UVA Darden Professor Mary Margaret Frank Mentors Students on the National Debt

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business research Center of Excellence the Initiative for Business in Society (IBiS) recently posed a complex, blunt question: What can we do to curb the rising cost of health care?

The Darden Business in Society Conference: Building Shared Value focused on this question, which explores the critical role of health care and the national debt.

Darden student leaders from six student clubs — Net Impact; Energy; Business & Public Policy; Health Care; Education; and Emerging Markets Development — engaged with conference speakers and panelists, faculty, staff and undergraduate students from across the University of Virginia.

“Using design thinking as a catalyst to generate solutions, the group agreed that stratifying the types of medical service providers and reducing inefficiencies through information exchange and by changing patient expectations, are key for curbing the cost of health care,” said Mary Margaret Frank, associate professor of business administration and an academic director of IBiS.

The event coincided with the selection of UVA’s team of student leaders slated to compete in the national debt awareness campaign, “Up to Us.” The Clinton Global Initiative University, Peter G. Peterson Foundation and Net Impact co-sponsored the campaign to engage college students in a national discussion on the federal government’s long-term debt. Following a six-week campaign period, the teams will be judged for creativity, efficacy and peer participation.

Frank, who teaches tax policy, recognized the need for graduate and undergraduate students to seriously consider the issue. In a university-wide event held 11 February and supported by IBiS, the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, the School of Engineering & Applied Science, University of Virginia School of Law, The Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics and the Miller Center, United States Senator Mark Warner presented the dire situation to the crowd in simple terms.

“Tomorrow morning when you wake up, that 16.5 trillion number goes up by three billion dollars every 24 hours, and you guys are paying,” said Senator Warner.