Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 27, 1991 TAG: 9103270383
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
It was soon after reforms began sweeping across Eastern Europe, and a group of students and researchers from what used to be called the Soviet bloc was ready to study free enterprise.
The one-week stop in Blacksburg was included on an itinerary that also featured trips to New York, Chicago and Washington.
Blacksburg now will be the featured stop for Valsan, who will study at Tech for four months on a Fulbright scholarship.
Officials are not sure when he will arrive to work under Rodney Thompson, a professor of finance in the R.B. Pamplin College of Business. Thompson worked with the Eastern Europeans when they visited in September.
Valsan, an instructor of international economic relations at the Institute of World Economy in Bucharest, has kept in touch with Tech professors since he returned home.
He's written letters to Thompson about the decline in Romania's economy.
"He's said there are shortages of fuel and energy and that the economy is not doing as well as it should be," Thompson said.
When Valsan, 26, comes to Tech, he will study the impact multinational corporations and direct foreign investment can have on a country - his country - in transition.
"The whole group of students was very interested in how to go from an economy that's planned to one that's private," Thompson said.
It's a question that interests economists and professors in this country, as well.
"They're accustomed to getting jobs and having cheap goods, and they're not going to have that," Thompson said. "You would think that those of us who are trained as economists could just say, `Do it this way.' But we can't say that. It would be silly to say, `Do it this way and it'll work.' "
by CNB