Growing “Super-Quant Managers” for Wall Street
At New York University, the Stern School of Business and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences have joined forces to offer a new joint MBA/MS degree, “Mathematics in Finance.” The dual-degree program was designed to give tomorrow’s “quant jocks” both depth in quantitative skills and breadth in management perspective to effectively manage risk, sophisticated trading models, and people in computation-driven financial markets. The program targets a need for managers who can steer companies through the fast-paced and rapidly evolving world of quantitative trading strategies, complex derivatives models, asset-backed securities, and other realities of finance today.

Training for Leaders with Disabilities
In programming considered a breakthrough for executives and managers with disabilities, the Anderson School of Management at the University of California-Los Angeles sponsored a Leadership Institute for Managers with Disabilities last month. The five-day program, offered through the school’s office of executive education, examined promotion and career advancement issues affecting professionals with disabilities in the context of leadership training. Laurie Dowling, faculty co-director of the institute, said the program was important in that it didn’t focus as much on “recruitment, hiring, and retention of people with disabilities” as it did on “how to self-facilitate one’s promotion as an executive with disabilities up the corporate career ramp.”

“We must have ‘out and proud’ disabled executives willing to distinguish themselves as role models,” said John D. Kemp, executive director and general counsel to the US Business Leadership Network, which helped sponsor the UCLA institute. “This program offers an opportunity to nurture our culture of disability and protect and enhance the identity of people with disabilities at all levels of a corporation.”

The Institute was offered as part of the Anderson School’s Leadership Suite series, which offer programs for African-American, Latino, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender managers.

Studies Find Surges in International Student Enrollment, Foreign Language Study
A report released last month by the Council of Graduate Schools finds that the total enrollment of international students at U.S. graduate schools increased 7 percent from 2006 to 2007, the largest gain since 2002. First-time enrollment was up 12 percent in business, compared to an increase of 10 percent in 2006. Total enrollment of students from China and India, the two countries that send the most students to the U.S., rose by 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, a separate report released last month by the Modern Language Association of America found that interest in language study at American colleges and universities has increased broadly and significantly since 2002. The survey found significant increases in enrollments in nearly all of the most popular languages studied on American college campuses. While the study of the most popular languages—Spanish, French, and German—continues to grow and together represents more than 70 percent of language enrollments, the study found that their dominance is slowly decreasing in the face of growing interest in languages such as Arabic (up 127%), Chinese (up 51%), and Korean (up 37%).

Quotable Quotes
“Rural India [and] rural China are primed to join the flat world. The technology is there, the IT revolution is coming and it has arrived in many ways. What hasn’t come there is the ET revolution—Energy Technology revolution. If we can make that breakthrough, and get clean, green distributed power, what you are going to see is the flattening of the world extend at an incredible clip to every rural village in India, China, and Brazil. The world will truly become flat when IT meets ET. That will be the truly transformational moment, because when we can connect all that brain power... localization and globalization will finally be in balance. …[That] means that you can live locally and connect globally. It means that you can stay in your community with your family, friends, live a much more peaceful lifestyle and at the same time be competing and connecting with the …world. And when localization is in balance with the globalization, what you end up with is humanization. The world will truly be in balance if IT can meet ET. But for that to happen, we need to have a real revolution—a green revolution.”
—Thomas Friedman, speaking in October at the University of Hyderabad.

Biz Briefs

• With an eye toward developing its brand in the Americas, enhancing its alumni relations activities, building awareness within the corporate sector, and expanding its executive education work, INSEAD has opened an Americas office in New York City. The school currently has campuses in France and Singapore and centers in Abu Dhabi and Israel.
• At the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the Labovitz School of Business and Economics has established the Roy LaBounty Center for Entrepreneurship. The new center will promote entrepreneurship and business development initiatives throughout Northeastern Minnesota. The center is supported through a generous gift from business executive Roy E. LaBounty, a longtime supporter of the university.
• A team of five students in the Yale University School of Management won the National Energy Finance Challenge, held at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business in Austin. The contest hinged on how well the teams created financial models for a mid-tier energy company and the recommendations they made for how the company should proceed in building a presence in three fictitious Southeast Asian countries. Yale’s team defeated 15 other schools to claim the title and the $8,000 prize money at the third annual event.
• The Robert Toigo Foundation has launched a national campaign designed to inspire and support young professionals of color as they earn their MBAs and pursue careers in finance. The program includes events at colleges, networking forums, and a new website, www.ready-for-finance.com, which offers job listings, career resources, and MBA application advice.

From the Philanthropy Desk—What’s in a Name?
In an unprecedented gift, the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has received $85 million from a small group of alumni not to create a new name for the school, but rather to preserve the existing name for at least 20 years. The alumni formed the “Wisconsin Naming Partnership” in order to support the school’s mission and uphold its traditions... The Boston University School of Management has received a $1.67 million gift from the Keane Foundation to establish an institute for global work. The institute will design education and certification programs to help executives, managers, vendors, service professionals, consultants, and analysts create and foster high-performance global work teams... The school of business at Utah Valley State College has a new name. Thanks to a $20-million gift from the Woodbury Corporation, the largest donation in the school’s history, the school will henceforth be known as the Woodbury School of Business... Also newly renamed is the college of business at the University of Missouri-Columbia, which in October was named the Robert J. Trulaske, Sr., College of Business, in recognition of a series of generous gifts from the Trulaske family... Dallas oil magnate Edwin L. Cox has given $5 million to support merit-based undergraduate scholarships at the school that bears his name, the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University... Executive Maurice J. Gallagher, Jr., has pledged $10 million to support the Graduate School of Management at the University of California-Davis... In Regina, Saskatchewan, the Paul Hill family, prominent developers in the city, has donated $10 million to the University of Regina School of Business Administration, which has been renamed the Paul J. Hill School of Business... The A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California-Riverside has received a $3.1-million gift from the A. Gary Anderson Family Foundation, which will be used for scholarships and for an endowed chair in finance... The National University of Singapore Business School has received a gift of $21 million from Indonesian business conglomerate Lippo Group. The single largest gift from a private donor to NUS Business School, the gift includes $15 million for the school’s new flagship building, as well as $6 million to fund two distinguished professorships... The W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University has received $2 million from PetSmart Inc. to establish the PetSmart Chair in Business Leadership, the second chair to be endowed by PetSmart at the business school. Separately, the Evans Charitable Foundation has donated $1 million to establish a professorship at the school and to support its global real estate initiative... The Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester has announced five new gifts totaling $5.4 million. Support from the William E. Simon Foundation, three alumni, and an anonymous donor will help the school enhance faculty recruiting and retention, promote entrepreneurship education, and offer more scholarships... George Walker, III, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, has donated $10 million to Webster University for its School of Business and Technology... At the University of Richmond, the Robins School of Business has received a $6-million gift from an alumni couple, Paul B. Queally and Anne-Marie Flinn Queally, for building construction, new programs, and curricular enhancements focusing on finance. 

New Programs
Georgia Tech College of Management now offers an executive MBA in technology management for rising professionals in tech-heavy fields. The degree is an evolution of the school’s Master of Science in Management of Technology degree, started in 1995, for which the curriculum was expanded into a full-fledged MBA program... Global IT giant BT and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford have teamed up to establish the world’s first research center focused on the management of major programs, such as the Olympics. As well as conducting research in this field, the center will also develop curriculum for a master’s-level degree in program management that will be launched next fall... Queen’s School of Business has expanded its business education offerings in the United Arab Emirates with the addition of key custom programs for the national government and the country’s Central Bank, as well as new open-enrollment programs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai... In late October, the European School of Management and Technology officially inaugurated its executive MBA program at the ESMT Campus-Munich. The 23 men and 7 women in the class represent 13 different countries: Brazil, China, Croatia, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States... Hult International Business School, headquartered in Boston, has launched a satellite campus in Shanghai and will launch a full campus in Dubai in September 2008. The school, founded in 1964 as the Arthur D. Little School of Management, hopes to establish a full campus in London in 2009... The George Washington University School of Business has launched an executive development program designed to take advantage of the school’s Washington, D.C., location and proximity to such entities as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as the federal government. GWU is looking for partners to participate in its fully customizable DC Residency Program... The University of Buffalo School of Management has added a new MBA concentration that focuses on the dynamics of global distribution and supply chains... Expanding its presence in China, Rollins College, based in Winter Park, Florida, has established agreements with the University of Shanghai and East China University of Science and Technology, also in Shanghai, that allow Rollins professors to teach at the Chinese schools. …Montreal’s Concordia University and the State University of New York-Plattsburgh have inked an agreement that will provide cross-border educational opportunities. Through the agreement, qualified Plattsburgh graduates who earn a master’s degree in liberal studies with a concentration in leadership will be able to enroll directly in the MBA program at the Canadian university... Adding to its roster of degrees in graduate management education, Hamline University Graduate School of Management is starting an MBA program. The 21-month, modular-based program will enroll its first students in January 2008. The program’s goal is to produce “locally based, globally focused leaders and critical thinkers.”