Battle Of The B-School Ice Buckets

The two-year MBA students have yet to show up on the campus of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. So Elizabeth “Betsy” Ziegler, associate dean of MBA programs and dean of students, and a few of her colleagues took up the ALS ice bucket challenge made by Columbia Business School. And then, Kellogg MBA students from all over the world cropped up to dump ice water over their heads (see above).

They were responding to the earlier challenge from several hundred MBA students at Columbia University, standing in front of Uris Hall on the university’s Morningside campus, on Aug. 22. The group, chanting CBS, CBS, CBS, then issued challenges to the business schools at Harvard, Stanford and Northwestern (see below)

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business started it all (see below), challenging MBAs at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School, Wharton, and the University of Virginia’s Darden School. Then, UNC laid down the gauntlet, issuing challenges to MBAs at Yale’s School of Management, Georgetown University’s McDonough School, and North Carolina State.

It’s the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which has been going viral on social media since late July. The campaign has raised awareness and millions of dollars for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more popularly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, over the past month. The idea: Dump a bucket of chilly water and ice over your head and challenge three others to do the same or donate $100 to ALS. Many who take the challenge give money to ALS even when they endure that cold stream of ice and water. The ALS Association has received $22.9 million in donations compared to $1.9 million during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 19).

Columbia, which had planned to video its challenge yesterday, had to postpone it for today “due to overwhelming student demand and need for additional resources (aka buckets),” said a school spokesperson. So far, UNC’s Kenan-Flager Business School has posted the most elaborate of all the videotaped challenges, replete with background music, multiple ice bucket dumps, and the assistance of a massive fire hose (see above).

And now the recap. Duke was first with this one:

And Wharton MBAs weighed in with this response, challenging Columbia, London Business School and Tuck.

Nearly 3,000 miles away, over on the West Coast at Stanford University, a group of business and med schools students got together and with the help of the Palo Alto Fire Department filled their buckets with “reclaimed water” (this is California, after all) and did their thing. Check it out:

DON’T MISS: HBS DEAN TAKES THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE

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