Daily Show Mocks Harvard Business School’s Boy Scout Oath

Boy ScoutOn Wednesday night, Jon Stewart lampooned the MBA Oath established by a group of second-year students at Harvard Business School. Earlier, the Harvard Crimson reported that as a result of the financial apocalypse, Maxwell Anderson, now an HBA graduate, had drafted a Boy Scout-esque pledge, which was then signed by hundreds of fellow graduates. A few lines:

I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.

I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.

I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.

But this little tree-house word of honor didn’t fly with many other future Kenneth Lays. In an interview with the Daily Show’s John Oliver, Bruce Kogut, a business professor at Columbia, admitted that “not a very high percentage” of his students considered taking the oath. Oliver then spoke with a group of Harvard and MIT MBA students who found the oath contradictory to what they’ve been taught to “be responsible to shareholders.” One guy commented, “I feel that ethics is a really fuzzy subject.” When asked if she feared going to jail in the future for possibly using illegal profiting tactics, one Harvard student piped up with no reservations:

It’s important to be a little bit of an asshole sometimes.

Scout’s honor, indeed. See the video after the jump.

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MBAs Discover New Way to Sell Out

MBAs Discover New Way to Sell OutThe other night I was watching TV while drunk and stumbled across something called the Fast Money MBA Challenge on CNBC. I immediately decided I was imagining things. IvyGate has since received confirmation that this program does actually exist, and we’re not quite sure how to handle it.

The Challenge, which debuted August 1 and will run through August 22, pits teams of MBA candidates from eight of the nation’s top business schools against each other in College Bowl-ish duels. Dylan Ratigan, host of CNBC’s usual Fast Money shit-off, runs the special with predictably douchey swagger.

The eight b-schools in competition are MIT (Sloan), Texas, Columbia, NYU (Stern), Chicago, UCLA (Anderson), Dartmouth (Tuck) and Yale. (Click on the picture to enlarge the bracket). Wharton and Harvard probably fancy themselves above this, but we think they’re just scared little hobbit-bitches who are afraid to put their reps on the line.

And as the Challenge has demonstrated, even the mightiest can pull a Nasdaq-circa-2000. In the first round, number-one seed MIT lost to icky state school yokels Texas, and permanent safety school Chicago fell hard to UCLA. Whether the game is basketball or stock quotes, MIT and Chicago will always be intercollegiate competition ne’er-do-wells.

Watch the clip below for a taste of the Challenge that a) demonstrates to a tee why people hate corporations and b) solidifies wiseacre Dylan Ratigan’s status as the most grating television personality in the world today. It’s Columbia versus NYU, a match that Ratigan cleverly dubs the “Subway Series.” Columbia wins, as the bracket shows, effectively renewing its right to treat NYU like shit for another few years.

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–JIM NEWELL

MIT Streakers Hit YouTube; Not Even Photoshop Can Save Them Now

First we brought you uncomfortably high-resolution images of the two MIT guys who streaked the Yale-Harvard game last weekend. Now, via Deadspin, here’s the video. Don’t say we never did anything for you.

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The Game 2006: Harvard Streak Ends, MIT Streak Begins

The Game 2006: Harvard Streak Ends, MIT Streak Begins

We were dreading having to write a sleepy, dead-on-arrival item about The Game: Yale won, Harvard lost, a streak ended, yadda yadda yadda. Thank God, then, that MIT — The Game’s frequent disruptor — gave us an angle on this yawn-fest. And as usual, that angle is nudity.

Streakers! God bless ‘em. Late in the fourth quarter, the letters of his school writ large across his back, one brave MIT stallion wove around policemen, stadium security, and indifferent football players before being brought down near the Yale 40 yard line. His partner, perhaps imitating the Crimson offense, was brought down before he got going, cuffed near the edge of the field. If that guy’s smug grin is any sign, he’s getting a hero’s welcome back home. Maybe he’ll even get a new pair of socks.

The Game 2006: Harvard Streak Ends, MIT Streak Begins