After Feasting on Paris, Business Students Heading Home

The idea of visiting Paris can be an intimidating one. But for the 20 undergraduate UC business students who have been visiting it the past five days, the French capital has proven to be a feast of activities that have been eagerly pursued.

Paris is the last stop on a monthlong tour of Europe for the junior class in UC's Carl H. Lindner's Jr. Honors-PLUS program. Before the tour officially concludes as the students head back to Cincinnati Sept. 10 or to other European destinations on their own, the group met for one last fete - a formal French luncheon on Sept. 9 hosted by UC alumnus Myron "Mike" Ullman, the group managing director of LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton).

L'Avenue, a restaurant frequented by top models, provided the venue for the lunch along Avenue Montaigne, Paris' "main street" of fashion. A round room with walls and chairs upholstered in purple velvet, brightened by a chandelier with tiny lights that swayed like flickering candlelight, put students in comfortable surroundings to meet with Mr. Ullman.

"I'm very excited you are getting this opportunity (to travel through Europe) because frankly, I would not have wasted so much of my time not doing international business if I had had the same chance," said Ullman, who is the second in command at LVMH, the world's largest maker of luxury goods. Ullman, a 1969 graduate of UC's College of Business Administration now spends 75 percent of his time in Europe, while his home is in Woodstock, Calif. He began his career at IBM in Cincinnati, where he first became interested in international business while working with client P&G in Asia, Central America and South America.

In addition to the luncheon, Ullman also arranged for the UC students and the faculty and staff accompanying them to visit the LVMH Museum and workshops in Paris - two places not open to the public. Students viewed the baggage collection in the museum, guided by Cecile de la Perraudiere, and learned about the innovations the company founder, Louis Vuitton, introduced in luggage as new modes of transportation took the place of carriages and wagons. Production manager Guillaume Laval showed the students the behind-the-scenes workshops where dozens of craftsmen and women make exclusive, special-order Louis Vuitton items, such as trunks, handbags and briefcases, one piece at a time.

In addition to LVMH, two other businesses in Paris were on the students' itinerary: Accenture, a $9.75 billion company that recently became public, and Ipsos-ASI, a privately held company that is the No. 8 marketing research company in the world. At the first, the business students met with Michael Marks, a U.S. citizen who just transferred to one of Accenture's two Paris offices in May, and Eric Proy, associate partner. At Ipsos, the students listened to a presentation by Monique Bensimon, managing director.

In between the company visits the students had plenty of time to get acquainted with Parisian landmarks on their own or in groups. The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Palace of Versailles all beckoned them, as well as museums, shops, cafes and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Dan Themann, an Honors-PLUS Scholar from Cincinnati's Delhi neighborhood, was among the students who ventured into the Louvre museum, despite guidebook warnings of its overwhelming size. He thought he would spend a few hours at the Louvre and then head out to the Palace of Versailles.

"But I got seduced by the Louvre and ended up spending eight hours there," he said. He did take a brief break for lunch. "I realized they had all these great northern European painters, and I had to go check them out."

A tour guide on a bus tour during the students' first day in Paris had warned that it would take about 365 days to view each piece of art in the Louvre for just one minute. The museum is housed in a former palace, stretching 750 meters along the Seine on four levels in three wings.

Many travelers in the UC contingent who visited the Louvre the same day as Themann tried to dash quickly among the most famous pieces in one morning. But just getting from Leonardo de Vinci's Mona Lisa to the Venus de Milo proved to be a 45-minute journey as some galleries were locked off and new routes had to be mapped out.

Other Parisian sites that attracted the students' attention were the famous Avenue des Champs Elysees, the Tuileries garden, Basilique de Sacre-Coeur, or Sacred Heart, a mosque-like Catholic cathedral perched atop Paris' highest point on Montmatre Hill, and La Roue de Paris, a lighted ferris wheel built at Place de la Concorde for the Millennium 2000 celebration.

One small group from the UC corps traveled to Normandy to see the WWII memorials to the D-Day invasion.

With all sight-seeing at a "finis," there was no unanimous decision among the students in picking "the" favorite spot among the handful of cities they have visited the past month. The students' destinations have included Helsinki and Tampere in Finland, Amsterdam (Netherlands), Brussels and Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Stockholm and London were also on the list for students who took self-organized side trips.

Some chose Paris as their favorite stop, while others chose Helsinki for its peacefulness. "I can't decide between Paris and Amsterdam," says Beth Kramer, an Oak Hills High School grad and an Honors-PLUS scholar who says she might consider working overseas someday now that she has checked out the international scene so thoroughly on this trip. "It depends on the offer," said Kramer, who has never traveled outside the United States until now.

While Carrie Foulk, a University Honors student who has accompanied the Honors-PLUS students, would not vote for Paris as her favorite of the cities she visited, she does agree it was the "most picturesque."

No matter where they traveled or what they saw along the 32-day sojourn, the CBA undergraduates seemed to mature as international travelers along the way, noticed Norman Baker, Honors-PLUS director. "I think for about half of them it was really life-changing."

Pam Leist, a Honors-PLUS scholar from West Chester, said the trip has sparked her interest in international business. "It's been a great experience," she said before heading to the airport for a flight to Rome.

The students will gather back at UC for a special program later in September to reflect on what they've learned.

Raj Mehta, one of the faculty members who organized the trip and served as chief guide, suggests that the depth and impact of the trip may not really sink in for the students until much later. "It might not hit them for a while. When they go back home they will see that they have changed when no one else around them has. Or it may take three or four years from now when they are working somewhere to realize that it has made a difference."