Terry College of Business - Fall 2009 - (Page 34)
The Perfect Storm Mark Martin (MBA ’07) enrolled in Terry’s MBA program to learn how to sculpt a business plan for a charter school he planned to start in Atlanta. When Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, Martin saw a chance to give a failing school district wiped clean by a tragic act of nature a new lease on life. t’s 8 a.m. and a gaggle of wide-awake first graders are bouncing about their classroom like Keystone Cops. When the lower-grades principal enters the room to deliver today’s culture lesson, the students — called “scholars” here at the Langston Hughes Academy charter school — weave their way between desks until most are sitting on a mat at the back of the room. For stragglers, instructions are delivered: “Silently move to your squares and get into scholar positions.” The young students — boys in white shirts and grey trousers, girls in plaid dresses — sit cross-legged and look up attentively at the young man with flowing locks, an athlete’s physique, and an incongruous blue pinstripe suit. He leans against a desk’s edge, wingtips on the floor, and offers the class an important life lesson via a baseball analogy. “You know how a baseball manager shares secret signals with his players,” he asks rhetorically, and then demonstrates a few, touching his nose, chin, chest. The students — framed by posters on the wall: “Dream. Do. Be.” — nod in excited agreement. “Well, sometimes the manager wants a big hit . . . but sometimes he wants a bunt to By Alex Crevar (AB ’92) Photography by Jackson Hill terry.uga.edu
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