Newsroom

CORVALLIS - Oregon State University will offer a special course and lecture series to students this spring term called "The Enron Implosion" that also will be open to the public.

Coordinated by OSU business professor John "Jack" Drexler, the course will bring to campus accountants, business managers, journalists and academic experts from the Pacific Northwest and around the country to discuss the startling collapse last year of t he Enron Corp.

The course will be held Monday nights from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in OSU's Milam Auditorium beginning April 8. The public may attend the lectures and sessions for free.

"The collapse of Enron is much more than the story of a major American corporation's failure," Drexler said. "It has shaken the confidence of consumers and investors, it has changed the way the accounting profession is viewed, it has had a negative impac t on a variety of pension plans and, perhaps most of all, it has eroded the trust people had in corporate America.

"Since Enron went down," he added, "a lot of the rules are likely to change."

The OSU course, sponsored by the College of Business and supported by other campus organizations, will run for seven weeks. Drexler said the course will be a forum for analyzing and understanding the events that led up to the Enron collapse, and the effe cts that continue to unfold.

Among the questions the course will address are:

• Should business professionals have known and reported what was transpiring?
• How will the collapse affect public confidence in heretofore trusted professions?
• What are the implications for retirement programs and individual investment portfolios?

The course opens on April 8 with a look at "The Human Impact of the Enron Implosion." A panel will look at how the Enron collapse resulted in a loss of jobs, pensions and value to stockholders. Among the panelists will be Bill Miller, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 125 in Portland - the union that represents Portland General Electric workers. Miller has testified to a Congressional committee headed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

On April 15, Sandra A. Suran, a CPA and president of a Portland change management firm called The Suran Group, will explore the interaction of accounting standards - GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), standard setters, the accounting profes sion and corporate accounting. She is past president of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.

John Dobson, an associate professor of finance at California Polytechnic State University's Orfalea College of Business, will lead the April 22 session focusing on business ethics. Dobson, whose research and expertise merges finance and ethics, is a char ter member of the International Institute of Economics, Business and Ethics.

Ronald Grossmann, a partner in the Portland-based law firm Stoel Rives LLP, will discuss the impact of the Enron collapse on 401(k) pension plans in the April 29 class. Grossman's legal career has focused on pensions and benefits. In his talk he will use the Enron situation to discuss the future of employee benefit plans. He also will look at the wide range of parties involved in benefits decisions, from business managers to Congressional and regulatory rule writers, to service providers, educators and jo urnalists.

On May 6, Daniel Fisher, Southwest Bureau (Houston) manager for Forbes magazine, will discuss the role of the media in the Enron story. Fisher has been one of the leading journalists covering the Houston-based Enron Corp., and has interviewed former Enro n CEO Jeffrey Skilling and chairman Kenneth Lay, among others. His Jan. 7 Forbes article, "Shell Game," summarizes the Enron collapse.

The course will analyze corporate governance on May 13 (speakers TBA), and conclude on May 20 with a course summary by faculty in OSU's College of Business.

OSU students who wish to take the course for credit may enroll in BA 407 or BA 567. Members of the public may attend any or all of the lectures for free.