While Scott DeRue, dean of 

Ross School of Business, has 
flown across the globe to host 
alumni gatherings known as 
“Ross Talks,” on Thursday night 
he only had to take the elevator to 
the sixth floor of the Ross School 
of Business.

Ross Talks, all of which 

are 
moderated 
by 
DeRue, 

are designed to offer alumni, 

current students and prospective 
students a forum in which to 
network and engage with panel 
discussions. The Ann Arbor 
event is one stop on a 18-city 
lineup the Business School has 
planned for the calendar year. 

Tom Lewand, the CEO of 

Detroit-based watch company 
Shinola, joined DeRue onstage 
along with Ross senior Kiva 
McGhee 
and 
Mike 
Barger, 

executive director for the Office 
of 
Strategy 
and 
Academic 

Innovation. 
DeRue 
led 
a 

discussion centered around a 
new Business course titled Living 
Business Leadership Experience.

The course is available for 

students enrolled in both the 
B.B.A. and M.B.A. programs 
at the University and offers 
an 
opportunity 
to 
engage 

with one of the seven partner 
companies who have agreed 
to allow students to help lead a 
project. Students are split up into 
functional teams emphasizing 
e-commerce, 
supply 
chain 

management, 
marketing 
and 

finance. 

DeRue 
emphasized 
how 

the 
course 
was 
inspired 

by the school’s history of 
innovation, citing how the 
Business 
School 
pioneered 

the Multidisciplinary Action 
Project, a program in which 
M.B.A. students spend two 
months working on location 
at companies across the globe, 
two decades ago.

DeRue 
worked 
with 

Lewand, who serves on the 
Business School’s Board of 
Advisers, to brainstorm what 
a “living business” experience 
could look like.

“We were at an advisory 

board meeting and we had this 
idea,” DeRue said. “And I said to 
Tom, ‘I imagine a world where 
we actually start building 
businesses within the business 
school in partnership with 
companies where our students 
actually run the business.’”

DeRue and Leward’s initial 

idea came to fruition with 
the 
first 
Living 
Business 

Leadership Experience class 
during the Fall 2017 semester. 

Now, the course is in its second 
semester, and current projects 
extend across industries, from 
affordable housing to education 
to technology development.

McGhee was a member of the 

inaugural class last year, and she 
has re-enrolled in the course 
this semester to continue her 
assignment as a Shinola team 
lead, contributing to the rollout 
of their headphones.

“We helped set the price 

point for the headphones. So I 
think we are actually listened 
to, and they take our advice, 
and I think there is a really 
great 
relationship 
that 
we 

established,” 
McGhee 
said. 

“Especially, we have made 
changes since last semester. 
A big change is that we go 
down (to Detroit) much more 
frequently and I think it is really 
great to have that cadence and 
actually feel a part of the team.”

As a lead organizer and 

faculty member for the course, 
Barger echoed the experience 
of 
McGhee, 
sharing 
an 

observation 
he’s 
witnessed 

among students taking the 
course.

“In every single one of the 48 

ten-page papers I read over the 
Christmas holiday, there was a 
situation where (the students) 
had asked for some data or 
asked for some help from 
someone and (the company) 
hadn’t delivered the data or the 
help,” Barger said. 

2 — Friday, February 2, 2018
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Editorial Staff

Every Friday, one Daily staffer will give a behind the 
scenes look at one of this week’s stories. This week, 
Public policy junior Lydia Murray wrote a column on her 
disdain for the sport of football and its culture at the 
University of Michigan.

“The inspiration for my column was just writing my worst 
opinions that I have –– just all the really unpopular opinions 
that I have. This last week, I wrote one about how I think 
football is boring and overrated, and I went through and 
detailed what I thought were some really good points, 
including the fact that it is really dangerous to its players. 
And I got a lot of hate for it. I got a lot of angry comments, 
but I think it was worth it. It was a good time. I personally 
found it really amusing that people were hating on me. I was 
laughing a lot. Especially because I wrote a line in my column 
making fun of people who would be mad at me, and they did 
it anyway. So, for me it was just really funny, but I hope the 
angry white men are okay.“

Public policy junior Lydia Murray, “Let’s Bitch About It: 
Football is boring and overrated”

BE HIND THE STORY

KATELYN MULCAHY/DAILY

QUOTE OF THE WE E K 

“
The challenge I face is that none of us, including the 

Greek community, want the things that are unhealthy in 
the community to continue ... On the other hand, we don’t 
want to talk about the community as though there’s 
nothing good in the community. I am both encouraged by 
their own self-monitoring in saying that we need to stop 
the social activities because of all this going on, and that 
also frightens me because my experience has been when 
we self-correct, things are sometimes more dangerous 
than we know.“

E. Royster Harper, Vice President for Student Life

Business dean headlines new series of 
“Ross Talks” featuring Shinola CEO

DeRue leads discussion in Living Business course to engage student projects

SHANNON ORS
Daily Staff Reporter

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

