People and Places: October 24, 2023

Honors and Awards

Entrepreneurship programs, centers, and teaching innovations recently were honored at a conference organized by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC), headquartered at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business in Houston. This year’s conference was hosted by the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at Dallas. Among the schools that won awards or were commended for their work were Waynesburg University, the University of Texas at Austin, Harvard University, the University at Buffalo, Iowa State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Utah, Loyola University New Orleans, Northeastern University, the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship, London Business School, Francisco Marroquin University, California Lutheran University, DePaul University, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The GCEC Legacy Award, which recognizes an individual for a lifetime of pioneering work in entrepreneurship, went to Rebecca White of the University of Tampa.

New Programs

The Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis, is launching an online Master of Management degree program. Designed to be shorter and less expensive than a typical MBA program, the new offering will target recent college graduates and working professionals. The 15-month part-time program, which will have a start date of April 2024, is being launched in partnership with edtech company 2U. The new program is modeled after the online MBA@UCDavis, with the same faculty teaching the same core courses in areas such as accounting, economics, finance, marketing, and strategy.

This fall, the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens welcomes its first cohort to the UGA Online MBA. While the part-time program is modeled after the school’s Professional MBA, the new offering is self-paced, allowing students to take between 17 and 23 months to finish it. Students have options to complete domestic and international residencies and are invited to attend a series of networking events as part of the program.

In the fall of 2024, the department of real estate and urban land economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business will debut an affordable housing and sustainable development track. The 12-credit graduate-level offering will have a soft launch this fall, prototyping some of its courses with current students. The new track will examine problems such as the long commute faced by hospital employees looking for affordable housing and the issue of landfills being overwhelmed with building material waste. Issues of sustainability and affordability don’t always run in parallel, notes Mark Eppli, director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, “because if you want to have sustainable housing, it costs more to build it.”

Next fall, Yale University’s School of Management (SOM) in New Haven, Connecticut, will offer a new one-year Master’s in Technology Management customized for graduates of Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) and other technical programs. The summer before classes begin, students will gain practical experience through a required internship. Next, they will take a slate of core courses that cover innovation, accounting, finance, marketing, and design. Finally, they will take elective courses at both SOM and SEAS in areas such as entrepreneurship, leadership, big data, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, and computer science. Graduates will receive a Master of Management Studies degree.

The Oakland University School of Business Administration in Rochester, Michigan, will offer its new Master of Science in Finance degree program beginning in winter 2024. The new program will cover topics such as investments, corporate finance, risk management, and credit analysis. In addition to classroom activities, students will gain practical experience through hands-on learning opportunities.

Collaborations

HEC Montréal and the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago have teamed up to offer a custom executive education program that helps business leaders make informed decisions when faced with ethical dilemmas. Through lectures, case studies, and hands-on sessions, participants will explore ethics and compliance issues in areas such as cybersecurity, data protection, fraud, corruption, and workplace harassment.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park has launched a collaboration with Montgomery College, a community college in Rockville, Maryland. The partnership provides a pathway for students in Montgomery’s new Associate of Arts in Business Analytics program to earn a Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) from the Smith School. Through the 2+2+1 track, students can spend two years at Montgomery, two years in the undergraduate program at the Smith School, and one year completing their MSBA degrees. Students practice using Excel, R, Tableau, and SQL; learn to summarize, visualize, and analyze data; study ethical issues in data management; and take part in project-based capstone projects.

Grants and Donations

The School of Business Administration at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, has received a 10.4 million USD contribution from local entrepreneurs and philanthropists Marc and Jane Katz. In recognition of the gift, the largest in the college’s history, the business school will be renamed the Katz School of Business. This is the first time Fort Lewis College will name an entire academic school in honor of a family. The donation will fund a wide range of initiatives, including a student-run marketing agency, a faculty and student development fund, and three endowed professorships. Marc Katz is the co-founder of Mercury Payment Systems.

Two alumni of the University of Chicago have made a 75 million USD commitment through a fundraising challenge designed to raise 150 million through matching donations. The money will be used to create 30 new endowed professorships across the university. The donors, Amy and Richard Wallman, will match each new commitment of 2.5 million USD or more. Each professorship will be named for the individual donors, and the resulting cohort of faculty will be known as the Wallman Society of Fellows. The Wallmans have made four other significant gifts that supported student scholarships, co-curricular programming, and faculty research at the Chicago Booth School of Business. In 2017, the Booth School named its honors program after them.

The University of Hawaiʻi (UH) at Mānoa has received 5 million USD from Honolulu philanthropist and former First Hawaiian Bank Chairman Walter A. Dods Jr. The money will support the new Residences for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs (RISE), a student entrepreneurship and innovation center that opened in August. Its programs are operated by the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship at UH Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business. Dods is an alumnus of the Shidler College and former president of the UH Foundation’s board of trustees. In honor of his gift, the building will be renamed the Walter Dods Jr. RISE Center.

Drexel University in Philadelphia has received a 1.5 million USD gift from R. John Chapel Jr. and his wife, Jinnie. The donation will establish the Chapel Learning and Tutoring Center in the LeBow College of Business, which will offer both in-person and virtual tutoring appointments. John Chapel is a LeBow alumnus, emeritus Drexel trustee, and CEO of private equity firm White Hall Capital. Through previous donations to the school, Chapel and his wife have endowed the R. John Chapel Jr. Dean’s Chair and supported scholarships, leadership development, and other initiatives.

American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C., has received a substantial gift from the Veloric family, including Gary Veloric, an alumnus of the Kogod School of Business. In recognition, the American University Center for Innovation will be renamed the Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship. The center offers opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs through experiential learning, pitch competitions, and an incubator program for students and alumni.

The School of Business at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, has received a sizable gift from longtime contributors David B. Baxa and his wife, Carole. The money will be used to create the Baxa Family Chair for Stakeholder Capitalism, an endowed position dedicated to promoting social cohesion, inclusive long-term prosperity, and environmental health in the economy. The inaugural chairholder will be Giles Jackson, director of Shenandoah’s Institute for Business, Sustainability and Society. David Baxa is a member of the university’s board of trustees, has served on the business school’s advisory board, and co-teaches a sustainability course with Jackson.

New Centers and Facilities

The Frankfurt School of Finance & Management has established the Frankfurt School Centre for Central Banking, which officially opens in January 2024. The center will address pressing issues in central banking, conduct research projects, expand the business school’s academic and executive education programs, and establish a professorship. The Banque Centrale du Luxembourg is the founding partner of the new center.

Niagara University’s Holzschuh College of Business Administration in New York will use a 500,000 USD Higher Education Capital Matching Grant to construct a facility to house the Centers for Food Industry Innovation and Supply Chain Excellence. The facility will include an innovation hub, a classroom of the future, and a business technology lab.

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