$105M Gift to the Stanford Business School

Below is an email I got from the Dean of the Stanford Business School, announcing a gift of $105M from Phil Knight, an alumnus and founder of Nike.  This gift exemplifies why it is so hard to replicate silicon vally in other places.  Stanford University is the heart of silicon valley and has a virtuous cycle that's hard to beat.  Stanford attracts top notch students, they graduate and build an institution of value employing other Stanford students (Netscape, Google, Yahoo, Nike...) and then they donate back to the school, which uses it to attract more world class students and the cycle goes on.  Success for a Stanford grad is being every part of this cycle.  Here is the news.

Dear GSB alumnus/alumnae,   

Today, I have a piece of tremendous news to share. Alumnus and Nike founder Philip H. Knight, MBA '62, will make a gift of $105 million to the GSB, which will allow us to move ahead with plans for an exciting new business school campus. This magnificent gift is, to my knowledge, the largest ever to a business school.

The new campus, for which we received concept and site approval from Stanford's trustees in mid-June, is part of a larger vision designed to keep the GSB at the forefront of management education. Just two months ago, I emailed you about sweeping changes in our curriculum.  These changes will build on our comparatively small size and create a highly personalized program with student advising, more seminars and varied classes for students, more leadership and communication, more engagement with other schools at the University, and more global experience. I received hundreds of responses from alumni, which were overwhelmingly positive.

The planned new physical infrastructure will enable this academic vision to really take flight. The new campus will allow us to support new methods of teaching and learning; give us flexible space - a variety of classrooms, seminar rooms, and break-out rooms; a larger public auditorium; and state-of-the-art technology. None of this is possible in our current outdated facility. For more information on today’s announcement: See Press Release

Please join me in celebrating the momentum that our faculty's educational foresight and Phil Knight's deep commitment to the GSB's future are making possible. With this vision and your continued support, I am confident the GSB will be the most exciting school of management education for decades to come.

Robert Joss
Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean
Stanford Graduate School of Business

Comments

[ayse]

What i don't understand is how come they still have to call alumni and beg for $? For example I was so pissed that they called me right after they tore down a perfectly good stadium to build a SMALLER one. Take that money and give it to "undergraduate education" it's that simple. Noone watches football anyways. Rant over.