Enron 101
By RICK REIFF
The University of California, Irvine’s business school is getting into the Enron mess, offering a fall course on the corporate debacle that includes a lecture from Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins.
Other guest speakers are set to include Wall Street Journal’s Enron reporter John Emshwiller and Justice Department prosecutor David Seide.
“The course will be neither an apology nor a thrashing of Enron, but rather a chance for students to dig beneath the headlines and use the analytical capabilities of several disciplines,” said course organizer Richard McKenzie, the Walter B. Gerken Professor of Enterprise and Society in the Graduate School of Management.
After students grabbed the initial 40 slots, the school added 15 more seats in back of the classroom. Still, there is a waiting list of another 50 names. There would be even more except that word has gotten around that the course is way overbooked, McKenzie said.
Watkins, whose appearance was arranged by UCI business professor Judy Rosener, is set to speak in the 400-seat social sciences auditorium on Oct. 14. Watkins is not charging a fee, McKenzie said.
Seide is slated to be on a classroom panel Oct. 28 with Robert Corbin, a defense attorney with the Los Angeles law firm Corbin & Fitzgerald. Emshwiller will share a panel with Rand Corp. senior economist Benjamin Zycher at the opening session Sept. 30.
Other participants will include Deloitte & Touche senior partner Nathan Franke, business professors Barbara Lougee (accounting), Neal Stoughton (finance) and Brad Killaly (strategy) and Chapman University professor Tibor Machan (business ethics).
The two-credit class will run for five weeks, with three-hour classes each week and reading and project assignments from professors and lecturers. Selected students will be invited to have dinner with speakers.
Students also will study Internet-based written and video interviews with Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and other Enron Corp. executives and analysts at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, which launched a study of Enron back when the company was considered a model of a successful business.
“We’re gonna keep the focus on Enron,” McKenzie said.
But noting the problems of Enron’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, and new revelations of problems at companies such as WorldCom, McKenzie added:
“We’re thinking of offering one of these courses at least twice a year There’s just a slew of cases we could go with.”
