A Soviet Professor Gives U.S. Students Lessons in Business

College students in the United States tend to be more aggressive, inquisitive and concerned about their grades than their counterparts in the Soviet Union, said Anatoly V. Zhuplev, a visiting Soviet business professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Zhuplev, a researcher, consultant and educator for the Moscow city government who is teaching courses in Soviet and U.S. management this year, added that he thinks the aggressiveness is good--leading to debates over ideas and after-class discussions with students who are trying to learn as much as they can from him.

Part of the reason for this more serious approach to college may be because U.S. students pay for their schooling, while Soviets do not, he said.

Zhuplev, who is in the unusual position of a Soviet teaching U.S. management to U.S. students, said he learned U.S. management techniques and philosophies from classes he took at the Moscow Management Institute and the University of Maryland, where he taught for a year in 1983.

The professor, who lives in Westchester with his wife, Valentina Feoktistova, and 11-year-old daughter, Marianna, said that while this country provides tremendous private freedom, he misses the “physical freedom” of his homeland.

“The Soviet Union has more than two times the land of the U.S.,” he said. “Because of this, even in Moscow, I’m able to walk for five minutes and be in a huge forest, a national park.

“Here, if I want to relax, I can go to a park or a beach,” he said. “But it’s not really nature.”

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Paris awarded a scholarship to study business and commercial French to Franzine Podner, a French language teacher at Beverly Hills High School.

Podner spent three weeks of her summer vacation in Paris taking classes in the vocabulary used by French business people and studying the country’s economy and society.

Podner taught at Brentwood School last year.

Rotary International District 528 awarded International Graduate Scholarships to two recent Loyola Marymount graduates, John Mazzarella and Aron Little.

The scholarships cover tuition, room and board, air fare, limited domestic travel and academic fees incurred while studying in another country.

Mazzarella, who plans to study international relations, and Little, who plans to study theology, will study in Italy.

UCLA Extension’s film and television unit has appointed Jerry Greenberg, a producer of concerts and television commercials, as coordinator of its certificate program.

Greenberg, a former vice president of 20th Century Fox, has more than 20 years of experience in film, television and advertising. His duties as coordinator will include long-term planning, marketing and fund-raising.

The unit also appointed Jim Presnal as manager of its 240 courses, seminars and workshops. Presnal, a native of Austin, Texas, served last year as manager of the International Film and Television Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

Santa Monica resident Caryn Levine has been selected as chairwoman of the Jewish Family Service of Santa Monica’s Kitchen Design Tour, which will be held Oct. 7.

The tour will showcase nine recently remodeled kitchens in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Bel-Air and Pacific Palisades.

The Jewish Community Foundation has awarded Charles and Dora Mesnick Awards to Susan Parker, director of the Senior Alliance for Frail Elderly, and Naomi Steinhardt.

Parker and Steinhardt were instrumental in developing the alliance program, which works to prevent the institutionalization of frail elderly clients, at Jewish Family Service of Santa Monica.

The National Foundation for Ileitis and Colitis will award its Torch of Friendship Award to Paul F. Glaser, president and chief operating officer of Quotron Systems Inc.

Glaser, a longtime supporter of the foundation, will be honored at a dinner Oct. 18 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.