Princeton University - Bric A Brac Yearbook (Princeton, NJ)

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midst of all the academia, Corp. Fi. brings me back to earth. Now I under- stand what all the things mean that I hear about every day: stocks, bonds, interest rates, mortgage rates, depre- ciation, mergers, and tax loopholes. A great deal of the success of the course is due to the teaching of Mr. Richard Spies. He is not an academi- cian, but a member of the University administration, Assistant to the Pro- vost. He brings much of his daily ex- perience to bear on the material at hand. His first hand experiences include watching dollar meters clock off in law- yers ' eyes, the economics of his courtship and marriage, and how to get the most bangs for your bucks. Mr. Spies is also a senior partner in the firm of Filey, Smiley, and Spies, a corporation that presents annual awards for distinction and imagination in the Aztec exercise. This year ' s kudos included a perfect market award (a dartboard), an I like to play God-Daily Princetonian award, and a Creative Accounting award for the Aztec management (now residing in Allenwood) who started their own company and acquired over $150 million worth of another company ' s stock for virtually nothing. Oh well, all ' s fair in love and high finance. 29

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Economics 318 Corporate Finance You are sitting around a large, dark stained wood table. If we tender Aztec now for $40 a share, it will only take $100 million to gain effective control. Yes, but how will the market react? If we finance the deal using equity, it might be viewed as diluting our shares. That could ruin the offer be- cause we could drop a few points. I think the combination equity- cash deal is the best. We could float a bond to raise the capital. Also, don ' t forget, we have to file that anti-trust suit against Houston to block their offer. The above is not a transcript from Exxon ' s latest board meeting, but a sample of the type of conversation that transpires among students in- volved in Corp. Fi. ' s Aztec Game. It is a series of acquisitions and merger attempts masterminded by the student. The game, like the whole course, offers one the chance to ap- ply the formulas and concepts in a real situation. In fact, that is the appeal of this course and the reason for its large enrollment. It explains the real world. You learn how Slippery Sam the Flim-Flam Man can give you a loan at 6% and wind up owning your car or house. A student explained it best. In the 28

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English 307 Chaucer Professor Durant W. Robertson, Jr. is about to end a long and dis- tinguished career as a University pro- fessor, although his life as a scholar will continue after his retirement. Long noted for his controversial atti- tudes toward medieval literature, and for his book, A P reface to Chaucer, Studies in Medieval Perspectives , Robertson has attempted to imple- ment, as a professor, a revisionist ap- proach towards Medieval Studies that has yet to become standard. After his retirement he plans to complete his next book, tentatively titled An In- troduction to the Canterbury Tales . Robertson ' s fascination with the Middle Ages began while he was in the graduate school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A teacher there suggested to him that he concentrate in Renaissance Liter- ature, and added that he might begin in the Middle Ages in order to proper- ly understand the roots of the Renais- sance. Robertson promptly became so interested in the Middle Ages that, in his words, he was never able to leave them. Robertson ' s viewpoint is, basically, that attitudes toward the Middle Ages became unduly influenced by the nineteenth century Romantic move- ment, so that medieval literature be- came viewed through a sentimental haze that refused to recognize a stringent moral code that formed the foundation of medieval philosophy. Robertson sees the characters of me- dieval literature simply as moral or immoral forces, rather than as psy- chological entities possessing person- alities. How well the characters ad- here to that moral code becomes the basis for an audience ' s approval or disapproval of the person described. Where turn-of-the-century critics saw Troilus and Creseyda as a touching love story, Robertson viewed it as a tale of two morally flawed lovers who become so blinded by lust that they 30