Career Conference Begins For Blacks at B-School

The Harvard Business School's Afro-American Student Union and Black Alumni Association Yesterday Kicked off its eleventh annual Career/Alumni Conference with a speech by former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley.

More than 300 people, most of them alumni from across the country, attended the opening even of the conference, which will focus on opportunities for Blacks in international business.

The conference continues today with several work shops and panels, including addresses by Carlos Cambell, U.S. assistant secretary for commerce, and Randall Robinson, executive director of TransAfrica, a Washington-based Black lobby.

The yearly symposium's purpose, according to Michelle Morris, a second-year business student and the career conference director, is to serve as a "meeting ground for present and future Black business leaders to discuss career opportunities and the challenges facing minority business managers."

"We've observed that over the past two years, most of the opportunities in business are in the international arena and we wish to discuss this from a Black perspective," added Robert Fayne, a second-year student, who is chairman of the Program Committee.

Planning for the conference began in July, and it is the Afro-American Student Union's major yearly event, according to Union president Kym Lew.

"I am overwhelmed by the numbers," said H. Nathan FitzHugh, MBA '33, to whom the conference was dedicated. "When I was here I was the only Black in my class," he said, adding "What Blacks have been able to do in sports they need now to accomplish in business."

John H. Macarthur, dean of the Business School, told the conference that minorities still face special difficulties at the B-School today. We have insufficient numbers of Blacks and minorities on the faculty," Macarthur said, adding that enrollment of Blacks at the school was down one-third from last year, while admissions was up by that amount

The title of Manley's speech was "Multinational Corporations and the Third World," in which he discussed some of the major problems confronting developing countries and their dealings with industrial nations

"My complaint is that the multinational is insensitive to the needs of the people in a Third World country," said the leader of the opposition People's National Party "They have often behaved with crass indifference to wards its host population"

Manley sharply criticized Reagan's Carib bean Basin Initiative plan, calling it a "smokescreen" through which the U S appeared to be giving more aid to its neighboring countries when actually total aid had decreased due to drops in U S contributions to multilateral agencies such as the International Development Association

Manley added that there was a tremendous opportunity in the private senior of Third World countries and what was most needed was for Black business men to learn from their own economic exploitation when dealing with poorer nations

"There is a challenge facing the Black businessmen from America." Manley said "He needs sensitivity and must see that a business venture is a part of the total creativity of a society," he added.