Ross School of Business

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File:Michigancentralcampus.jpg

An aerial view of Michigan's central campus, with the art museum and law quadrangle in the foreground, and the business school in the background.

The Stephen M. Ross School of Business is the business school of the University of Michigan. The Ross School is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and offers business degree programs at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels.

The Ross School, previously known as the University of Michigan Business School, was renamed in 2004 for alumnus Stephen M. Ross, after a donation of $100 million. The amount was the largest gift ever to a U.S. business school, and also the largest gift to the University of Michigan in its history.

Since Robert J. Dolan was named dean in 2001, the Ross School has attained an arguably more cohesive identity. While the MBA program has classically placed great emphasis on practical experience, Dolan made it a specific point to market the school to MBA candidates and recruiters on the basis of this. The enhanced approach earned the school a #1 ranking in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 MBA program rankings, and was instrumental in obtaining the necessary capital to make significant renovations to the campus.

Between the years 1988-2004, Michigan’s position in Business Weeks biennial business school ranking has averaged in the #5/#6 spot (link found below). The school has also displayed academic breadth in that it is one of the few schools to have each of the major academic divisions/disciplines ranked by Business Week ranked in the top five positions in each of the 9 surveys over that period.

The success of the MBA program's action-based learning approach led alumnus Thomas C. Jones to donate $10 million to the BBA program in 2005, with the goal of granting similar opportunities to business undergraduates.

Dolan's leadership, combined with the recent surge in alumni generosity, has allowed The Ross School to undertake key physical and programmatic changes to the school, including:

A major overhaul and upgrade of the current campus, designed by architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox. It is ancipated that the upgrade will lead to a demolition of 180,000 square feet, and a rennovation/addition of 280,000 square feet for a net addition of roughly 180,000 square feet.
The expansion of the BBA program to a 3-year format (supplemented by the Thomas C. Jones endowment discussed below).

The William Davidson Institute

In 1992, William M. Davidson (BBA ’47, HLLD ’01) made a $30 million leadership gift to the Campaign for Michigan. Bill Davidson’s vision was to establish a center that would assist firms in emerging market economies by connecting them with Michigan faculty and students.

The four foci of the Davidson Institute:

• The Institute’s research on business and policy issues in emerging and transition economies is widely cited, and its conferences in countries as diverse as China, India, Russia, and Vietnam are attended by leading academics and policymakers.

• The Institute runs 15-20 executive education programs each year, educating more than 500 managers and policymakers from developing countries.

• The Institute provides advisory services to governments and development agencies around the world: in countries such as Bosnia, Kenya, Morocco, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

• Sponsorship of research and student projects, hosting visiting scholars, supporting seminars and speaker series, and sponsoring summer internships. In the past 13 years, more than 1,800 MBA students have participated in more than 450 international projects.

The Erb Institute for Sustainable Development

The success of the MBA program's ability to leverage interactions with other divisions of the university led alumnus Fred Erb to donate $10 million to the program in 2005, with the goal of fostering programs emphasizing sustainable development via a joint program with the School of Natural Resources. This gift supplemented two prior gifts totalling $10 million (i.e., $20 million in total).

The Thomas C. Jones Endowment for BBA Education

Thomas C. Jones, a University of Michigan business school alumnus, donated $10 million to the U-M's Stephen M. Ross School of Business to make it possible for undergraduates to experience many of the programs usually provided only to MBA students. Jones, formerly the President of CIGNA's Retirement & Investment Services, was the Ross School's first executive-in-residence and director of its bachelor of business administration degree program in 2003-04. Jones previously donated $1.5 million to the Ross School for the Jane M. and Chester R. Jones Undergraduate Scholarship, and to the Dean's Innovation Fund.

The gift established the Thomas C. Jones Center for BBA Education, which will offer more opportunities for students to apply classroom theory to real business situations, incorporate liberal arts into the business curriculum and develop leadership skills. It also will provide the necessary resources to develop a series of "capstone" action-based learning courses that integrate interdisciplinary skills needed to solve complex business problems.

The Tauber Manufacturing Institute

Michigan manufacturing executive Joel D. Tauber founded The Joel D. Tauber Manufacturing Institute with a gift of $5 million in 1995. The institute is expected to develop a new breed of executive combining advanced capabilities in both engineering and business management.

The Zell-Lurie Institute

Sam Zell serves as chairman of the board of both Equity Residential Properties Trust and Equity Office Properties Trust, companies, which are headquartered in Chicago. Following the death of his business partner, Robert Lurie, his wife, Ann Lurie, jointly with Mr. Zell, committed a $10 million gift to establish the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Business School in 1999. Mr. Zell has brought his total contributions and gifts to the institute to approximately $15 million. Recently, the ZLI's Wolverine Venture Fund–the oldest student-run venture fund in the United States and a key component of the Zell Lurie Entrepreneurial Studies program–received a $1 million return on its investment when IntraLase Corp., a U-M spin-off technology company, went public.

Rankings: Various Sources

The Financial Times' Special Report on Executive Education, 2005 (Released May 2004) ranks Michigan:

· #3 in Program Design

· #4 for Quality of Program Faculty

· Among the top 10 for Skills and Learning, Food and Accommodations, and Relevance of Teaching Materials

The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive Guide to Business Schools: Recruiters' Top Picks, 2005 (Released September 2004) ranks Michigan:

· #1 national ranking - Top North American Schools

· #2 in academic excellence for Marketing

· #4 in academic excellence for Operations Management

· #7 Top International Schools

· #9 in academic excellence for Accounting

· #1 for hiring minorities

· #5 for hiring women

Business Week, "The Best B-Schools," (October 2004) ranks Michigan:

· #6 overall among the best business schools

· #4 in leadership for its training efforts

In the same report, under the "Best and Brightest" category for schools that produce grads with the best skills, Michigan ranked:

· #3 in Marketing

· #5 in General Management

· #7 in Ethics

· #8 in Global Scope

Business Week "Executive Education Rankings:

•2003: 3

•2001: 3

•1999: 2

•1997: 2

•1991: 1

U.S. News and World Report, America's Best Colleges 2005, ranks Michigan:

· #2 overall for top public universities.

· #2 in Management undergraduate programs

· #2 in Marketing undergraduate programs

· #3 in Finance undergraduate programs

U.S. News and World Report (April 2004), ranked Michigan's Executive MBA program

· #1 public EMBA program.

Business Week magazine has consistently rated the University of Michigan Business School in the top three since it launched its biannual ranking of professional schools in 1988. Only three other business schools can make this claim.

U.S. News and World Report's Departmental Excellence Ratings (2002) places Michigan in the top five for strength "across the board."

When Business Week Online announced its "Top Ten Management Gurus," based on surveying executives worldwide, Michigan professors Dave Ulrich (rated number one), Noel Tichy, C. K. Prahalad and Michigan alumnus Gary Hamel, PhD 1990, dominated the list.

As a result of U.S. News and World Report's 2002 ranking, the University of Michigan can boast having eight schools in the top ten worldwide – Business, Engineering, Medicine, Law, Education, Nursing, Library Science and Music. The Business School offers dual degrees with all these other top-ranked schools.

The Academy of Management Journal, in its most recent ranking (2000), ranks our faculty in the top two for research performance among business schools.

The National Black MBA Association named the University of Michigan Business School the "Outstanding Educational Institution of the Year" in 2001.

Hispanic Business magazine rates the University of Michigan Business School one of the 10 best graduate schools in the nation for Hispanics.