Continued: Darla Moore
The school also worked closely with major corporations to secure gifts of new technology that will significantly advance distance learning, IT operations and risk-management curricula. Other gifts include $6 million related to the school’s participation in the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management and $3 million from Sonoco.
Teegen said in approaching individual donors who could make significant contributions that will have a lasting impact on the school, fundraisers emphasized planned giving in light of the economic climate. Among those gifts is an anonymous $3.3 million bequest for scholarships and professorships.
The business school also communicated frequently with its alumni through new print and electronic publications and created a buzz on the Internet via a viral marketing video about Darla Moore and the school’s history. The video went from YouTube to the alumni network and beyond.
“I applaud the creativity shown by the university’s leaders in raising the matching funds,” Moore said. “When times are tough, innovation is called for, and that’s exactly what happened here with the interdisciplinary gifts, corporate gifts-in-kind, planned giving and Internet marketing. I couldn’t be more pleased.”
The Darla Moore School of Business is among the highest-ranked business schools in the world for its international-business education and research. Founded in 1919, the school has a history of innovative leadership, blending academic preparation with real-world experience through internships, consulting projects, study-abroad programs and entrepreneurial opportunities. The Moore school offers undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees, as well as distinctive executive-education programs. In 1998, the school was named for South Carolina native and New York financier Darla Moore, making the University of South Carolina the first major university to name its business school after a woman. In 2008, The Darla Moore School of Business added to its mission a strategic theme of Sustainable Enterprise and Development.