Harvard Business School and UVA Darden have certainly seen their alumni make more impressive headlines, as two of their most infamous respective grads are in the news again this week.
Mark Sanford—a Darden alumnus (’88) whose time “hiking the Appalachian Trail” in 2009 turned out to be a cover for an extramarital tryst in Argentina that left his final gubernatorial term marred by scandal—has made a rather momentous comeback. The people of South Carolina have found it in their hearts to forgive the Republican ex-governor for his misdeeds, electing Sanford to Congress by a margin of nearly ten percentage points over his Democratic opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Bush—the sister of satirist Stephen Colbert. While Sanford’s transgression may seem a departure from the rigorous code of honor embraced by his alma mater, his choice of euphemism at least recalls the time he spent in Charlottesville at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains.
Meanwhile, DealBook reports that HBS’s own notorious alumnus Jeffrey Skilling (’79) has managed a slightly more modest comeback: a reduced prison sentence. The former Enron president, who had been facing nearly a quarter of a century of imprisonment for fraud and conspiracy, may now be released as early as 2017.