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You can’t page through this issue of Smith Business
without seeing the remarkable impact of our alumni, friends and
corporate supporters. In our cover article, Making a Big School Small,
we outline an ambitious initiative that I believe will enable the Smith
School to build the very best undergraduate business program on earth.
However, the Undergraduate Fellows Program wouldn’t be possible without
significant alumni funding.
Smith is a public school, yet we must operate more like a private
institution, pursuing revenue-generating entrepreneurial activities and
growing our endowment funds. Not long ago, nearly all of the school’s
budget came from the state. Today our budget has more than tripled, but
state support accounts for just 10 percent of Smith’s total funding.
While we have made progress in growing our endowment, it is about a
third of those of comparable public business schools and a small
fraction of those of the major privates.
Your support allows us to attract best-in-class new faculty. The
recent appointment of Pete Kyle as the Charles E. Smith Chair in Finance is a great case in point. World-renowned for his contributions
to the field of finance, Pete brings considerable intellectual vigor to
the Smith School. Our faculty research creates the knowledge that shapes
best business practices for the networked global economy, building and
sustaining our reputation as an internationally significant research
institution. We must continue to establish endowed chairs and research
professorships to attract and retain the best teachers and thinkers in
the world.
Your gifts have a direct and vital impact on our students.
Scholarships open the doors of opportunity to some of the best and
brightest Smith students, such as Foday Sackor, recipient
of a Chevy Chase Bank scholarship. Your support also makes possible
the learning, research and innovation that takes place every day in the
classrooms and laboratories of Van Munching Hall.
This
summer we break ground on a 38,000-square-foot annex to the building.
So far we’ve raised more than $8 million in private donations for this
project, but we need to raise considerably more to have the kind of
facility our students and faculty deserve. This is an exciting project
that will help us maintain a superb research and teaching environment
for the Smith community—an important part of our mission.
The power of your support creates new opportunities and gives us the
ability to continue providing top-quality education, conducting
world-class research and improving our state-of-the-art facility. In
turn, the Smith School is creating the knowledge that changes business
practice and graduating the business leaders who are changing the world.
I see the power of your support every day. Thank you for investing in
the Smith School.
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