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How to Boost B-School Alumni Giving

Businessweek, August 15, 2011.

Contributions from young MBA alumni are down, and experts say that's unlikely to change. Here's what schools can do to loosen the purse strings

Even as the MBA job market rebounds, many business schools seeking donations from young alumni aren’t feeling the love...

Tuck alumni break giving record

The Dartmouth, July 5, 2011

The Tuck School of Business Annual Giving campaign broke a world record when it reached a 70.5 percent participation rate in its 2011 campaign, according to a Tuck press release. Participation in Tuck Annual Giving has historically been higher in comparison to other business schools in the United States and around the world...

Best B-School Alumni Networks - Poets & Quants

By John A. Byrne, Poets & Quants.

One of the most valuable assets of a top-ranked business school is its alumni network. It’s a major consideration by applicants in choosing an MBA program, and it’s a significant sign of a school’s true brand strength in the marketplace.

But it’s also something that is hard to measure. There is no available metric that will let you know how often the alumni network at a school gets current students internships or jobs. There is no measurement to find out how often an alum returns the call of a student for advice, mentorship, or networking.

There is, however, one very telling number to judge the strength of a school’s alumni network: the percentage of alumni who give money to a school every year. As Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, puts it, a school’s annual alumni giving rate is “a long-term satisfaction index.”

Alumni wouldn’t be handing over money to a school especially if they felt no affinity toward the institution or were unsatisfied with the MBA experience they received. So high alumni giving rates might well be the single best proxy to assess both the satisfaction of MBAs with an institution as well as the ultimate value of the network a graduate inherits at commencement.

Which business schools do exceptionally well on this index? Year in and year out, the Tuck School beats every other institution in the world when it comes to annual alumni giving. Last year, for example, some 67% of Tuck’s 8,976 living MBAs wrote checks to the school. That is an extraordinary level of support at a time when the average rate of giving for a top-20 business school is roughly 20%.

“That is like the four-minute mile,” boasts Danos. “The appreciation for Tuck grows as our graduates go out and speak to others about their experiences. That long-term satisfaction has to be high given the unheard of rate of giving. I do think it’s a long-term endorsement of the general way we educate.”

This year, Tuck will reach a new milestone, eclipsing the highest participation rate in its history. With a May 31st deadline approaching for its annual giving campaign, more than 68% of its alums have already send in their checks, beating the 67.5% peak reached in 2008. Danos is hopeful that the school might very well hit 70% this year.

And after Tuck? It’s Yale University’s School of Management, which last year saw 46% of its MBA alums reach into their pockets to donate money to the school; the University of Virginia’s Darden School, the beneficiary of a 43% alumni giving rate last year, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which reported a 41% participation rate by MBA alums....

Dean Danos - A B-School Dean for the Guinness Book of Records - Poets & Quants

(Tuck press release, May 13, 2011)

Article by John A. Byrne

Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business for the past 16 years, can’t seem to get enough. The longest-serving B-school dean of any top-20 school has signed up for his fifth four-year term.

Jokes Danos: “I’m getting into the Guinness Book of Records, going on 16 plus four. Time flies.”

In an era when the average tenure of a B-school dean is less than five years, the 65-year-old Danos has astutely led Tuck not merely through a time of dramatic change at the school, but also through numerous market booms and busts, fads and trends, and serious criticism of the degree and the people who have it.

It is easy to underestimate the impact of an individual on an institution, particularly a dean whose impracticable job has accurately been described as one of “herding cats.” Yet over the past 16 years, Danos has welcomed to the school and ultimately sent into the world more than 40 percent of Tuck’s nearly 9,000 living alumni. He has recruited and hired roughly 85% of the school’s 50 professors. Danos also has raised more than $250 million to help foot the bill for, among other things, a 50% increase in the size of the faculty and vast improvements in the school’s facilities so that half of Tuck’s 11 connected buildings are either new or completely renovated.

PRESERVING TUCK’S CLOSE-KNIT CULTURE OF AFFECTION AND COLLABORATION

Yet, he also has been able to preserve and build upon Tuck’s unique close-knit culture of affection and collaboration...

UNH breaks ground on new business school

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2011/05/07/unh_breaks_ground_on_new_business_school/

DURHAM, N.H.—The University of New Hampshire has broken ground on its new business school, thanks to the largest single donation in its history.

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The new Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics is scheduled to open in January 2013 and will allow UNH to expand its business programs from 1,700 to 2,500 students.

Paul, a philanthropist and 1967 graduate of UNH, donated $25 million toward the new facility. At last week's ground breaking ceremony, he said he will match all gifts given to UNH by this year's graduation class between Jan. 1 and June 30, and suggested each graduate give $20.11 to mark the year they graduated. Paul said he will match all gifts up to a total of $100,000 and said he may repeat the challenge in future years

Stanford GSB move to Knight Management Center

"Open for Business! Our new home is ready after 10 years of planning and 3 years of construction. Read the details

Please join us on April 29 to celebrate a community-wide launch and Open House of the Stanford GSB's Knight Management Center. We'll have an afternoon full of food and entertainment, special guests, and a few surprises.

We are welcoming alumni, friends, students, faculty, and staff from throughout Stanford, business leaders, and prospective students for this historic milestone."