Donor Gives Rutgers $13 Million to Advance Business and Professional Studies

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – An anonymous gift of $13 million – the largest private donation in Rutgers’ history – will help the university launch a long-term initiative to develop its Livingston Campus in Piscataway as a center for business and professional studies.

Of the total donation, $10 million will support construction of a new building for the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick on the Livingston Campus. The remaining $3 million will be used to establish the Bennett L. Smith Endowed Chair in Business and Natural Resources, named for the late geology professor who retired from Rutgers in 1974.

In announcing the gift, Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick noted the donor, a Rutgers graduate, aims to help students prepare for the realities of today’s business environment, which often demands scientific knowledge in addition to business acumen.

“This gift shows a deep commitment to the vision for Rutgers,” McCormick said. “It builds on our recent fundraising success and serves as an inspiration to others who may wish to similarly shape the university’s future and enrich the educational experience of our students.”

The initiative to enhance business and professional education is part of the president’s comprehensive vision for the Livingston Campus announced in his 2007 annual address. Creating a cluster of professional schools and disciplines “has breathtaking potential for addressing state needs and generating economic and social progress,” McCormick noted.     

Also located on the Livingston Campus with the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick will be the School of Management and Labor Relations, the Graduate School of Education and the School of Social Work. All share a commitment to professional, continuing and executive education.  Additional plans for the campus include a hotel and conference center; a reliable transportation network; and a sustainable, pedestrian-friendly community that will complement its new business and professional focus.

Plans for a new building for Rutgers Business School on the Livingston Campus are consistent with the large demand for the school’s newly offered four-year undergraduate program for Rutgers-New Brunswick students. For fall 2008, 11,000 applications were received for 300 seats from prospective first-year students – the first time admission was open to that group in New Brunswick. Next year, the school plans to admit 400 first-year students. Over the next five years, the school plans to grow to an enrollment of about 3,200 undergraduates on the New Brunswick Campus.

The Bennett L. Smith Endowed Chair in Business and Natural Resources will support a faculty member working at the intersection of business, economics, natural resources and the environment. Because of its interdisciplinary focus, the chair will be jointly housed in the Rutgers Business School and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences. Smith’s own diverse career ranged from work in the mineral industry to academic research on the metamorphic terrain of the New Jersey Highlands.

Combining business and science education reflects Dean Michael R. Cooper’s approach to business education. The ability to partner with other degree programs within the university will enable the business school to deliver multidisciplinary curricula that respond to the needs of the national and global economies.

The $13 million anonymous gift is in addition to the record $121 million in private donations and pledges that the university received for the 2007-08 fiscal year – an increase of nearly 9 percent over last year’s total of $111.5 million. Of that total, more than $34 million has been designated for student support, including scholarships; $32 million for faculty development; and more than $36 million for program support.

Rutgers offers business education for approximately 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students on the New Brunswick, Newark and Camden campuses.