The Nobility of Business
The Foster School has been serving students in Seattle and connecting them to companies and careers since 1917. We believe an educated business community is key to competitiveness and prosperity in America, and the Pacific Northwest. Without a strong economy, medical advances, culture and the arts, civic upkeep and renewal, and education suffer. Business today crosses ages, boundaries and even governments unlike any other endeavor in the world. As a force for good and for change, business is truly boundless. Being a leader in business education is vital to our university, our state and our economy—now and forever.
World-class Business Education
Frank Hodge, Orin and Janet Smith Dean
The Foster School's undergraduate programs continue to thrive as business has been the #1 most requested major at the University of Washington nine of the last 10 years. Unlike our full-time MBA program that serves as a net importer of talent, the majority of our BAs grew up in Washington, and world-class business education is key to keeping many of them here. Great facilities connect our students to each other and to the businesses they will join and lead in the future. Real-world offerings provide the experience recruiters need, which is why we have programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels that post 95+ percent placement rates. A UW Foster education is valued in our marketplace. It is also a catalyst for start-ups and innovation. In fact, a recent alumni survey showed our graduates helped launch 17,000 companies, creating 900,000 jobs and generating $100 billion in annual revenue. Think about where Washington would be without pioneering business people who elevate their communities while advancing their companies.
Campaign Co-chairs
Thanks to every contributor to date for moving us past the $200,000,000 mark! Your generosity and example will propel our school beyond our goals over the last two years of the campaign. More importantly, you have forever changed UW business education for the better while helping us serve even more grateful students for generations to come.
Annie Young-Scrivner
(BA 1991)
CEO, Godiva
Education is the gateway to endless possibilities. UW Foster has helped thousands of students achieve their best. They are staying ahead by offering new programs and degrees that will cultivate the next generation of leaders in this fast changing world. However, lack of state funding persists, therefore the continued need of private support is critical. I'm hopeful during this campaign, whether it's $100 or $10,000,000 or anything in between, the community and alumni will give back to a school that has given so much to society.
Chuck Barbo
(BA 1963)
Partner, Catalyst Storage
Before my business career, I was a teacher. Bridging the gap between the classroom and the real world is vital to students' success. That's exactly what the consulting, entrepreneurship and global business centers do... and they do it as well as any school I've ever seen. An investment in experiential business education is truly an unbeatable investment in our future.
J. Gary Shansby
(BA 1959)
Investor, private equity founder, and former Fortune 500 corporate executive
Most of my career has been outside Washington, but my UW business education has served me well every step of the way. Today's young people deserve the same opportunity to grow and prosper wherever their futures take them. There's so much potential we can help realize, and that's the best kind of philanthropy to me.
Wayne Perry
(BA 1972)
CEO, Shotgun Creek Wireless
At the Foster School, students are taught how to calculate and utilize return on investment. There is no better return on your investment you can find than supporting the UW. The changes since Balmer Hall was replaced with PACCAR and Dempsey are remarkable, but Mackenzie Hall is even older and less useful. When we complete the business campus, the Foster School's impact for students and our community will be off the charts. The goal to be the best public business school in America is within our reach.
Foster Alumni Make a Difference
Great universities need great business schools. The connections to leaders, jobs and the problems that need solutions come through business channels. Fortunately, the University of Washington has a great business school by virtually any measure.
Campaign Objectives
The University of Washington is launching the public phase of its most ambitious philanthropic campaign in history, with a goal of raising $5 billion by the year 2020. The campaign, called "Be Boundless — For Washington, For the World," focuses on four key priorities: transforming the student experience, expanding the impact of the UW's research, empowering possibility through innovation, and driving the public good.
At the Foster School we're committed to the following campaign objectives: replacing Mackenzie Hall, increasing student scholarships, expanding student-focused experiential learning opportunities, and adding faculty endowments.
Replace Mackenzie Hall
Replacing Balmer Hall in 2010 was the most significant change at the School of Business in 50 years. Mackenzie Hall is even older and less useful. A new classroom and collaboration structure 2.5 times larger will support our undergraduates and create space for new specialty master programs. Help us complete our Foster School campus at the UW.
Student Scholarships
A scholarship changes a student's life forever. An endowed scholarship changes our university forever. It creates a source of annual student support in perpetuity. Our goal is to grow our student scholarship endowment to a level to attract and advance an additional 120 undergraduates and graduate students in business.
120 of 120 fulfilled
Student-focused Experiential Learning Centers
Start a company. Save a company. See the world through a business lens. For the last two decades, our entrepreneurship, consulting and global business centers have been taking students and their learning out of the classroom and applying it to communities across Washington and around the world. Our objective is to add $30 million in expendable dollars and endowment to sustain and perpetuate this vital real-world piece of today's business education at the University of Washington. We hope to endow each center with a naming gift by 2020.
Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship
Consulting and Business Development Center
Global Business Center
Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship
The Buerk Center is home to the UW Business Plan Competition, the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge, the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge and the Lavin Entrepreneurial Action Program. Real coaching and collaboration for real startups. It's learning while doing for those who don't just want to find their way in business. They want to blaze it themselves.
Consulting and Business Development Center
The Consulting and Business Development Center instills confidence and perspective in our students while creating jobs where they're needed most. Its programs put students and their mentors in economically challenged communities to help family-owned businesses grow, creating thousands of employment opportunities that otherwise would not exist. Certificate programs are delivered throughout the state, and the blueprint for this first-of-its-kind center have now been shared and copied at top business schools in metropolitan areas across America.
Global Business Center
The Global Business Center helps one-in-three Foster School students study abroad, and through this campaign we hope to raise this number to reflect the importance of global understanding that cannot be gained from a book. The Global Business Center also supports a variety of competitions that challenge students to think across cultures and economies. This includes programming that brings business students from around the world to the UW as well as teaching English-speakers to conduct business in other languages. Can you say "net present value" in Mandarin?
Faculty Endowments
Grow the faculty endowment from $50M to $75M to produce another $1M in annual funding each year.
