http://www.arizonarepublic.com/business/articles/0126carey26.html
ASU will use Carey donation to develop faculty
By Jane Larson
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 26, 2003
Having an extra $50 million in its pocket will quickly have a wide-ranging
impact on Arizona State University's College of Business.
This week's gift to the school from New York financier William P. Carey will
show up in everything from more scholarships for bright undergraduates to
more professors regarded as tops in their fields, Dean Larry Penley said
Friday. Faculty members and the college's Dean's Council of 100, a business
leadership group, will complete plans for the funds over the next few months
so the impact will be visible by fall, he said.
Carey's gift, the second-largest grant ever to a U.S. business school, and
the subsequent naming of the W.P. Carey School of Business, are designed to
lift the Tempe school further up the rankings of top business schools and
take the Arizona economy with it.
"I really think what the state needs, what the community needs, is for us to
go from being good to being great," Penley said.
But ASU does not intend to show off its new wealth by encroaching on
territory already claimed by the University of Arizona's Eller College of
Business and Public Administration and by Thunderbird, the American Graduate
School of International Management.
The Tempe school will focus on improving the quality of the programs it has,
Penley said. The school already has strong niches in supply chain
management, services marketing, accounting and information management.
He said he doubted ASU would now try to compete with UA's strengths in
programs such as entrepreneurship and behavioral economics.
And even as ASU expands its global business program, Penley said, it does
not aim to compete with Thunderbird's internationally recognized niche. ASU
sees its program as a tool for faculty development, he said.
The terms of Carey's gift are being kept confidential by ASU. The school has
not revealed whether the $50 million will be donated in one check or over
time, or whether any matching funds will be required. Penley did say that
besides the gift, the W.P. Carey Foundation has made a long-term commitment
to ASU that could result in additional donations.
....
Gifts like Carey's are part of a growing trend in which public universities
are pursuing private donors, who traditionally have poured their funds into
private colleges, Zupan said. Part of the reason is the tax squeeze many
state schools face, but another is the fact that the public schools' bases
of alumni, and thus potential donors, have gotten much larger.
"One of the ways we're growing self-reliant is with private-sector
financing," Zupan said.
The UA school has received $23 million over the years from Karl Eller, a UA
alum who made his money in billboards and advertising.
Zupan said the school also has $85 million committed toward its Campaign for
the New Century target of $100 million. And it is well on its way to meeting
its goal of increasing the number of endowed chairs to 14 from one. Two have
been announced, three are all but announced, and the school is in serious
discussions with six other donors, Zupan said.
Private funding allows the schools to attract and retain better faculty
members, fund more scholarships and ratchet up support for programs, both
deans say.
But money isn't the only thing that attracts top professors.
Professors also value the chance to teach bright, motivated students. So the
Carey money may also be used to attract top doctoral students and provide
scholarships and smaller classes in the business school's undergraduate
honors program, Penley said.
Improving the business school is also key to economic development, he said,
because it would allow local companies, and companies that the Valley is
trying to attract, to find a wide range of talent.