A Cast of Leaders

"I knew at the age of three what I wanted to do," says Patrick Corbin, one of the lead dancers in the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Frank Wood, who is appearing in the play "Side Man," tells them, "Acting eliminated everything else." Madeleine L'Engle, author of "A Wrinkle in Time" and other best-selling children's books, remembers, "I got hold of a pencil at the age of five."

Natalie, the teaching assistant, speaks of "ambition" as if it were a medical condition that she'd like to contract. "I hope it's something that will develop," she worries. "Well, damn, it's not here right now. If you don't have it, can you get it?"

Katie Murphy is one of four students who are taking a course in entertainment law this semester (the course coincides with the "Leadership and the Arts" program). Two weeks into the course, she has already absorbed her first piece of valuable information: Entertainment law is boring. Now she has no idea what to do. "I used to think there was something seriously wrong with me because I didn't have my life figured out," she says.

Some students figure that they'll wind up in business in much the same way that the skinny, uncoordinated kid whom nobody wants finally gets picked for the playground ball game. "If you know that you're not an academic," says David McKenzie, "and you know that you're not a professional, what's left?"

Arrangements are made for the students to have lunch with Andrew Tisch, who, along with a brother and a cousin, is copresident of Loews Corp., a $21 billion conglomerate. "Tisch" is one of those New York names that one sees in steel letters on the walls of hospitals and university auditoriums. It is also a good name to know back in Duke's home state, North Carolina: One of Loews's subsidiaries is Lorillard Tobacco, based in Greensboro. Tisch was one of the tobacco executives who, in 1994, raised their hands before a congressional subcommittee and swore that smoking does not cause cancer. This may or may not explain why, when Tisch comes into the room to meet with a group of kids, he has a pr woman at his side.

The students sit around a conference-room table with their hands folded politely in their laps. Each of the boys is wearing a jacket and tie. The difference between Tisch and the glamorous artists whom the students have met so far during this program is immediately apparent: This man does not sing or dance. He is a businessman. He is a sobering reminder that someday these students will all have to go out and get a job.

Tisch introduces himself by rattling off a list of the companies owned by the Loews holding company, along with the percentages of stock that it controls ("Bulova -- 97%; CNA Financial Corp. -- 85%; Diamond Offshore Drilling -- 52%; Loews Hotels -- all of it; Lorillard -- all of it . . ."). "We will not invest in the Internet," he says almost proudly. "We don't understand it. We don't understand the value creation."

Elias Muhanna, a philosophy major and budding novelist who hails from Lebanon and whose family now lives in Cyprus, wants to know if there's "a continuum of principles or ideals that govern this holding company?"

"We always look at both the letter and the spirit of the law," says Tisch. "In our oil business, 60% of expenses goes toward a clean environment. We do that because (a) it's mandated by law, and (b) it's the right thing to do."

Melinda Steele is not quite sure Tisch has his a's and b's in the right order. She spent a semester in Zimbabwe and is concerned about women's rights and health issues. She asks Tisch, "What is business's responsibility to the community?"

"When you operate a company, you have a lot of different people you want to take care of," says Tisch. "Your shareholders, your employees -- but if you look at it on a Machiavellian level, you also have a responsibility to the community, because that's where you're going to get your pool of future employment."

In a moment of reflection, Tisch thinks back on his own college years. If he had it to do all over again, he wouldn't have gone so quickly from school into the family business. "I should have spent two years on the outside, being more anonymous," he says. Then, as if realizing that lack of anonymity may be a highly Tisch-specific problem, he offers some more proletarian advice, urging students to carpe whatever diem happens to come their way. "People aren't going to pull you through the portal," he counsels. "When the door's open, walk through it."

Johannes Kraft, an exchange student from Munich, will soon walk through that door, and he won't much care for what he sees on the other side. For weeks, he has been expressing an interest in investment banking. Over spring break, he'll spend a day inside a firm that trades in government securities -- and he'll come back looking shell-shocked. "It was 90 people in a room screaming at each other," he will report.