The school will be named after Dyson's late father, Charles, a pioneer in the high-finance field of leveraged buyouts who helped organize the International Monetary Fund. Some 800 graduate and undergraduate students are enrolled at Cornell's Department of Applied Economics and Management, which opened in 1909. The gift will elevate the department to the status of a school. Dyson, a Cornell graduate, was named to head the power authority by Gov. Hugh Carey, served as a deputy mayor under New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and launched a highly rated winery in the Hudson Valley. The family of John Dyson, a former chairman of the New York Power Authority, is giving $25 million to Cornell University to establish a school of applied economics and management.
Some quick notes:
-- I haven't seen a full press release yet, but from the looks of it, it seems that the AEM program will be staying in CALS for the time being despite Provost Fuch's earlier indication that 'AEM at present will not become a school' and my own insignificant opinions that it is a bit inefficient to have business faculty scattered across five different undergraduate colleges.
-- So we'll have the Johnson Graduate School of Management and the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in the New York State College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Confusing much?
-- The AEM website has already been re-branded as the 'Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management'.
-- This isn't the first time the Dyson family has given to the University.
--Sometimes I kind of feel bad for those students who actually want to study agricultural or resource economics.
