BOOKS FOR PROGRESS (B4P)

It was May 2019, and Maria Robinson, chief executive officer of Books for Progress (B4P), was evaluating the success of B4P's April textbook drive. In addition to B4P's textbook drives in Southern California, for the first time, Robinson’s team had run a textbook drive through a student group at San Francisco University, CA. This new drive had been successful, and Robinson was considering developing a more permanent presence at San Francisco University.

This new endeavor would involve establishing relationships with student groups, professors, and university administration so that textbook-collection boxes (drop boxes) could be permanently located in central areas on campus. The boxes would then be monitored so the textbooks could be picked up regularly and shipped to the B4P headquarters, where the books would then be donated to schools across South Africa, sold online to fund shipping and implementation costs, donated to student clubs at California universities, or recycled appropriately. While considering this eastward expansion, Robinson also wanted to investigate the viability of undergoing similar expansions to Victoria University, Victoria, CA and the University of Sacramento (U of Sacramento). She wanted to evaluate the financial feasibility of each of these proposed locations before making any final decisions.

History

B4P was Inspired by a trip Robinson took to South Africa in 2017. While teaching at the University of South Africa of Finance and Banking, Robinson noticed a deficit in the educational materials available at the institution. She knew there were thousands of textbooks in California that were no longer being used, which could be redistributed to students in need in South Africa. After graduating from Southern University with an honors degree in business from the Elite Business School (San Diego, CA) in 2017, Robinson partnered with an acquaintance William Hartness to found B4P at the Southern University, CA.

In the beginning, B4P collected textbooks from the Southern University campus and soon expanded to other schools in California. A list of campus locations with B4P drop boxes can be found in Exhibit l. To be more central to the textbook collections, Robinson and her team were in the process of moving B4P's headquarters from Southern University, California to San Francisco. The move would be complete by August 2019, before textbook collections

from the 2019-20 school year would begin. Textbook collections had grown by over 200%, so Robinson was optimistic about B4P's future.

Operations

Post-secondary textbooks were inserted by their owners into drop boxes or given to student representatives through student-club textbook-collection drives on behalf of B4P. California's academic school year ran primarily from September to April, so the majority of textbooks were collected in April. The textbooks were collected and transported to B4P headquarters at a cost of .20 cents 1 per mile and $ 14 per hour for the drivers' wages. Six hundred books could be shipped in a single shipment, although the average shipment consisted of only 250 books. Drivers were located in San Francisco and were compensated for the round trip from the collection school to headquarters, as well as for one hour of time at the collection school. After reaching B4P's warehouse, the books were sorted by warehouse workers. Warehouse workers were paid $ 11 per hour, and they scanned, sorted, shelved, and tracked 30 books in an hour.

25% of the textbooks collected were sorted for listing on Amazon; half of those books listed had been sold at an average price of $40. After a period of time, any listed unsold books were deemed unsalable and were then donated to schools in South Africa. 50% of the textbooks collected were immediately categorized for donation to South Africa. Donated textbooks were shipped to South Africa once 24,000 books (deemed appropriate for donation) had been collected. Shipping costs fluctuated widely due to a variety of factors (e.g. distance from the South African coast and the number of border crossings required) and averaged $ 16,000 per shipment. The remaining 25% of books collected were too out of date to sell online or to donate, so they were recycled. Since textbooks were difficult to recycle responsibly, all textbook recycling was done through an eco-reliable partner in the United States at a recycling cost of $ 15 (including transportation) for every 500 textbooks.

Management Team

B4P had five members on its management team, including Robinson and Hartness, who assumed corporate financial officer roles. These members were employed full time by B4P. All were recent graduates of Western University, McMillen University, or Mary & William University. All five management team members had travelled to Africa to witness B4P's impact on the post-secondary education system, and to learn how they could maximize their contributions on behalf of B4P.

Outcomes

As of May 2019, B4P had donated 24,000 books to South African universities, provided $69,300 in micro loans, donated $37,600 to California non-profits,' and reused or recycled

1 All currency amounts are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified.

37,000 textbooks. In the 2018-19 post-secondary academic year, 88,000 books had been collected. Robinson was proud of the contribution her team was making to their local and global communities, but she was eager to further that impact through more growth and expansion.

Expansion Opportunities

B4P had already executed successful expansions into the Los Angeles & Baja. Eventually, Robinson wanted to expand B4P textbook collections to other states, but she understood that achieving successful local expansion should be the first step. Expansions were executed by forming relationships with student clubs, school administration (staff), and faculty departments and members. Through these relationships, B4P obtained permission to place drop boxes in central locations and hired student ambassadors at each institution to monitor the drop boxes. The majority of student ambassadors were volunteers, but B4P paid one student ambassador at each school an annual salary of up to $ 1,750.

Any expansion to a new location would follow the same collection process, and textbook collections would be similarly shipped to B4P's warehouse. In order to manage additional student ambassadors and relationships with collection schools, Robinson planned to hire a campus community manager if the eastern expansion was pursued. The campus community manager would work full time and earn an annual salary of $ 40,000. 75% of the manager's time would be spent on managing the eastern expansion, and 25% would be spent on managing existing drop box locations where B4P presence was lacking. Robinson expected that historical proportions of textbooks sold, donated, and recycled would be the same for all new locations. An expansion would be considered successful if B4P could break even and increase its exposure and book donations; however, Robinson and Hartness would consider an expansion a financial success if B4P could earn a 5% profit.

B4P's new warehouse would have the capacity to sort and store textbooks from all three proposed universities. However, Hartness was concerned about potential roadblocks to transporting textbooks from the collection universities to B4P's warehouse. The textbooks would need to be stored at the collection universities until enough books had been collected to warrant the driver's pickup time. If pickups took longer than anticipated, the driver might need to stay overnight in the region due to regulatory requirements. Hartness was unsure how this constraint would affect the financial feasibility of the expansion, so she wanted to ensure that any expansion that B4P pursued would have a healthy margin of safety.

Victoria University

1
Victoria was located in Fresno, approximately 330 miles east of San Francisco . Victoria was

home to 17,400 full-time, undergraduate students and over 4,000 graduate and post-graduate students. These students studied at one of the university's six facilities, the largest of which was the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Victoria was known for its school spirit, its long history, and its attractive waterfront campus.

Victoria student government, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), included the Campus Activities Commission (CAC). CAC was responsible for running campus events and programs to promote school spirit and social awareness (including mental-health awareness initiatives) at Victoria. If B4P decided to start an on-campus textbook collection at Victoria, Robinson thought CAC would make a good partner. B4P had hosted a textbook-collection drive in April 2019 with AMS members and potential campus ambassadors. Based on this experience, Robinson was optimistic about Victoria students' support of on-campus drop boxes, so she estimated that 12,250 books could be collected in the 2019-20 school year at Victoria.

Brownstone University

2 Brownstone was located just south of Riverside, 520 miles east of San Francisco . The

university enrolled 24,100 undergraduate students and 3,700 graduate students. Brownstone was known for its interdisciplinary and flexible degree program options, a global focus, and its self-contained campus that fostered a sense of campus community. Brownstone offered more than 65 degree programs across a wide range of disciplines.

Brownstone's undergraduate students were represented by the Brownstone University Student's Association (CUSA). CUSA did not have a committee similar to CAC at Victoria, but CUSA regularly funded and supported over 250 student clubs. Since B4P had not yet performed any on-campus marketing at Brownstone, Robinson estimated that 5,500 books could be collected from Brownstone in B4P's first year.

The University of Sacramento

Located in California's capital city of Sacramento, U of Sacramento was the largest bilingual

(English-French) university in the world, and it was situated 540 miles east of San

3
Francisco . The campus was also within walking distance of California's government

buildings on Capitol Hill. The school was known for its co-operative education program, bilingualism, and research. Over 36,000 undergraduate, 4,500 masters and 1,900 doctorate and post-graduate students studied on U of Sacramento's campus. At U of Sacramento, the

1 Driving from Victoria to the B4P headquarters took approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes. 2 Driving from Brownstone to San Francisco took approximately 5 hours.
3 Driving from Univ. of Sacramento to San Francisco took approximately 5 hours.

largest faculty was social science, which registered almost 25% of the student population. The balance of the students studied at one of U of Sacramento's nine other facilities.

The Student Federation of the University of Sacramento (SFUO), the university's student council, managed over 250 clubs and organized awareness campaigns, philanthropic initiatives, and on-campus social events. The federation was committed to advocating for affordable post-secondary education in California; therefore, Robinson believed that B4P's mission to support education in developing regions would align with the interests of U of Sacramento's students. Since U of Sacramento was larger than Brownstone, Robinson estimated that 12,250 books could be collected from U of Sacramento in B4P's first year.

Decision

B4P had already established partnerships with students at Victoria while conducting its April textbook drive, so Robinson was confident that B4P would be able to do the same at Brownstone and U of Sacramento. It would, however, take time to gain permission to place the drop boxes around each campus. Robinson was open to expanding to all three schools eventually, but she wanted to select one school to expand to first, if at all. This approach would give Robinson and her team time to improve the textbook collection and transportation model without expanding too quickly. Since B4P management would not be able to visit campuses very often, it would be important to hire a dedicated team of volunteer campus ambassadors. Robinson was anxious to make a decision about her next steps so that B4P's team would have time to place drop boxes on the campuses during the first semester of the 2019-20 academic year.

EXHIBIT 1: CAMPUS LOCATIONS WITH B4P DROP BOXES

l. Western University

2. Shawe College

3. Mary & William University

4. Mary & William University — Brantford Campus

5. University of Waterford

6. University of Gulliver

7. Shenandoah College

8. McMillen University

9. Northeast College

10. Branford University

11. Humboldt College

12. University of Sacramento – St. George Campus

13. York University

Required:

1. Qualitatively, what are the pros and cons of expansion?

2. Qualitatively, what are the pros and cons of partnering with Victoria University, Brownstone University, and the University of Sacramento?

3. Identify the fixed and variable costs relevant to an expansion.

4. Calculate how many textbooks B4P would need to collect to break even at each of the three universities: Victoria, Brownstone, and U of Sacramento.

5. As Maria Robinson, what would you do? Defend your decision using your analysis.

Responses should be typed in paragraph format and use proper grammar and punctuation. Recommendations must be thorough and fully supported by evidence from the case study. Responses to questions 1 -5 above require at least one page of content or more. Therefore, the case study paper should be, at a minimum, five pages of content, excluding calculations and tables. Please be sure to include all tables, calculations, and analysis in an Appendix to the report.

5. This problem illustrates an interesting variation of simple random sampling.

a. Open a blank spreadsheet and use the RAND() 
function to create a column of 1000 random numbers. Don’t freeze them. This is actually
a simple random sample from the uniform distribution between 0 and 1. Use the COUNTIF function to count the number of values between
0 and 0.1, between 0.1 and 0.2, and so on. Each such interval should contain about 1/10 of all values. Do they? (Keep pressing the F9 key to see how the results change.) 


b.Repeat part a, generating a second column of random numbers, but now generate the first 100
as uniform between 0 and 0.1, the next 100 as uniform between 0.1 and 0.2, and so on, up to
0.9 to 1. (Hint: For example, to create a random number uniformly distributed between 0.5 and 0.6, use the formula =0.5+0.1*RAND(). Do you see why?) Again, use COUNTIF to find the number of the 1000 values in each of the intervals, although there shouldn’t be any surprises this time. Why might this type of random sampling be preferable to the random sampling in part a? (Note: The sampling in part a is called Monte Carlo sampling, whereas the sampling in part b is basically Latin Hypercube sampling, the form of sampling we advocate in Chapters 15 and 16 on simulation.)

DS is a 3 month old male triplet born at 30 weeks who presented to the PICU with acute respiratory failure in the setting of bronchiolitis. He has had rhinorrhea for the past week. He has thickened mucous, decreased PO, and developed increased WOB. He was taken to an outside hospital and started on HFNC, antibiotics, and MIFV. Also got a CXR. When the HFNC air flow was reduced from 12L/min to 8L/min, patient suffered L lung collapse. He’s given intrapulmonary percussive ventilation and the lung recovered. Patient is diagnosed to have RSV infection.

1) An RSV infection is a common cold for adults, but it’s a life-threatening emergency for this baby. Why is that? Make sure your answer includes some technical terms such as “resistance” and “bronchoconstriction”.

3) Why does his lung collapse?

3) If you measured this patient’s Tidal Volume, Vital Capacity, Respiratory Rate, and Minute Ventilation under normal conditions and compared them to the those measurements during his illness, how would they compare? Explain.

PICU = pediatric intensive care unit

Bronchiolitis = inflammation of the bronchioles

Rhinorrhea = runny nose

PO = oral intake (it’s the Latin abbreviation)

WOB = work of breathing

HFNC = high flow nasal cannula

MIFV = maintenance intravenous fluids

CXR = chest X-ray

RSV = respiratory syncytial virus

Global Facility Location Assignment

1. Pick any one of these: Wal-Mart retail outlet in East Asia; McDonald’s restaurant in Europe; an international HUB in Asia (other than China) for FedEX; Ford Motor Corporation assembly plant in North America; or Eberly College’s off-shore campus with a partner in Latin America (we have partners in Asia, the Middle East, & Europe).

2. Clearly identify what factors (country-specific as well as region and industry/business specific) you would use in deciding if and where you would locate your facility.

3. Would you use any specific methodology or quantitative tool in your analysis? Discuss.

4. Finally, if you were responsible for making the decision, would you locate the facility in this country or not? Why or why not?

5. DO NOT consider the COVID 19 situation since it is too early to know its impact.

No more than two pages (single- or double-spaced)

Cite any references that you might use on an additional page

Show a map on an additional page.

Rubric

1. Factors identified at country/region levels and business-specific (50%)
   1. Comprehensive
   2. Acceptable
   3. Not clear
2. Methodology or Quantitative tool recommendation (15%)
   1. Ideal
   2. Acceptable
   3. Not pertinent
3. Decision to locate the facility (25%)
   1. Articulated very well
   2. Acceptable
   3. Not convincing
4. Map (10%)

E.    References (Bonus up to 25%!)

Have you ever wondered what happens to your recycled plastics when they are picked up at the curb by the trash truck? It gives everybody a good feeling to recycle, but what if recycling means more trash fees?

Michael Dumper, CEO of Belmont Waste Hauling, recently told citizens of Belmont at a recent Town Council meeting that because of the closure of the closest recycling center, he will now need to haul recycled plastics almost 200 miles to be recycled. Recyclables make up almost 40% of the trash load from Belmont and as a result Belmont Waste Hauling will lose money on hauling recyclables.

The city of Belmont requires all municipal buildings and all newly constructed public buildings to provide recycling containers for use. Belmont Waste Hauling will continue to haul the city’s waste and recycling this year, but the company’s contract with the city expires next June. At that point the city will need to renegotiate a new contract, maybe with a new company.

Many of the larger trash hauling giants are not willing to deal with the many issues involved with recycling plastics and simply bury it in landfills. It takes a lot of money up front to recycle, and they are not willing to lose any amount of profit on any load of trash.

Michael Dumper maintains that he wants to keep the Belmont trash contract. He hopes that with a small increase in fees he can continue to serve the city of Belmont. Competition forces companies to stop recycling programs unless consumers are willing to pay for them, he says. And yes, finding recycling centers that are still sorting and recycling is a challenge, but Michael is not yet conceding defeat and will continue to face the challenge of finding the plants that are still operating.

1. Discuss the reasons some trash haulers dump recyclable plastics into landfills.
2. Explain why aluminum cans are recycled more often than most other recyclables.
3. Give three reasons why it is important to recycle as much as possible.
4. Identify three materials that can be recycled, other than plastic or aluminum, and explain how they are recycled.

John Rigas (founder and CEO of Adelphia Communications Corporation) was an extraordinary man. Throughout his professional career, he was honored for his entrepreneurial achievements and his humanitarian service. Among other awards, he received three honorable doctorate degrees from distinguished universities, was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (his college alma mater) and was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of Fame by Broadcasting and Cable magazine. He worked hard to acquire wealth and status. But a $2.3 billion financial fraud eventually cost Rigas everything. Rigas and his company, Adelphia Communications, started out small. With $72,000 of borrowed money, he began his business career in 1950 by purchasing a movie theater in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. Two years later, he overdrew his bank account to buy the town cable franchise with $300 of his own money. Through risky debt-financing, Rigas continued to acquire assets until, in 1972, he and his brother created Adelphia Communications Corporation. The company grew quickly, eventually becoming the sixth largest cable company in the world with over 5.6 million subscribers. From its inception, Adelphia had always been a family business, owned and operated by the Rigas clan. During the 1990s, the company was run by John Rigas, his three sons, and his son-in-law. Altogether, members of the Rigas family occupied a majority five of the nine seats on Adelphia’s board of directors and held the following positions: John Rigas, CEO and chairman of the board (father); Tim Rigas, CFO and board member (son); Michael Rigas, executive vice president and board member (son); James Rigas, executive vice president and board member (son); Peter Venetis, board member (son-in-law). This family dominance in the company was maintained through stock voting manipulation. The company issued two types of stock: Class A stock, which held one vote each, and Class B stock, which held 10 votes each. When shares of stock were issued, however, the Rigas family kept all Class B shares to themselves, giving them a majority ruling when company voting occurred. With a majority presence on the board of directors and an effectual influence among voting shareholders, the Rigas family was able to control virtually every financial decision made by the company. However, exclusive power led to corruption and fraud. The family established a cash management system, an enormous account of commingled revenues from Adelphia, other Rigas entities, and loan proceeds. Although funds from this account were used throughout all the separate entities, none of their financial statements were ever consolidated. The family members began to dip into the cash management account, using these funds to finance their extravagant lifestyle and to hide their crimes. The company paid $4 million to buy personal shares of Adelphia stock for the family. It paid for Tim Rigas’s $700,000 membership at the Golf Club at Briar’s Creek in South Carolina. With company funds, the family bought three private jets, maintained several vacation homes (in Cancun, Beaver Creek, Hilton Head, and Manhattan), and began construction of a private world-class golf course. In addition, Adelphia financed, with $3 million, the production of Ellen Rigas’s (John Rigas’s daughter) movie Song Catcher. John Rigas was honored for his large charitable contributions. But these contributions also likely came from company proceeds. In the end, the family had racked up approximately $2.3 billion in fraudulent off-balance-sheet loans. The company manipulated its financial statements to conceal the amount of debt it was accumulating. False transactions and phony companies were created to inflate Adelphia’s earnings and to hide its debt. When the family fraud was eventually caught, it resulted in an SEC investigation, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, and multiple indictments and heavy sentences. The perpetrators (namely, John Rigas and his sons) were charged with the following counts: Violation of the RICO Act Breach of fiduciary duties Waste of corporate assets Abuse of control Breach of contract Unjust enrichment Fraudulent conveyance Conversion of corporate assets Until he was convicted of serious fraud, everybody loved John Rigas. He was trusted and respected in the small town of Coudersport and famous for his charitable contributions and ability to make friends. He had become a role model for others to follow. With a movie theater and a $300 cable tower, he had built one of the biggest empires in the history of cable television. From small beginnings, he became a multimillion-dollar family man who stressed good American values. But his goodness only masked the real John Rigas, and in the end, it was his greed and deceit that ultimately cost him and his family everything.

Questions

4.) Based on the facts of the case, do you think this case has led to civil litigation, criminal prosecution, or both? Explain your answer. 5.) Suppose you were an expert witness in this case. What would be some of the facts to which you would pay special attention?

John Rigas (founder and CEO of Adelphia Communications Corporation) was an extraordinary
man. Throughout his professional career, he was honored for his entrepreneurial achievements
and his humanitarian service. Among other awards, he received three honorable doctorate
degrees from distinguished universities, was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute (his college alma mater) and was inducted into the Cable Television Hall of
Fame by Broadcasting and Cable magazine. He worked hard to acquire wealth and status. But a
$2.3 billion financial fraud eventually cost Rigas everything.

Rigas and his company, Adelphia Communications, started out small. With $72,000 of borrowed
money, he began his business career in 1950 by purchasing a movie theater in Coudersport,
Pennsylvania. Two years later, he overdrew his bank account to buy the town cable franchise
with $300 of his own money. Through risky debt-financing, Rigas continued to acquire assets
until, in 1972, he and his brother created Adelphia Communications Corporation. The company
grew quickly, eventually becoming the sixth largest cable company in the world with over 5.6
million subscribers.

From its inception, Adelphia had always been a family business, owned and operated by the
Rigas clan. During the 1990s, the company was run by John Rigas, his three sons, and his son-in-
law. Altogether, members of the Rigas family occupied a majority five of the nine seats on
Adelphia’s board of directors and held the following positions:
John Rigas, CEO and chairman of the board (father); Tim Rigas, CFO and board member (son);
Michael Rigas, executive vice president and board member (son); James Rigas, executive vice
president and board member (son); Peter Venetis, board member (son-in-law).
This family dominance in the company was maintained through stock voting manipulation. The
company issued two types of stock: Class A stock, which held one vote each, and Class B stock,
which held 10 votes each. When shares of stock were issued, however, the Rigas family kept all
Class B shares to themselves, giving them a majority ruling when company voting occurred.
With a majority presence on the board of directors and an effectual influence among voting
shareholders, the Rigas family was able to control virtually every financial decision made by the
company. However, exclusive power led to corruption and fraud. The family established a cash
management system, an enormous account of commingled revenues from Adelphia, other Rigas
entities, and loan proceeds. Although funds from this account were used throughout all the
separate entities, none of their financial statements were ever consolidated.

The family members began to dip into the cash management account, using these funds to
finance their extravagant lifestyle and to hide their crimes. The company paid $4 million to buy
personal shares of Adelphia stock for the family. It paid for Tim Rigas’s $700,000 membership at
the Golf Club at Briar’s Creek in South Carolina. With company funds, the family bought three
private jets, maintained several vacation homes (in Cancun, Beaver Creek, Hilton Head, and
Manhattan), and began construction of a private world-class golf course. In addition, Adelphia
financed, with $3 million, the production of Ellen Rigas’s (John Rigas’s daughter) movie Song
Catcher. John Rigas was honored for his large charitable contributions. But these contributions
also likely came from company proceeds.

In the end, the family had racked up approximately $2.3 billion in fraudulent off-balance-sheet
loans. The company manipulated its financial statements to conceal the amount of debt it was
accumulating. False transactions and phony companies were created to inflate Adelphia’s
earnings and to hide its debt. When the family fraud was eventually caught, it resulted in an SEC
investigation, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, and multiple indictments and heavy sentences. The
perpetrators (namely, John Rigas and his sons) were charged with the following counts:

Violation of the RICO Act

Breach of fiduciary duties

Waste of corporate assets

Abuse of control

Breach of contract

Unjust enrichment

Fraudulent conveyance

Conversion of corporate assets

Until he was convicted of serious fraud, everybody loved John Rigas. He was trusted and respected in the small town of Coudersport and famous for his charitable contributions and abilityto make friends. He had become a role model for others to follow. With a movie theater and a $300 cable tower, he had built one of the biggest empires in the history of cable television. From small beginnings, he became a multimillion-dollar family man who stressed good American values. But his goodness only masked the real John Rigas, and in the end, it was his greed and deceit that ultimately cost him and his family everything.

One unintended consequence of giving public schools incentives for their students to do well on standardized tests is that it may lead to "teaching to the test" at the expense of teaching subjects that are not tested. If the standardized exams given by the state test reading comprehension and mathematics, would you expect these teaching distortions to be the same at the elementary and high school level? Explain.

Research shows that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds come to school with fewer words in their repertoire than same aged peers from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore intentional and explicit vocabulary instruction is important in every unit. How will you present and reinforce scientific language (vocabulary) in your instruction in a variety of ways?