Five Years & $150 Million Later, What A Mega-Business School Gift Can Do

‘THE NAME PART WAS A REAL STRETCH’

“The name part was a real stretch for me,” adds Beth Gies. “That was a real struggle. It’s still a little hard. People are just different when they know you have a lot of money. All of a sudden, you are the funniest person or the most interesting person in the room. I didn’t want that.”

Neither did her husband. “We wanted this to be about the students and not us,” he says. In fact, Gies refused to be photographed without students in any promotional or marketing materials until only recently posing for one photograph with his wife on the University of Illinois campus.

Brown, however, believed the school needed an identity. He showed Gies a list of top business schools in the U.S. and noted that only two were unnamed: Illinois and Wisconsin. And the school of business at Wisconsin had received funding from its alumni not to name the school. Having an identity was important in getting the school greater visibility and enhancing its reputation, the dean argued.

‘THE STUDENTS WILL OWN IT. THEY WILL DEFINE IT BY WHAT THEY DO’

Gies had to agree. “This school is midwestern humble. We do not brag.”

“And besides,” reasoned Brown, “It won’t be your name. The students will own it. They will define it by what they do.”

It took a couple of weeks to persuade Gies to finally agree to have his name on the school. The evening before the announcement on Oct. 26th of 2017, his wife turned to him, clearly worried about the prospect of having the family name so publicly associated with their generous gift.

“Is this going to be a big deal?” she asked innocently. “Will there be anything in the papers?”

At that moment, says Gies, “I knew we were in trouble. We would no longer be under the radar.”

A GIFT AT AN OPPORTUNE TIME

The gift could not have come at a more opportune time. The state legislature had failed to pass a new budget for two years so funding concerns would come up in faculty recruitment conversations, even though state support had been falling for years. Yet, the school was moving forward, launching its iMBA online with the disruptive price tag of a mere $22,000. Soon after Brown became dean, the faculty reimagined the undergraduate business curriculum and he invested in a major branding campaign to get the school better known.

The inflow of money, directly from the Gies gift and indirectly from other alums who ponied up, has transformed the school. “I have been blown away by how it has been embraced by the school and the students,” agrees Beth.

“There are a lot of metrics we can throw out there,” adds Brown, “but what is hardest to measure is the sense of pride and purpose and the aspirations of the students who are gung-ho. People walk with a bounce in their step.”

ON BAD DAYS, THE DEAN WILL CALL GIES TO GET PUMPED UP

This spring the Gies College will break ground on a new building of classrooms and video studios. Brown already has a $25 million pledge from a donor who is resisting putting his name on the facility. The school is now a pioneer in offering students credit-bearing stackable online credentials that can be applied toward its online degrees. Even its online Master in Management program is fully stackable into its online MBA.

At an anniversary celebration in the cavernous atrium of the BIF (as students refer to the college’s business and instructional facility), Gies warmly greeted students, alumni, and faculty, hugging some he already knew. Some 68 Sicilian pizza pies from Papa Del’s were quickly consumed.

“There are two things I do on a bad day,” sighs Brown. “I go to the atrium to talk to students or I call Larry because he will always pump me up.”

Just like a generous gift that pumped up a college of business.