WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama challenged George Washington University graduates at their commencement Sunday to “keep giving” through community service work and to “keep engaging” with the world. Obama spoke to some 5,000 graduates and their families at the ceremony on the National Mall . She agreed to be their speaker after students, faculty and staff met her challenge to complete 100,000 hours of community service. “I have one more request to make of you, one more challenge,” Obama said during her speech. “Keep going. Keep giving. Keep engaging.” Graduates in black robes cheered as Obama spoke with the Capitol behind her. The university said that 163,000 hours had actually been worked. Obama noted many of the accomplishments: improving a Washington school, visiting with veterans, teaching English to refugees and shoveling snow during a record winter snow storm. But she urged students to continue the work, both in the United States and abroad. She said serving would make “the world safer” and make the students “more competitive.” “So many of today’s challenges are borderless — from the economy to terrorism, to climate change … more than any other generation yours is fully convinced that you’re uniquely equipped to solve those challenges,” said Obama, who spoke for about 30 minutes. She expressed confidence in the graduates. “You guys can’t be stopped. You don’t know the meaning of the word can’t. And every time someone’s tried to tell you that you’ve replied what? Oh yes, we can,” Obama said, a refrain President Obama used during his campaign. Obama said that at her husband’s inauguration, “he pledged to seek a new era of American engagement, and he asked each of us to embrace anew our duties to ourselves, our nation and the world.” “Now I’m not a president. I’m just a citizen. But as a citizen I’m asking you as graduates of this global institution to seize those responsibilities gladly,” she said. “I’m asking you to play your part.” Graduates said the first lady’s words moved them and had motivated them during the year. Gilbert Rein, 21, a graduate from Marlboro, New Jersey, said he had always done volunteer work with his fraternity, but the first lady’s challenge pushed them to do more. “This year we went above and beyond,” he said. Rein, who is going to law school, said he plans to do pro bono work to continue to give back. Saturday’s speech was not the only commencement address the first lady has given this year. Earlier this month she spoke at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a historically black college. Obama, who graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School, will also speak next month at the graduation of Anacostia Senior High School in Washington, a public school she visited last year as part of her mentoring program for young women. During the ceremony, George Washington University president Steven Knapp presented Obama with an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree. Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck and entrepreneur A. James Clark also received honorary degrees at the commencement. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — Professor Derron Bowen teaches high school math to college students, patiently chalking equations on the board on basic arithmetic topics such as the speed of a driver on a 20-hour trip. Bowen’s class at Broward College in South Florida is for students who didn’t score high enough on an entrance test to get into college-level math. In all, about two-thirds of students entering the community college need to take at least one remedial course in math, English or reading. Nationwide, about a third of first-year students in 2007-08 had taken at least one remedial course, according to the U.S. Department of Education . At public two-year colleges, that number rises to about 42%. Education observers worry that the vast numbers of students coming to college unprepared will pose a major roadblock to President Barack Obama ‘s goal for the United States to once again lead the world in college degrees. COMMUNITY COLLEGES: 6 states aim to reform remedial programs “We don’t get there from here,” said Bob Wise , president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia . In October, the Education Department reported that many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not. In a 2007 ACT National Curriculum Survey of college professors, 65% said their states poorly prepare students for college-level coursework. The survey found that professors want students with stronger skills in specific areas, while high schools typically impart a less comprehensive understanding of a broad range of topics. In his remedial math class in Florida, Bowen sees students who haven’t been in school for a decade or more, but some haven’t even had time to hang up their high school diplomas. “How were they allowed to go through?” Bowen said. “I’m thinking, ‘If I could have been teaching you back when you were 6, 7, you would be a powerhouse today.’” The Obama administration is pushing states to adopt tougher standards, and governors and education leaders across the country are working together to propose a uniform set of common standards. A first draft was released in March, and a final proposal could come this summer. For others, the problem points to the need to develop alternative forms of job training for people who aren’t academically inclined and are unlikely to finish college. “We’re telling kids you’ll be a third-class citizen if you don’t go to college,” said Marty Nemko, an education policy consultant and author. “And colleges are taking kids who in previous generations would not have gone to college.” Nemko favors an apprenticeship program similar to those offered in Finland , Japan and Germany. That’s a point that Daniel Paz, a student in Bowen’s class, says he can relate to. “College is not for me,” said Paz, who graduated from high school last year and is considering a career in criminal justice. “It’s something I have to do, but if there was another way, than I’d be doing something else.” Some students in remedial courses are older workers trying to jump-start a new career. But a sizable amount are recent graduates who performed well in high school: A 2008 study by the nonprofit Strong American Schools found that nearly four out of five remedial students had a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher. The price of providing remedial training is costly. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates the nation loses $3.7 billion a year because students are not learning basic needed skills, including $1.4 billion to provide remedial education for students who have recently completed high school. “From taxpayers’ standpoint, remediation is paying for the same education twice,” Wise said. Students who need remedial classes are also more likely to drop out: Those taking any remedial reading, for example, had a 17% chance of completing a bachelor’s degree, according to 2004 Education Department data. At the recent annual American Association of Community Colleges conference, Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called improving or reducing remediation the best way to improve completion rates at community colleges, which hover at around 25%. “Right away, your dreams of going to college are deferred, because technically you’re not in college,” she said. “If you start in a remedial class, the odds are that you will never finish a credit-bearing course in that subject.” She pointed to positive models: El Paso Community College, which gives prospective students placement tests while still in high school, and Mountain Empire Community College in Virginia, where there are new lesson plans and textbooks to move students through remedial education faster. The Gates Foundation is spending $100 million to develop new models for remedial education. Advocates say the need for reform is urgent, pointing to studies that show more jobs in the future will require more education, and that people with less education have been hit with higher levels of unemployment during the recession. Nemko doubts the notion that most workers will need a higher level degree. “In every corporation or government agency, there needs to be a small number of people coming out with the great new ideas,” he said. “But for everyone one of those, they need 20 to 50 worker bees who are there to provide the product.” At Broward College, there are signs of improvement: The percentage needing remedial education has dropped, from 85% of first-time college students to 74% in the 2009 incoming class. “I don’t remember learning any of this stuff in high school,” said CaSonya Fulmore, 40, who was laid off from her job as a customer service supervisor with American Express Co. last year. Fulmore is taking a preparatory math class and studying for a degree in social science, with hopes of becoming a counselor. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DURHAM, New Hampshire — College seniors across the United States plan to start a new graduation tradition this year: tossing their ceremonial gowns into recycling bins. For years, ecology-conscious campuses have been trying to reduce the environmental impact of commencement ceremonies by using less electricity or printing programs on recycled paper. Now, academic apparel manufacturers are jumping in with “green” options, ranging from disposable gowns that decompose quickly in soil to gowns made of recycled plastic bottles that can be reused or recycled. GREENEST COLLEGES: Princeton Review lists 286 COLLEGE BLOG: Eco-friendly acts on campus STUDENTS: Flocking to sustainability degrees, jobs The new products are an alternative to the petroleum-based polyester gowns millions of graduates buy each year, then promptly throw away or stuff into their closets. Manufacturers say the new gowns are a bit softer and more breathable than the traditional gowns, but otherwise are indistinguishable. “It feels a bit thinner which actually would be good for spring commencements because it’s going to be hot outside,” said Abbie Tumbleson, a senior at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. “It doesn’t look cheaply made.” At Oak Hall Cap and Gown in Virginia, officials settled on fabric made from recycled plastic after samples made from sustainable bamboo failed to impress customer service reps who wore them for a day. “By the end of the day, they looked like they had slept in the gowns for about two weeks,” said vice president Donna Hodges. “A lot of students will get the gown out of the bag 10 minutes before lineup, so we knew that was not going to work.” About 100 schools ordered the new gowns this spring, compared to about 1,500 who stayed with the polyester, Hodges said. University Cap and Gown in Lawrence, Massachusetts, also is offering recycled bottle gowns this year. Company president Duane Fox said his company was ahead of the curve when it began using biodegradable detergents to clean its rental gowns years ago. In designing the new gowns, the company focused on finding a fabric that could withstand multiple wearings, said Fox, who estimates that about 7% of his customers ordered the new gowns, including the University of New Hampshire and Colby College in Maine. Ensuring that students return their gowns is key, because otherwise companies are just replacing bottles in landfills with fabric in landfills, said the Sierra Club ‘s Jennifer Schwab. “It’s always better to reuse. We don’t really want to put new items into the waste stream, period, if we can help it,” she said. She also is not a fan of the type of gown being sold by Minneapolis-based Jostens, which also plans to donate $1 to an environmental cause each time graduates enter a code printed on the gown’s tag. Its gowns are made of acetate a material made from sustainably harvested trees that will decompose in a landfill within a year. “It’s better than a polyester gown that’s not biodegradable; but first and foremost, there’s probably enough graduation gowns floating out there that you could reuse them for several years,” she said. And even reusing the new gowns five or seven times is not ideal, she said. “That’s good for the bottom line, but that’s not really good for the environment,” she said. Jostens offers the biodegradable gowns in six colors, while the gowns made of plastic bottles are available only in black for now. Prices vary widely from school to school. For example, the University of New Hampshire charges students $16.25 for a cap and gown, while the University of Vermont, in the adjoining state, charges $34. The wholesale price of “green” gowns usually is a few dollars more than polyester, but some schools have chosen not to pass along the increase to students. At the University of Vermont bookstore, a gown from Oak Hall is on display along with 23 plastic bottles to represent how many are recycled to make the fabric. Bookstore director Jay Menninger said the gowns cost the school about $2 more each, but students were not charged more. Though his school and others will return the gowns to Oak Hall to be recycled into new fabric, he expects most students will bypass the recycling bins he hopes to set up near the outdoor ceremony. “After commencement, they’re out of here. They don’t want to go put something in a box,” he said. Elaine Kiesewetter, a senior at UNH, said she would be more likely to give her gown to a younger friend so they could save money rather than turn it in. She received her gown last month and was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t look like it was made from plastic. “Especially from far away, no one will know,” she said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A few years ago, any discussion of the master’s in business administration would begin with discussions of scandal and mismanagement. Look at instances of accounting fraud at Enron and WorldCom : MBAs behaving badly. A president of the United States with mixed approval ratings and plenty of opponents in his own party: an MBA whose leadership skills seemed lacking. Business school discourse today has a new set of topical lessons, emphasizing the roles played by MBAs in precipitating the global recession and creating financial products that benefited corporations but hurt consumers. “When we bring students into business school, we narrow their vision,” says Stephen Spinelli, president of Philadelphia University and co-founder of the Jiffy Lube auto service company. “We teach them to focus with increasing blinders until they have pinpoint recognition, but that limits what they can see on the periphery.” A much-maligned concept like mortgage-backed securities, he says, “in its construct … could be taken as being sound — a hard asset that has clear value.” With broader perspective, they’re tougher to define and much riskier than they might seem. “You become dislocated from the person and their ability to pay that loan, the value of the property, what’s happening in the neighborhood around that property and what’s happening with the job market in that city and region.” The financial crisis has administrators and faculty at business schools around the country rethinking that narrowing approach. Courses and curriculums are being revised to avoid building silos in business schools and students’ minds. Words — and ideas — like globalization, innovation and sustainability are taking hold. Though he first started thinking about broadening students’ perspectives a decade ago while serving as vice provost at Babson College , Spinelli says that his ideas solidified as he watched investment banks crumble and ordinary people face foreclosure. “If we don’t teach people to sort of look around and have greater peripheral vision, then we’ve just set ourselves up for the next crisis,” he says. In the fall of 2011, Philadelphia will roll out a revamped MBA program that will emphasize collaboration with the university’s engineering and design schools. Business students will work on hands-on projects with students in other fields, all with the aim of preparing them to collaborate once on the job. “We used to think it was highly collaborative when marketing and finance were working together,” Spinelli says. “Now we see that partnerships need to be much broader; three-dimensional collaboration needs to be taught.” Yash Gupta, dean of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, has a similar perspective. “What has happened in the last 18 months has shown that you cannot manage a complex system by dividing it into smaller pieces and optimizing those pieces without considering the whole,” he says. “You cannot build an organization by simply maximizing shareholders’ value. Customers, employees, the general public are important.” BEFORE COLLEGE: In-school banks dispense financial sense In building a curriculum at Carey, which spun off from Hopkins’ School of Professional Studies in Business and Education in 2007, Gupta looked to industry for recommendations. Among the abilities and skills companies said they wanted from their employees: adapting to change and being flexible; critical thinking; a broad worldview; connecting invention with innovation; and linking content to context. All of those things, Gupta says, will be interspersed throughout the global MBA program that Carey is beginning this fall. Rather than simply having one class on ethics or decision making as some other schools do, the curriculum will include those skills throughout. “We’ll teach students about decision making — behavioral, rational, how the brain functions — in the first year, but we’ll also give them chances to make decisions,” he says. “We’ll bring in CEOs or prominent academics to talk about ethics and ethical concepts, how managers sort things out and decide which decision is the right decision.” Carey will treat globalization similarly. Rather than taking a few classes on international business or an optional specialization, all students will work on projects in the developing world and spend time learning to work with people from different backgrounds. The school is taking the right approach, says John J. Fernandes, president and CEO of the AACSB: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the world’s largest business school accreditor. “You can’t look at things as compartmentalized,” he says; everything needs to be interconnected, and everything must be contextualized to everything else. “After Enron and WorldCom, everyone said, ‘Let’s teach ethics,’ but they did it in the corner as this separate discussion,” Fernandes says. “But it is best taught across every business discipline because they all have different ethics challenges.… It’s best taught across everything we do.” At Harvard Business School , where administrators insist that ethics has always been incorporated throughout the MBA curriculum, it became clear that there was a need for students to get a solid dose of ethics. In 2004, the school began requiring all students to take “Leadership and Corporate Accountability” during the second term of their first year. David A. Garvin, a professor of business administration, describes the course as “a way to give students a sense of the responsibilities that they will have to all these different stakeholder groups.” With shareholders, they’ll have to worry about fiduciary responsibilities. With customers, “information asymmetries” (as Garvin explains it, “Under what circumstances do you need to disclose?”). With employees, students will be educated about treating them fairly. With the public at large, MBAs’ responsibilities may be even greater — to deal with issues like child labor and freedom of speech. Though these were all pre-financial crisis concerns, the high-profile ethical lapses that helped precipitate the downturn have only intensified the sense that MBA programs need to do more to create ethical graduates. Students in Harvard Business School’s class of 2009 drafted and spread “The MBA Oath,” a brief code of ethics that has been signed by more than 2,500 MBAs and business students. In conducting research for Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads , a book published last month, Garvin says he heard from executives and deans who, after well-publicized accounts of unfair business practices and gigantic post-bailout bonuses, hoped to see ethics education ramped up. “There was a sense of a greater need in helping students understand the roles, responsibilities and purpose of business and business leaders.” ON THE WEB: The B-school glass ceiling INSIDE HIGHER ED ARCHIVE: De-departmentalizing biz school Executives and deans also told Garvin that they saw a need for students to better understand “the limits of models and markets — risk, restraint and regulation,” he says. Before the economic crisis, they came up with an even lengthier list of near-universal needs: 1. Having a global perspective. 2. Developing leadership skills. 3. Improving integration skills. 4. Understanding organizational realities and implementing them more effectively. 5. The ability to act creatively and innovatively. 6. Thinking critically and communicating clearly. None of the needs are too surprising, but they are tough things to teach that business schools must continue working on. Creativity and innovation are at the core of a new report from the AACSB, in which a task force of deans, university presidents and business leaders calls on business schools to play a larger role in innovation. Although business schools are “built to go in a lot of different directions, and we as an accrediting body don’t try to push them one way or the other,” says Fernandes, the association’s president, innovation is something administrators and faculty should be thinking about. “If the light’s not already turned on, it turns that light on for them, that they should apply an innovative intention to their strategies.” Business schools don’t have to be hotbeds of invention, just places where students and faculty develop better processes and products. Robert S. Sullivan, dean of the Rady School of Management at the University of California at San Diego, points to Apple ‘s creation of devices like the iPad as the sort of thing business schools ought to be training students to do. “The technology in the iPad is not a new invention,” he says, “but Apple looked around the corner in terms of figuring out what people want without necessarily asking them.” And the products that business schools must train students to develop aren’t just glitzy gadgets or risky financial instruments; they’re things that will benefit humanity — business schools hope. “If the world has shrunk, then business schools must solve the world’s problems,” says Gupta, of the Carey School. People who face challenges of “poverty, education, health: these are going to be my customers and employees tomorrow, so business schools must help them, too.”