Goldman Sachs Expands 10,000 Women Project

Twelve academic and nonprofit partnerships have joined the 10,000 Women initiative, which Goldman Sachs launched in March to provide business and management education for underserved women in Brazil, China, India, and the Philippines.

The new partnerships include the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and Zhejiang University in China; HEC Paris and Tsinghua SEM in China; INSEAD in France and Singapore and Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil; IE Business School in Spain and Fundação Getulio Vargas Escola de Administração de Empresas de Sao Paulo in Brazil; Spain’s IESE Business School and University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines; London Business School and the National Entrepreneurship Network in India; and the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and Camfed International in Zambia.

Through 10,000 Women, Goldman Sachs committed $100 million to support partnerships with universities and development organizations to provide women in underserved areas around the world with management skills. The partnerships strengthen business education through faculty training and the development of innovative curricula and locally relevant case studies.

In Wake of Financial Crisis, MIT Sloan Reaches Out to Alumni

In what could be a sign of our times, David Schmittlein, dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, has posted an open letter to alumni offering support to those affected by the recent financial crisis.

“The recent events on Wall Street and in financial markets worldwide have caused concern for us all, especially as we consider the members of our alumni and student communities who may be impacted by recent bankruptcy and merger announcements and by reverberations in other firms and other industries in the months ahead,” Schmittlein wrote. The letter goes on to offer support from the school, including career services and networking, for alumni facing professional challenges.
 
Encouraging Sloan graduates to also reach out to help fellow alumni in need, Schmittlein suggested that “this is one of those times when we fare better together than we can alone.”

Video and the MBA

The online newspaper The Australian reports that passengers on Qantas's new A380 Airbus superjumbo jet will be able to watch videotaped learning modules with content from Melbourne Business School and other leading business schools. Part of what the paper calls “a new push in bite-sized e-learning,” the modules are part of a virtual Leadership Academy developed by Deloitte Consulting. The system features instant access to videotaped business school lectures and content from the Harvard Business Review.

Meanwhile, visitors to “Inside the London MBA,” a blog sponsored by the admissions office at London Business School, can watch a series of videos, dubbed “MBA TV,” that provide a glimpse into daily life at the school.

B School Buildings Go Green

Ithaca College has laid claim to having the first business school building to obtain platinum-level certification, the highest benchmark possible, under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council. The college’s new Dorothy D. and Roy H. Park Center for Business and Sustainable Enterprise is one of fewer than 100 buildings in the world to be certified LEED platinum.

On September 19, the University of Minnesota Duluth officially opened its $23 million Labovitz School of Business and Economics, which has earned gold LEED certification and is the first new LEED-certified academic building in Minnesota.

Short Takes

• The National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) has established its first international chapter, in Toronto.
• The National Society of Hispanic MBAs has added six members to its University Partnership Program. New to the roster are the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State University, Chapman University, University of San Francisco, Rollins College, and the University of New Mexico.
• In September, the Stanford Graduate School of Business broke ground on the Knight Management Center, a $350 million campus. Eight buildings are planned. The campus is named for Stanford alum and Nike Inc. founder and chairman Philip H. Knight, who gave the school $105 million, believed to be the largest gift ever to a business school.
• Otterbein College (Ohio) has streamlined its MBA curriculum, in part to meet the needs of adult students in the workforce. In one example, important concepts from three core classes in the previous curriculum have been integrated into one course. The revised program offers students more choice of courses and less time in the classroom.

From the Fundraising Desk

A $13 million gift to Rutgers The State University of New Jersey from an anonymous alum, the largest private donation in the school’s history, will go in part to support construction of a building for the Rutgers Business School-Newark.

DePaul University has received $7.5 million from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to establish a School of Hospitality Leadership, based in DePaul’s School of Commerce. The new school is designed to develop management talent for the hospitality industry.

Mike West and his wife, Tiffiny, have made a $1 million contribution to the University of Tennessee College of Business Administration to support technology in the college's new classroom building.

A $3 million gift to Bellarmine University from the James Graham Brown Foundation will be used in part to help build space for a Graduate School of Management.

New Programs

The New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business and the Swiss Finance Institute have created an executive MBA in banking and financial institutions management that will be delivered in five modules in New York, Zurich and Singapore. The Stern School is also partnering with Amsterdam Institute of Finance on a global Executive Master of Science in Risk Management degree. … Bank of America is collaborating with the Laboratory for Financial Engineering at the MIT Sloan School of Management to support quantitative research in computational finance, quantitative analytics and risk-reward trade-offs. … The Economic Times of India reports that the Indian School of Business plans to open a campus in Mohali, in India’s Punjab state. … At the University of Pennsylvania, the Law School and Wharton School are launching an accelerated three-year program that will lead to both the JD and MBA degrees. …  Brandeis International Business School has created a "Global Green” MBA concentration, the MBA in Socially Responsible Business. … ESSEC Business School and Keio Business School have launched what they call the first ever Franco-Japanese MBA-level double degree. Students at the respective schools will study one common program and will earn MBA diplomas from both institutions. …The University at Albany School of Business and Albany Law School have also announced a joint JD/MBA program.

In partnership with the International University of Sarajevo (IUS) and the Sarajevo Graduate School of Business (SGSB), Henderson State University has launched an MBA program in Sarajevo. The program is taught in English by faculty from Henderson, IUS, and SGSB, and graduates will receive degrees from both Henderson and IUS. … U21Global, which offers eLearning access to postgraduate education, has announced plans to expand its MBA program in Canada and the United States. … SKOLKOVO, the Moscow School of Management, has announced an executive MBA program, to start in January. … Linklaters, a global law firm based in the United Kingdom, has created the Linklaters Law & Business School to provide ongoing professional development for staff at every stage of their careers. … A school of management at Bucknell University made its debut this fall, another step toward plans to develop the former department into a college. … Mills College has established a center for socially responsible business in its Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business.