GMAC Board Approves $10 Million for New Fund to Support Global Business and Management Education

The Board of Directors of the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®) voted to approve $10 million for the establishment of a new fund to advance business and management education around the world at its fourth quarter meeting on Tuesday, December 2.

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McLean, Virginia (December 8, 2008)--The Board of Directors of the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®) voted to approve $10 million for the establishment of a new fund to advance business and management education around the world at its fourth quarter meeting on Tuesday, December 2. 

The creation of the fund formalizes and enhances the Council's long-standing commitment to making strategic philanthropic investments in initiatives that benefit business and management education globally, said David A. Wilson, GMAC president and CEO. Such initiatives have included the Ph.D. Project to increase the number of minority business school professors and the Management Education Research Institute (MERI), which provides funding for faculty research on issues affecting management education, among others.

"We recognize that substantial change will only occur with substantial investment," Wilson noted. "That is why we think the board's action can make a difference. These are investments against which the Council expects no return other than the advancement of the objectives for which grants are made."

Marci Armstrong, GMAC board chair and associate dean of graduate programs, Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University, said that the Council Board will put a formal structure together for the fund over the next several weeks. It will begin its work in early 2009.

The Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) based in McLean, Virginia, is a non-profit education organization of leading graduate business schools worldwide. GMAC also owns and administers the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), used by approximately 4,500 graduate management programs at some 1,900 business schools around the world to assess applicants. Created by business school deans in 1954, the GMAT remains the only standardized test specifically designed for graduate business and management programs. For more information about GMAT, visit www.mba.com.