u Gift for College of Business marks record donation
By ANNE MARIE MATTINGLY
News Editor
The single largest monetary gift in Notre Dame history will be directed to the College of Business, Notre Dame Public Relations announced Tuesday.
The gift, in the amount of $35 million, was donated by 1973 Notre Dame alumnus Tom Mendoza and his wife Kathy as part of the University's "Generations" fundraising campaign, bringing the effort's totals to over $900 million.
"Tom and Kathy Mendoza have our deepest gratitude, and we are delighted by their magnificent generosity," said University president Father Edward Malloy in a press release Tuesday.
Carolyn Woo, dean of the College of Business, said the gift was unexpected.
"It is a surprise for the College of Business," she said. "The credit should really go to Father Bill Beauchamp and the development office."
The funds will be used to better the quality of business education at Notre Dame, said Woo.
"It will not be used for bricks and mortar," she said. "It will be used for building excellence."
Woo outlined a three-fold vision for the gift. The first area will include efforts to improve the faculty through retention, recruiting, and support, said Woo, who noted that faculty are a source of excellence. The College will also focus on program support, including curriculum development, new course offerings and new learning experiences as well as technology infrastructure for business education.
Woo said that the University has not yet made any decisions on the specifics of how it will budget the dollars and cents.
"We have not determined the procedure [for deciding how to spend the money], but it will be a process of conversations and planning that will lead us to an action plan and stewardship with respect to this gift," she said.
The University will rename the rename the College of Business to the Mendoza College of Business to honor the family, though Woo said the date for the official implementation of the new name has not yet been decided.
"It's just a matter of going through the logistics and the paperwork, but there is no question that we are committed to that name," she said.
Tom Mendoza expressed his happiness to be able to increase the quality of education at Notre Dame's business college in a press release Tuesday.
"Kathy and I are delighted to be in a position to support Notre Dame with this contribution," he said. "We are convinced that the University is committed to making the Mendoza College of Business a world-class college. We are both looking forward to working together with Dean Woo and the rest of the college's faculty and staff to help them meet their goals."
To that end, Kathy Mendoza will serve on the advisory council of the College.
Tom and Kathy Mendoza have both worked in the computer industry for more than 20 years and are both currently employed by the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Network Appliance (NetApp), the leading provider of network attached data access and management solutions. The company was listed as the fourth fastest growing by Fortune magazine in 1999 and is a member of both S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100.
The College of Business, founded in 1921, was recently ranked among the nation's top 20 best MBA programs in terms of return for the investment by Forbes Magazine, while Business Week has rated the College's business ethics curriculum as the best in the nation. The college is Notre Dame's second largest with 1,800 undergraduates, 780 graduate students and 130 faculty. It includes the departments of accountancy, finance and business economics, management and marketing as well as a number of concentrations and six centers for scholarly research and teaching.
All News Stories for Thursday, March 23, 2000
