Since September of 2007, it has been my honor to serve as Dean of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Ours is a leading institution in international business scholarship and education. This past fall of 2009, we launched two new innovative programs to further advance our cutting-edge delivery of international business programming. The first is a Master of International Business (MIB) program, an intensive, one-year, interdisciplinary program that provides an advanced understanding of the interactions of business, government, and society. The other is a collaborative undergraduate degree program with the Chinese University of Hong Kong that includes two years of study in Hong Kong and will ultimately build a U.S.-Chinese cohort capable of conducting business in both cultures.
There have been other milestones. We have embarked on a new theme of sustainable enterprise and development to complement our international business expertise and meet our school’s desire to be socially, organizationally and environmentally innovative and responsible. And, we will soon begin constructing a new, 21st century building in the heart of Innovista, the University’s innovative research district in downtown Columbia. Although plans for the building are in the early stages, we expect the new facility to incorporate cutting-edge architecture and technology for our students and faculty, and also reflect state-of-the-art, high-performance design.
Finally, in August 2009, we were able to announce the culmination of a successful five-year campaign to match a $45 million challenge grant from our benefactor Darla Moore. In August 2004, the University of South Carolina committed to match $15 million, leaving the business school to raise $30 million in private donations. The school’s development team not only met the match, but exceeded it by $14.7 million, raising a total of $44.7 million from more than 7,000 generous individuals, corporations, foundations, and government agencies. We are honored by these investments in our mission, and we pledge to carry on our school’s tradition of providing exceptional educational programs and experiences that prepare individuals to make sustained contributions to business and society.
Hildy J. Teegen, Dean