Wharton School Receives Largest-Ever Gift: $50 Million to Go Toward Faculty
Marc J. Rowan (W’84 & WG’85) and Carolyn Rowan recently gifted $50 million to The Wharton School, the largest-ever single gift to the business school. The generous Wharton donation will be used to help attract new world-class faculty, appoint new Rowan Fellows, and support the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), a groundbreaking economic policy analysis program.
“With profound gratitude to Marc and Carolyn Rowan, I anticipate the tremendous impact of their philanthropy on the University of Pennsylvania,” Penn President Amy Gutmann says in a university press release. “Their investment in Penn’s future will strengthen our intellectual resources, provide our students with life-changing mentors, and mobilize our knowledge for the advancement of society.”
Wharton Donation For Faculty
A good portion of the $50 million will be used to enhance faculty at the Wharton School. The goal is to help Wharton compete for the most talented business school professors in a highly competitive market. Specifically, the gift will be used to enhance Wharton’s ability to address complex global challenges through research and teaching.
Specifically, the $50 million will go toward faculty recruitment and betterment in two ways:
- Wharton will recruit three new Rowan Distinguished Professors. These individuals are leaders in their field and will help connect academia and business.
- The gift will also help the School appoint a select number of Rowan Fellows. These individuals will serve five-year terms and will receive support for the innovative research and teaching.
In a press release, Marc Rowan spoke about the gift’s impact on faculty, saying, “Carolyn and I are honored to join the vision of the Wharton community to bring the School’s outstanding students face to face with the most important thinkers of our time,” Rowan says. “As top Wharton researchers advance and shape their fields, they transform the lives of their students, preparing them to make a difference in the business world and beyond.”
Penn Wharton Budget Model
The gift enhances the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM); a nonpartisan, research-based initiative that provides accurate, accessible, and transparent economic analysis of public policy. The project uses research briefs as well as interactive budget tools to analyze legislation. PWBM works directly with policymakers to provide the most effective insight on policy changes on Capitol Hill.
More Than Ever Fundraising Campaign
The gift comes to the school as part of the More Than Ever fundraising campaign, of which Rowan is the co-chair. The campaign started with a goal of raising $850 million. However, in part thanks to the latest gift, the goal is now $1 billion.
The More Than Ever campaign launched earlier this year with the goal of helping Wharton become synonymous with innovation, analytical decision making, entrepreneurship, and global leadership. The fundraising will go toward two flagship capital projects:
- A state-of-art academic building, which will stand beside Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall and the Mack Pavilion. This building will bring together Wharton’s cutting-edge research in business analytics, innovative learning, and teaching spaces.
- A new Venture Lab, which helps Penn students interested in launching new startups.
The gift from Rowan provides an excellent start for all initiatives.
Marc J. Rowan, Wharton W’84 & WG’85
“I am deeply grateful for Marc and Carolyn’s extraordinary gift, which reflects their passion to bring to Wharton the most innovative researchers working on the world’s most pressing and important questions,” Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett says. “Their commitment is the cornerstone of a campaign that will empower Wharton, more than ever, to create leaders who will change the world.”
Marc J. Rowan
Rowan is the Co-Founder and Senior Managing Director of Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm with $247 billion in investor commitments. The firm is a leading alternative asset manager with focus on private equity, credit-oriented capital markets, real estate, and insurance investments.
Beyond his work at Apollo, Rowan is an active member of the Wharton community. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the school with a BS and an MBA in finance. Then, since 1994, he’s been contributing to Wharton’s success in a variety of ways.
Through philanthropy, Rowan has supported both undergraduate and MBA aspects of Wharton. He has contributed to financial aid, faculty, the Dean’s fund, capital projects, Wharton Customer Analytics, The Wharton Fund, the football program, the Institute for Contemporary Art, and more. Rowan is also the chair of Wharton’s Board of Overseers as well as being a Penn trustee.
To read more about the Wharton donation, check out the original press release at Wharton News.
5 Highest Paying MBA Internships in Philadelphia
The moment you decide to earn your MBA, you should already be thinking about your MBA internship. Within the first few months of your education, you’ll be discussing your internship opportunities and soon afterward, applying. For the most part, you’ll choose your internship based on your career interests, but there’s one other aspect to consider: the pay.
MBA interns can earn impressive hourly wages, which may be a shock if you’re still thinking like an undergraduate student who worked an entire summer for free. But is an MBA internship salary something to sneeze at? It could be depending on your job function, industry, and the company you work for. So, who pays the most?
We dug into Philadelphia MBA internships to find out which companies would pay the most, and here’s what we discovered. Continue reading…
Wharton Welcomes its MBA Class of 2020
With students in the Wharton MBA Class of 2020 settling on campus, Deputy Vice Dean Maryellen Reilly took to the school’s MBA Admissions Blog to welcome the new class.
The Wharton MBA Class of 2020
Although application volume is down, the average GMAT score rose to the school’s previous record high of 732. This score matched the Wharton MBA Class of 2017.
“This class is an impressive collection of leaders from all walks of life, backgrounds, nationalities, industry experiences, and ambitions,” Reilly writes. “These newest members of the Wharton community bring with them a wide-range of perspectives to enrich their shared experiences both in and outside of the classroom.”
Application volume fell by 6.7 percent, dropping from 6,692 to 6,245. But here Wharton is in good company.
It is difficult to find a leading U.S. school reporting that applications were increasing measurably year over year. The vast majority are sharing that numbers are decreasing, or at best remaining steady.
Perhaps one of the biggest shifts between last year’s class and this year’s is the uptick in humanities undergrads, increasing to 45 percent from 41 percent. Students with STEM backgrounds make up another 29 percent of the class, trailing those in business, at 26 percent.
Around 33 percent of the incoming class is international, increasing from 32 percent last year. Although students this year hail from 80 different countries, compared to just 65 one year ago. U.S. students of color make up another third of this year’s class, not changing from last year.
There are 862 students in the Class of 2020, one shy of the previous class. The percentage of female students slipped one point, to 43 percent.
In terms of prior work experience, former consultants outnumber all others by a considerable margin, making up 27 percent of the class, up from 26 percent last year. The next-largest group, at 13 percent, comes from private equity/venture capital, with 10 percent of tech students following closely.
For the whole view of the Class of 2020, check out the Wharton profile here. As well, get familiar with the school’s MBA programs here.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Penn State Supply Chain Program Earns Top Ranking
For the fifth time since 2008, Gartner, Inc. has ranked the Penn State Smeal College of Business as the best supply chain graduate program in the United States. The Penn State Supply Chain program earned top scores in three categories for this year’s ranking: “program scope, industry value, and program size.”
On news of the ranking, Nicholas C. Petruzzi, Chair of the Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems, says, “Retaining the No. 1 ranking for graduate supply chain education provides great affirmation for the rigor, relevance, and impact of our professional supply chain programs.”
“We take pride in this news, and being recognized as a leader in supply chain education is a testament to the dedicated and tireless efforts of our faculty and staff, students, alumni, and recruiters.”
The news of the placement came only a few weeks after Gartner, Inc. announced its undergraduate ranking, which was also awarded to Penn State University.
Smeal earned top honors for its supply chain program for the fifth time since 2008 on the Gartner, Inc. rankings.
The full, official supply chain ranking from Gartner, Inc. will be released in the near future. Head over to the official Penn State Supply Chain website for more information on the program.
BREAKING: Temple Fox Announces New Interim Dean Ronald C. Anderson
Just two weeks after the resignation of longtime dean Moshe Porat, the Temple University Fox School of Business announced that Ronald C. Anderson, professor and chair of the Fox finance department, will become the school’s interim dean.
Porat was forced to resign six months after the school’s rankings debacle with U.S. News & World Report. The publication removed the Philadelphia metro business school from all of its annual rankings after discovering falsified data was submitted. The turn of events occurred right after the publication revealed is annual Online MBA rankings, in which Temple had won first place for the fourth year in a row.
Fox School of Business Interim Dean Ronald C. Anderson / Photo via Ryan S. Brandenberg
In a new statement, Temple president Richard M. Englert says, “Ron has led significant growth in the department of finance, which is one of the most popular majors at Temple. He is an accomplished researcher and a well-regarded teacher who takes great pride in his students’ success. His professional experiences, both in industry and academia, are well suited for this critical leadership role.”
Anderson, who earned an MBA at the University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration and his finance Ph.D. and doctorate at Texas A&M, joined the university in 2012 as a professor and department chair. As a respected member of the Temple community, news that Anderson would be manning the Fox School of Business ship at a tumultuous time seemed to earn praise from several members of the university.
Speaking with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fox finance professor and deputy chair of the finance department Jonathan Scott says, “We were just hoping we could get through the process of identifying an interim dean and get on with righting the ship. Ron is the right person to get us back on track.”
Still, there is plenty of trepidation at Fox, with lingering lawsuits from several dismayed students hanging overhead, as well as the school’s upcoming accreditation re-approval this winter. Temple Association of University Professionals President Steve Newman, speaking with the Inquirer says, “This scandal has damaged the trust that students in and outside of Fox as well as the general public place in our university.”
“This scandal is in part the result of an unhealthy fixation on rankings that warps the priorities of our university as a whole. We understand that rankings matter in recruiting students, but their effect on fiscal and pedagogical decisions at Temple is entirely too strong.” – Temple Association of University Professionals President Steve Newman
Stay tuned with MetroMBA as this story continues to unfold.
Supply Chains, Rankings Changes, and More – Philly News
We know it’s hard to keep up with the news while you’re enjoying your summer, so we put all the latest Philly MBA news in one place just for you!
How UD MBA Grad Lisa Weaver Saved DuPont $8 Million and Counting — UDaily
Lisa Weaver, an MBA graduate from the Delaware University Lerner College of Business and Economics, was recently named to the Institute for Supply Management’s 30 Under 30 Supply Chain Stars list. As category manager for DuPont’s sourcing and logistics department, Weaver led initiatives resulting in more than $8 million in savings.
In a recent Q&A with her alma mater, Weaver explained how her experiences at UD influenced her career in supply chain management.
“Lerner resources like the Career Services Center allowed me to find the right jobs for me at the time,” she said, adding:
“Additional programs like the Graduate Executive Mentors program allowed me to expand my network and develop a relationship with a mentor. My mentor has challenged my thinking, increased my confidence and provided alternative perspectives. Each of these experiences through Lerner have influenced my career in a different way and provided additional capabilities to be successful.”
You can read more about Weaver’s impact at DuPont and her Lerner experience here.
Faculty Quality, Other Factors Propel Penn State Smeal Executive MBA — Smeal News
The Executive MBA Program at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business was ranked as the 26th overall and 7th among programs from public institutions in The Economist’s 2018 recent list of top global EMBAs.
“What makes the Smeal Executive MBA Program truly unique and led to a successful debut in today’s rankings is our unmatched combination of faculty quality and the unique access our students have to those amazing resources,” said Managing Director Jason Stieg. “The program delivers every course in a face-to-face environment using the same renowned faculty who teach in Smeal’s full-time residential MBA program at University Park.”
Smeal’s EMBA in Philadelphia is one of the top ten public programs in the world, according to The Economist.
The Philadelphia-based Executive MBA takes place over 17 months, and is the highest-ranked Philadelphia-area program. You can learn more about the program here.
Saint Joseph’s Offers Exclusive Healthcare MBA Program for American Osteopathic Association — SJU News
According to a recent press release, Saint Joseph’s Haub School of Business has announced a healthcare-focused Executive MBA program designed exclusively for the American Osteopathic Association’s physician members.
“An executive MBA in health care expands doctors’ knowledge of industry challenges and solutions and allows them to prepare for their next steps—career shifts into administration, consultancy, or running a private practice,” said Joseph A. DiAngelo, dean of the Haub School. “We are proud to equip healthcare leaders with such valuable skills.”
The program offers participants an online, two-year MBA while also simultaneously completing medical education credits. To learn more about the executive MBA in health care program, or to learn how to apply, click here.
Temple Fox Business Dean Moshe Porat Resigns – MetroMBA
Months after Temple University’s Fox School of Business was removed from the U.S. News & World Report rankings earlier this year, Moshe Porat—the long-time dean of the business school—was officially asked to resign while the internal structure of the school goes into rebuild-mode.
No news has been released as of yet of Porat’s replacement, or which methods Fox will offer to change in the future when it comes to school rankings. You can read more about his resignation here.
