B-School

I previously posted a story regarding the scandal over West Virginia University President Michael Garrison, who granted an unearned Executive MBA degree to the governor's daughter. Garrison approved the degree being granted to Heather Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin.

The University of New Hampshire has received its largest - by 2.5 times - donation ever. The gift comes from alumnus and business leader Peter T. Paul who will be donating $25 million to earn the naming rights of the new business school. The amount is truly astounding for a middle tier state school and represents 10% of the school's entire endowment according to the UNH president. The previous top donation also came from Paul who offered the school $10 million in an earlier gift. Paul runs Paul Financial, a mortgage lender and financial services provider located in California.

Marquette University has announced that it has chosen the first female leader of its business school. Linda M. Salchenberger, currently the associate dean of academics in Northwestern University's School of Continuing Studies will take over on August 15. The dean position is entitled the Keyes Dean, as the chair is supported by the multimillion dollar donation of the Keyes family. It is unclear as to how much the position pay, but it is understand to be above $250,000.

There is somewhat of a controversy brewing at Olin Business School on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Tzachi Zach was recently denied tenure in his sixth year at Olin teaching Accounting. The main reason for the decline was the lack of published research in Professor Zach's body of work. Zach had hoped for a three year extension before a final decision on his tenure decision was rendered.

I love this. You don't often hear deans come right out and say they're going after a ranking, but we all know they are. Not so though for new University at Albany business school dean Don Siegel. Siegel's other goals include expanding entrepreneurial opportunities including incubator space and more start-up opportunities for student businesses. He is walking into a great situation as the New York State legislature has just passed funding for the new business school building at Albany.

Such were the words of Jo-Anne Shibles in an announcement that the Santa Clara University will be cutting its undergraduate business school enrollment by 33 percent. Current students can still declare a business major or minor, but only through tax day.

The USNews and World Report has just released the 2009 version of its popular "Best Graduate Schools" report. The rankings of business schools are included. The top five this year were Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, MIT's Sloan, and Northwestern University's Kellogg.

Best for Finance: U Penn (Wharton)
Best for Accounting: U Texas at Austin (McCombs)
Best for Entrepreneurship: Babson (Olin)

Macon State College has hired a new dean of its business school. Varkey Titus will assume the dean's position beginning July 1. He will transfer from dean of the College of Business and Management at Northeastern Illinois University.

Macon State College currently enrolls just over 3,600 undergraduate students. Originally a junior college, Macon St. now offers a full baccalaureate program. The tuition for in-state students is less than $1,000 per semester and less than $4,000 for out-of-state students.

With the ostensible purpose of boosting diversity, an increasing number of business schools are accepting the GRE for acceptance into their respective MBA programs. The Instituto de Empresa (IE) recently announced that it will begin accepting GRE scores for admission into all of its management programs, including the MBA. Other prestigious European schools accepting the test include Helsinki School of Economics, Barcelona School of Economics, ESADE Business School in Barcelona and the European School of Economics in London and other cities.

Washington University in St. Louis' Olin Business School will begin offering students a major in healthcare management. This is an incredibly smart move given the high demand for skilled healthcare workers and the growing shortage of talent in this sector. The major will combine professors from the business and medicine schools.

Olin maintains the #15 undergraduate program in the country. Princeton Review has for its entire business school (including MBA) it as the #5 best administered and #7 best professors.