“We felt that the linkage between direct...

“We felt that the linkage between direct economic incentive and what goes on in the classroom--especially an incentive of this magnitude--would bias the academic environment. Mr. Edelman’s course is challenging enough that it didn’t need this.”

--John C. Burton,

dean of Columbia University’s business school, on why he scuttled a plan by takeover specialist and part-time teacher Asher B. Edelman to pay a $100,000 prize to any student who identified a good company to buy.

. . . CLOSING QUOTE

“What bothers me most is that this is a violation of the integrity of the classroom, of my right to teach after I was hired and of the student’s right to learn. This is a trade school, really, and I’m trying to teach the students how to go out and be entrepreneurial.”

--Asher B. Edelman

. . . CLOSING QUOTE

“Bravo for Dean Burton, that’s all I can say. That offer violates all of the normal canons of the academy. It’s simply inconsistent with all the things that academics should hold sacred about the classroom. It’s crucial that schools do their best to teach students not to think about just making money. It may be that some students in our schools may want to sell their souls to the devil. But we should not have the devil standing at the front of the classroom.”

--Richard R. West,

dean of New York University’s graduate business school.