One class member suggested we substitute an elevator pitch for the book report as there was not much time to read a book. While the pitch idea in terms of say an internship proposal for example, has merit, so does reading a book.
Hmm, what does a college degree mean? I get the impression that most of folks in college are there to get a degree. Well okay but how should the designation of a degree differentiate a person from the rest of the uneducated rabble out there? It used to be that certainly before the invention of paper in about 100 AD in China, books were rare things, that made the written work a rare thing.
Now of course there is a world of information on the net for free. I frankly think one could get a good grasp of business by reading cover to cover ten selected books From the Dummies series. Is a college degree somehow different than reading ten books?
Well I think you should be able to do is present a 90 second summary of a book
and frankly I worry that increasingly with the lack of a library and therefore library assignments, one can now go thru the college of business without ever knowing Forbes Fortune Barrons or the WSJ,
If you can get a degree without reading a book on business now honestly what does that say about the degree? As one of my profs said, it is interesting to go round a circle of people and ask, what have you read,
remember the National Enquirer sells 5 M copies a week but no one claims to read it
IF you cannot describe a current book on business, well, just what is it we are supposed to be teaching you here? What will you say you learned when you are finished?
Professor Elam 
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