SHE Auction

Every year the National Association of Women MBA (NAWMBA) organizes the SHE Auction. The Shelter for Help in Emergency's goal is to eliminate domestic violence and the auction is a great source of donations. This year the event was held at the Boar's Head Inn, which is a good enough reason to attend by itself. A red carpet greated the guests along a reception of two of our more entertaining second year students. Various items were on sale in a silent auction from artistic photographs to a basketball signed by the Cavaliers. During dinner, a live auction was running selling the higher priced items such as a flat in London that went for a thousand dollars per night and a famous dinner made by a few of our professors.

This is one just more example of Darden students giving back to the community during the two years they are here ( and having fun while they're at it).

A few items has some fierce competitors. My main rival for the basketball did not want it to get on the hands of a non-double 'Hoo.

The evening ended with dancing to the wee hours of the night.

While the dancing was still going on, a few of us second years retreated to the inn's old-fashioned bar.

As for the basketball, I joined forces with my friend and after sending his girlfriend to bid for us, I now have a 50% stake in a basketball investment.

Women's Leadership Week

This week is women's leadership week.

The week was full of interesting events and speakers. Today I participated in a discussion about "women and the labyrinth of Leadership: Why women don't make it into the c- suite" moderated by professor Ed Freeman. On the panel were four women in leadership roles and a man for diversity's sake.

I was looking forward to a discussion led by Ed Freeman, who always seems to get discussions to a new level, forcing people to defend their positions, drilling in behind the blunt statements to carve out what people really think. Not this time though. Today, Prof. Freeman was very low key and so was the discussion.

The panelists asked us to be honest and even provocative. Sadly, we were not.

Questions such as "what advice could you give us as we enter corporate America" after stating how difficult it was to adjust post undergrad were politely addressed by the panelists with an "every company has a different culture". Thank god men don't need to adjust because we all come genetically prepared, love football, NASCAR, Golf and drink a gallon of Guinness before we brush our teeth in the morning.

In my past, when I was young and pretty, I used to be razor focused. I went into a meeting, knowing what the agenda was and I would get to it. Why waste time on irrelevant chit chats, right? My boss commented on this and told me to loosen up a little before meetings, maybe crack a joke or talk about other things outside of work before starting a meeting. I am so glad I took his advice. It was something I had to learn and I'm grateful for the feedback. I was surprised to hear a similar story today from a female student who thought she only got this feedback because she was a woman.

Don't get me wrong. I am not doubting the fact that there are still people in the world who are prejudiced based on sex. I just think that this group of people contains women as well as men.

The discussion almost started to be interesting when another female student raised the fact that women often overcompensate and then stopped herself from using a word that is used to describe female canines, but nobody wanted to leave the comfort zone of discussion.

It was disappointing to see such a shallow discussion in a school known for it's invigorating discussions.

Fakesgiving

Fakesgiving (noun) - is a Thanksgiving dinner on a day other than the fourth Thursday of November.

In recent years I've tended to have more than one Thanksgiving dinner during the week of Thanksgiving because my aunt prefers to do it on the weekend or because my parents are divorced and rather than having one Thanksgiving with the kids every other year, we just have two (on different days mind you). Last year we had a Darden Thanksgiving, where a large group of friends gathered at the beautiful apartment of one of our friends and on Thanksgiving day, my dad came to visit his two sons in the States, so we had another one in NYC and a third one at school. That's a lot of food.

This year, thankfully, we only had one Fakesgiving - th

e international Thanksgiving dinner that Darden sponsors every year. An event bringing together the international Darden community and embracing them with this wonderful custom of giving thanks (and eating delicious food).

Interestingly enough, the only speech this year was a short one by Marsh as opposed to last year's five or so speeches from international representatives.

Brand Challenge - Take 2

Yesterday the first years conducted the annual Brand Challenge, where different brands are presented and laid out for the tastings, drinking and trying.

Somehow it seemed that it was better than the brand challenge we had last year. Perhaps it was because we weren't presenting this year and all we had to do is sip the Vodka's, taste the tomato sauces and sit in the Ford Fusions.

In any case, it was a lot of fun and the first years did an excellent job.