IF YOU GO:
What: Michelle Singletary
Where: Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium
When: 6:30 p.m.
How much: Free
 

Students can learn how to avoid debt while in school in a lecture from Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary on Thursday.

Singletary will speak about debt and other financial issues relevant to college students in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Both the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management sponsor the lecture.

“It’s good for students to understand the long-term impact of debt,” said Mel Stith, dean of Whitman. “Starting a situation positively or negatively will have an impact on people’s livelihood later on.”

Singletary’s column, “The Color of Money,” appears in syndication in more than 120 newspapers across the United States and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She also hosts a live online chat at washingtonpost.com, produces an e-newsletter with more than 150,000 subscribers and hosts a half-hour personal finance reality show.

Lorraine Branham, dean of Newhouse, said Singletary is an engaging speaker for both Newhouse and Whitman students because she has expertise in journalism and finance. Before becoming a columnist, Singletary was a business reporter.

“I remember when Michelle was just starting out as an intern when she was at the University of Maryland and I was an editor at the Baltimore Sun,” Branham said in an e-mail. “It has been great to watch her career progress. She serves as a great example to students as to how one builds a career in journalism. And hopefully she will provide some useful financial information for non-journalism students.”

Singletary was previously scheduled to speak on Feb. 10 as part of Black History Month, but she canceled her talk due to heavy snow that grounded planes in Washington, D.C.

Branham said it was difficult to find a new date so late in the semester.

“It is unfortunate because a lot of students are really busy, and I worry we won’t have a good turnout,” she said.

But Stith said he is not worried about a low turnout.

“We have a number of people very interested, both in the student body and within the community,” he said.

At Newhouse, eight out of 10 students asked said they did not know about the event.

When graduate student Ben Carter was told about Singletary’s lecture, he said he is fearful of his loan totals.

“I have to go to that,” Carter said, “to get an adult’s perspective on college loans – we don’t hear about that in college.”

More Whitman students than Newhouse students said they know about the event, but the busy time of year will keep some of them from attending.

Tarek El Gammal-Ortiz, a junior finance major, said he learned of the event via e-mail and wanted to attend. But a workshop at Goldman Sachs in New York will prevent him from going.

These sentiments are shared by other Whitman students, including Alyssa Snow, a junior finance and accounting major who said a test on financial planning is stopping her from attending.

“Honestly, I probably won’t go,” Snow said. “I’m interested, but I’m more interested in passing my test.”

Published on April 21, 2010 at 12:00 pm