Philanthropist Ernest Rady gives $100 million to UC San Diego’s business school, marking the start of the university’s campaign to raise about $2 billion in private donations amid serious financial challenges.
The gift will go to the Rady School of Management, which the self-made billionaire helped to create a decade ago to cultivate entrepreneurs and business leaders. With the contribution, the school said, it plans to more than double its faculty through pricey recruitment wars with top colleges nationwide.
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The new donation is the second transformative gift the 77-year-old Rady has made locally in the past year. In August, he gave $120 million to Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego to establish an institute that will analyze the genetic makeup of young patients to help doctors diagnose and treat diseases and disorders. That came several years after he donated $60 million to the hospital, prompting the change to its current name.
Likewise, Rady originally donated $30 million to help establish the business school. The additional $100 million is meant to build on what he said has turned out to be a great investment.
The past decade has held many accomplishments for UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, including the prestigious accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the launch of over 80 sustaining companies and 100 “intrepreneurial” products and services by students and alumni, and the recognition of outstanding faculty research through national and international publications. Recently Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the school as the number one MBA program in the U.S. for Intellectual Capital.
“I’ve gotten so much satisfaction from the job the business school has done in allowing students to hone their skills and create a better life for themselves, and the people they employ, ” said Rady, executive chairman of American Assets Trust, a publicly traded real estate trust in San Diego.
“You’re seeing the vision of dean Sullivan, who wanted to create a school for entrepreneurs. That is the future of America. Most employment comes from new start-ups and new businesses, ” Rady added.
He was referring to Robert Sullivan, who became founding dean of the business school in January 2003. Since then, the school has assisted students in founding more than 80 companies, ranging from a mobile app builder to a firm that produces specialized software to analyze people’s genes.
The school also earned accreditation from the prestigious Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Some of the $100 million donation will be used for scholarships and fellowships, school officials said. But much of it will be devoted to creating endowed professorships and other financial packages to attract and keep top scholars.
