodox Cathedral in the Piaţa Avram Iancu and lit candles in memory of my parents. As I came out of the cathedral, I heard English spoken, and asked a man of about my age where he was from. "London," he said, "and you're from America." Gary Stallworthy is living in Cluj with his Romanian wife. He asked for my phone number. I hope he calls.

Of course, while returning home, I thought of my British-Romanian friends, Rob and Roxana Wright of Plymouth State University and Campton, New Hampshire.

I had on the Romanian-American friendship pin given me by Mihai Moroiu on my last visit to Bucharest, but was hoping to find a vendor of the colorful ribbons I saw on many coats in the Piaţa. I asked a man in a coat lettered on the back with words that had to mean "SWAT Team Captain," if he could tell me where to buy such a ribbon. At once, in crisp English, he said, "You want one? Take this one. Is not a problem!" He immediately unpinned his ribbon, and I accepted gratefully, and thanked him for his kindness. It reads, "1 Decembrie 2008, 90 de Ani," for it was 1 December 1918 when the Unification Agreements, as mentioned a few days back, were signed in Alba Iulia.

Watching the crowd at the ceremony was most interesting and moving. Veterans were honored, and I could only wonder what the older men, obviously veterans of World War II, were thinking about their country's history. Romania, like Italy, actually fought battles on the side of, and then against Nazi Germany. In Romania's case they fought first against, then later with the forces of the Soviet Union. Romania's history has been fascinating. Being a country of considerable natural wealth in agriculture, oil, and human talent in Central Europe has led to a great many political and military challenges and changes. Romanians have suffered much, and many of them have grown to be stoic and brave. They are a talented people, and are not afraid of a day's work. If Western Civilization has a bright future, Romania will have a bright future.

Small World

2008-11-30T18:31:00.001+01:00

I am sitting in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on this Sunday evening (which happens to be St Andrew's Day, who is Patron Saint of Romania, and of Scotland), watching live a World Cup slalom event from Aspen, Colorado. I am watching Czech, German and Italian girls racing down the mountain, and thinking of my daughter Piper, who tomorrow will be working in Human Resources for that very same mountain! It is a small world.

Turkey with all the Trimmings

2008-11-28T12:47:00.005+01:00

Rachel Renz is a junior Fulbrighter here in Cluj. I had met her only at Orientation in Bucharest, back in September, and did not realize that she is a great hostess and fine cook.

For the American holiday known as Thanksgiving, celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday in November, Rachel invited not only Fulbrighters, but also the UBB class in Romanian for Foreign Students (in which she is a student, not an instructor) to come to her apartment to celebrate with us Americans. The result was a special event, if ever there were one.

Those of us who live locally brought side dishes or desserts, while Rachel and fellow Clujian- Fulbrighter Laura Nugent each cooked a turkey. Others contributed many bottles of Champagne, wine and beer.

The party began with Rachel's telling the group of the origins of the American Thanksgiving Day, replete with tales of Chief Massasoit, Pilgims' blunderbusses, and popcorn (perhaps I exaggerate a trifle), followed by a long and traditional dinner of roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, pea soup, and more. After dinner, but before cutting the pies, Rachel asked all present to honor her family's tradition of going around the room to give personal thanks, one by one. So we did. There were present Americans, Romanians, Germans, Chinese, Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and probably others. Some twenty of us all perceived how blessed we were for having such an opportunity to get to know one another, and to express our personal feelings to newly-met colleagues about the Romanian adventure that we all are sharing. Some thanked parents, others their families at home. One man thanked God for the gift of Music. The party was still going strong when Charles and I left, some time after 1:00 AM.

Charles put it well as he was leaving this morning to return by train to Sibiu: "Last night was something special." Thank you, Rachel. You are someone special.

National Day Commemoration in Cluj

2008-11-26T21:37:00.006+01:00

The Romanian Coat of Arms, 1918
December First is Romania's National Day, celebrating the date in 1918 of the signing at Alba Iulia, Transylvania, of the documents that made that city Alba Iulia, Transylvania, Romania, thus completing the most recent unification of the country.

National Day was celebrated tonight for all foreign students and for visiting faculty from abroad in a ceremony at the UBB-owned Hotel Universitas in the west end of Cluj. There was a presentation on the history of the events being celebrated, given by History Professor Ph.D. Ana Maria Stan, director of the Babeş-Bolyai Museum. Then there was a wonderful concert of Romanian folk music and dance by Cluj musicians and University dancers. Then there was a light supper of traditional Romanian dishes. It was truly a great evening for my friend from Sibiu, Charles Harris, and for me, and I thank Carmen Tagsorean for inviting us to join in.

Home in Cluj, and Giving Thanks

2008-11-25T17:18:00.004+01:00

When you live far away from your roots for an extended period, you grow new roots. Returning to the Cluj apartment at 5:00 AM Tuesday after traveling from Kansas City since Sunday morning was a homecoming. I am glad and relieved to be back, even though my four nights at the Marriott-KCI with Shirl were a warm and wonderful interlude in my autumn term.

Tomorrow Charles will be arriving from Sibiu to visit my Labor Management class, then to stay with me in Cluj for Thanksgiving dinner at Fulbrighter Rachel Renz's apartment. (I am cooking pea soup for the event.)

From Romania, I wish all Americans a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever they may roam, or remain.

Standard Fare

2008-11-23T11:42:00.006+01:00

The Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) is a twenty year-old global accrediting body for teaching-focused institutions of higher learning in the field of business. My trip to Kansas City was to attend a meeting of the ACBSP's Baccalaureate/ Graduate Board of Commissioners, of which I am a member. We commisioners read the self-studies of member institutions applying for accreditation of their business programs, read the feedback reports from visitation teams (peer reviewers), read the institutional responses to those feedback reports, then recommend accreditation, conditional accreditation, or deferral of accreditation. The schools that receive accreditation usually are initially given conditional accreditation, meaning that the Board requires that to maintain their accreditation beyond three years, they must fix a few remaining shortfalls with respect to the ACBSP Standards and Criteria for Accreditation. An approved application leads to a ten-year professional accreditation of the institution's business programs, on the progress of which each accredited school must report every two years. These biennial Quality Assurance Reports are also read and judged by the Commissioners, in order to ensure that the accredited schools are making progress.

The ACBSP Standards and Criteria are based upon the Baldrige concepts of fact-based management and continuous improvement. The ACBSP was a pioneer in applying these demanding process-oriented criteria to business program accreditation. For its first ten years, the ACBSP allowed accreditation on input measures alone (for example, the percent of courses taught by faculty members with doctoral degrees). In 1998 the Association introduced an alternative path to accreditation based upon outcomes assessments of student learning and stakeholder satisfaction, which required that the institution have a well-defined mission, an identified set of stakeholders, measurable goals with respect to both its mission and those objectives, and a comprehensive plan for assessing outcomes with respect to its mission and objectives. Finally, it had to demonstrate that the results of its assessments were being used constructively to bring about positive changes in the ways in which the institution taught, and in its internal business processes. In 2004, the ACBSP did away entirely with input-based accreditation, and adopted a revised set of Baldrige-based Standards and Criteria. Since 2007, all members applying for accreditation or for reaffirmation of their previous accreditation have been required to do so with respect to these new ACBSP Standards and Criteria.

At its meeting this week in Kansas City, the Baccalaureate/Graduate Board of Commissioners reviewed applications for accreditation or reaffirmation from approximately 15 applicants. Six schools had their applications deferred. These deferred schools will not be pleased, for the self-study process is an arduous one. But these schools had simply come too late to an understanding of the requirements and processes of fact-based management. They had started doing outcomes assessment only in their self-study year, and had no ability to show the Board that their Business Department or School had truly adopted continuous improvement as an operating ethic. One data point does not make for a trend, and the lack of a trend makes the measurement of progress a matter of opinion, rather than a demonstrable fact. The deferred schools will have up to three years to comply, before a whole new self-study will be demanded. They will receive detailed feedback on why the Board deferred their applications. They will be encouraged to work with their assigned Commissioners during that time. All is not lost for them, but they will soon see that the ACBSP means what it says about meeting the standards, and the standards call for three-to-five data points in the measurement of, for example, student learning outcomes.

I am proud to sit on an accreditation board of an Association that takes its quality standards seriously, and that has a backbone. To my colleagues on that Board, I say, "Well done."

(To my friends in Romania I say, "Look out Romania, Flunkin' Duncan is on his way back!")

Finland In February?

2008-11-22T12:30:00.004+01:00

The Fulbright experience is full of surprises, many of which involve unexpected opportunities. Yesterday I received an e-mail with the subject: "Visit to Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Finland?" A professor there would like me to spend a week in January or February lecturing on Global Business at that University in Varkaus. I am investigating. In memory of my late friend Eino Hokkanen, I would like to find time to go.

Getting to Kansas City

2008-11-21T11:41:00.010+01:00

Board the Monday midnight train to Bucharest, spend the night tossing and turning in the first sleeping car you've ridden in since a 1954 trip from Chicago to Los Angeles on the Union Pacific, when you were 10 years old. Get ripped off for 50 Lei ($18) by a taxi driver who uses the "awful traffic" to talk you into paying about triple what you should have to get from the Gara Bucuresti Nord to the Casa Victor hotel, where you arrive about 9:15 AM, learn that you cannot check in until 12:00, have breakfast with fellow Fulbrighter Jeremy, then walk with him and Fulbrighter Kim to the Fulbright Commission, still in your slept-in clothes. Spend Tuesday morning discussing general philosophies and other weighty matters with Mihai Moroiu, eat lunch with the group having an advisor training session with the ebullient Mihaela who runs the Education USA program also housed at the Commission, get invited back for a 5:00 PM video presentation on going to an American University, and to join the group for dinner. Go back to the Casa Victor, check in, take a two-hour nap, bathe, put on clean clothes, give the desk clerk the package of stuff-left-in-Cluj by Charles Harris, another one of the Fulbrighters attending the advisor training session, then walk back to the Commission. Watch the excellent (if low-budget) DVD in which Romanian students presently studying at U.S. colleges such as Harvard, Duke, Princeton, Amherst and Hamilton describe various aspects of American university life, including curricular requirements, lingo (e.g., "majors" and "minors"), extracurricular opportunities, dorm living, internships, the relationship with faculty, the methods of testing and grading, etc. Then have a coffee, and come back in for DVD Part Two, which describes the application process. In all become sorry that you cannot yourself compete for a place at Hamilton in the Class of 2013, for the overall effect of the videos is to generate huge enthusiasm for the opportunity. Then, walk the half-mile back to Casa Victor, and board a cab with three others for the Caru cu Bere (Beer Cart) Restaurant (where you also ate a huge lunch during your September orientation). Sit down to dinner and a big mug of beer, only to discover that there is to be a floor show. Two couples begin dancing in the center of the floor, and it is quickly apparent that they are professional ballroom dancers. After the first three numbers, they split off among the tables, and a beautiful dancer invites you to be her partner for the next dance. But you refuse. One day, long ago, you wouldn't have, but tonight your thoughts are only on Shirley, who will meet you in Kansas City. Say your good-byes to the group and multimescs to Mihai and Mihaela, and go find a taxi to the hotel. Check that you are fully repacked for the 3:15 AM departure to the Bucharesti Airport, lay out exactly what you will put on in the morning, take a quick shower, and get 3.5 hours' sleep. Arise, dress, check again that you have your e-ticket and passport, insulin cooler and luggage, and go down to the lobby. Wait while the attendant unlocks the front door to let you in, and chat with her for a minute or three, until the cab that Mihai called for you pulls up outside. Mount the cab, introduce yourself to Daniel, the honest cabbie, and get to the Airport at 3:45, for your 6:00 departure. Including a generous tip of 13 Lei, pay less than you did for a trip one-third as far the previous day. Note that the coffee shop will open at 4:00. Find a chair. Meet another Daniel, Romanian-American proprietor of Tailor Studio in Rancho Cucumonga, California, who happens to be sitting next to you. Buy Daniel and yourself two ridiculously expensive (Starbucks-level price) but very welcome cups of coffee in the airport cafe, and learn that he is an inventor, but his wife a tailor. Have a long and friendly chat, during which he introduces his cousin, who has driven him to Bucuresti from his house three hours to the Northeast. Board with him a totally full flight to Amsterdam. Catch a few z's on the flight, though also meeting at your left elbow Detroit-bound Maria, a sweetheart of close to your own age with family in Motown, who doesn't speak English. Land on time in Amsterdam. Walk a mile or more to the transfer gate. Get put in another security queue, and go through the second round of screening. Stand with Deb, a dignified lady, and chat awhile. Note that the group waiting to board appears to be a random sample of Humanity, as diverse a group as you can imagine. Comment on that to Deb, and learn that she is your country's Deputy Ambassador to Ethiopia, traveling home to her child's "Seventh Grade Dinner," and flying coach. God bless her. Thank Deb for her service to the U.S.A., which is in its 27th year. Listen as the airline announces a technical difficulty. Board late, by about 30 minutes. Learn to your relief that you have a three-seat row to yourself. Listen as they announce that there will be no water for washing hands nor for coffee, but that otherwise, the flight should be normal. It is, though over nine hours long. Arrive at Dulles Airport in Greater Washington, D.C. on time. Get through customs smoothly, and go to the USAirways ticket counter to check in for the connecting flight to KC, only to learn that Flight US7903 is a United flight. Walk to the far end of the terminal. Get a boarding pass, and check your one duffel, because you know that the plane to KC is a small Canadair jet, and fear that the stuffed duffel won't fit in the overhead compartment. Go through security for the third time, grateful not to be carrying the duffel this time. Walk to the "mobile lounge" stop, and ride out to Domestic Terminal. Find Concourse A. Discover that gate A2 is at the far end. Walk another half-mile. Ask at A2, and learn that the flight has already boarded. Go out on the ramp and walk up the stairs into the cabin. Find seat 10-C. Sit. Ask the knock-out gorgeous black girl next to you where she is coming from today. Learn that Fatmah is from Tanzania, is 28, is in America for the first time, is single, will be visiting her cousin in Springfield, Missouri, and runs a boutique in her home town. Also learn that she is intelligent and good-hearted, and not at all interested in becoming the second wife of some rich man back home, where men are allowed four wives, and most marriages are "arranged." Land a few minutes late in KC. Find your duffel to be missing. Learn from the luggage office that it will arrive later, and be delivered to the Marriott. Go call the Marriott to request their shuttle. Check in. Discover that the refrigerator you requested in your room is not there. Call the desk and request one. Strip. Shower. Lie down on the bed. Get up to receive the 'fridge, pulling on only your pants. Lie back down until you hear a key in the door, and the door open. Wait a few minutes as the newcomer adjusts to her own arrival, then hug and kiss your wife, rest a few minutes, and go find a rare filet mignon.

Voila! Just that easy, and you are in Kansas City.

Color me "Gone"

2008-11-17T15:25:00.008+01:00

If my blog goes stagnant for a few days, it is because I cannot report on Romania when I am not in Romania, and because I am not schlepping my laptop across the pond and back just to post. If anything of note happens (other than I experience a plane crash), I'll find a computer and keep you posted. I promise.

Meanwhile, here is a recent parting shot across Someşul Mic (The Little Someş River), looking northwest, taken from our apartment window. That traffic-filled bridge causes the floor to vibrate whenever a trolley or big truck crosses it. The big white building on the hill is the four-star Hotel Belvedere.

Şaisprezece Novembrie, Doua Mii Opt

2008-11-16T20:47:00.008+01:00

I shan't burden my noble readers with tortured Romanian. But, I did spend several hours today focused on a great little language book that my landlady Professor Victoria Moldovan gave me on my second day in Cluj. It is Româna cu sau fără Profesor, by Liana Pop. I got through the first 33 pages today. I learned the numbers pretty well, and even wrote Victoria an e-mail in Romanian, asking her to clarify a detail in the writing of numbers. I have packed it accessibly, and hope to spend many hours with it in the next week, as I cross the Atlantic twice.

Tomorrow I straighten out the office, then am off for Bucharest on the midnight train. I expect to meet up with Charles Harris at the Casa Victor, and return all the stuff he forgot at my apartment when he visited. He has business in Bucharest this week, too. Then it is "Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come... "