College of Management Convocation Features Jack Beatty
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Boston’s “New Chapter” Opens with Convocation
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Students
Organize Donation Drive
College
of Management Convocation Features Jack Beatty
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Center Changing UMass Boston Landscape
By Mary Ann Machanic
The
College of Management (CM) began the academic year in great style with
a convocation program that welcomed Chancellor Jo Ann Gora and featured
Jack Beatty, a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Beatty addressed
the group of CM faculty, staff, advisory board members, and special
friends at a September 6 luncheon and discussed his latest book, Colossus:
How the Corporation Changed America.
Beatty is the author of The Rascal King, a biography of former Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, and The World According to Peter Drucker, an intellectual profile of the management theorist. The author and editor attended Boston State College and UMass Boston, served as a co-chair of UMass Boston First, and received a doctorate in humane letters honoris causa in 1994 from UMass Boston.
His book Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America weaves historical source material with Beatty’s own analysis. He traces the rise of the American corporation from its beginnings in Colonial America to today in this anthology of news articles, critical essays, and excerpts from biographies, letters, and literature.
Tracking U.S. corporate history from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to AOL Time-Warner Inc., Beatty contends that, for good or ill, it is big business—and not government, politics, or law—that has played a dominant role in shaping American civilization and powering social, economic, and cultural change.
Beatty’s theories on change, competition, and control, and the intertwined histories of the U.S. and its corporations can be heard on C-Span’s “Book TV” series. The telecast will feature the convocation address at a future air date to be announced.