Message from the Dean

Welcome to our third annual Report to Investors, which we began publishing in 2004 to provide a detailed account of our progress to our most supportive alumni and friends.

The School of Business has made significant advances in key program areas. Our full-time MBA program attracts better students and delivers high satisfaction and improved placement outcomes. Improvement in several national rankings has followed. Our Enterprise MBA programs, offering degrees for working professionals, attract more qualified students and deepen our partnership with key corporate partners. Our undergraduate program remains in high demand and students report high levels of satisfaction and excellent placement outcomes. We continue to offer a broad array of executive programs that generate surpluses that help support all of our offerings at the school. Our faculty contribute through research and their work with companies, organizations and regulatory agencies.

We have achieved this progress despite challenging financial conditions. Business education is in great demand worldwide, increasing the competition for business faculty at a time of weak growth in supply, leading to significant upward pressure on compensation. Simultaneously, the university has experienced a decline in state support, only partly offset by higher tuition. We have worked to make up the difference through a combination of program revenue from our Enterprise MBA programs, non-credit executive education, grants and private philanthropy. We
will need to do even more in the future.

Support from alumni and friends has played the decisive role in our advancement. The steady improvement in our career-specialization MBA has been fueled by major gifts that established new centers of excellence and elevated capabilities in existing areas and by the active involvement of many accomplished alumni and friends who work closely with our faculty directors on the program, mentor our students and create employment opportunities for our graduates. This design leverages one of our greatest assets—the many successful and loyal Wisconsin alumni who are committed to our success.

The public-private partnership we have built in our MBA program is a model that can be extended throughout the school. One example is the launch of the Accenture Leadership Center. The center relies on public and private funding and significant programming support by alumni and friends to teach leadership skills to undergraduates in applied settings.

Alumni and friends also have provided critical support for our faculty at a time when recruiting and retention are extremely challenging. Newly funded chairs in accounting and management, along with flexible support funds, have enabled us to remain competitive and contributed to a successful hiring season.

As this Report reveals, private support plays an important and growing role in our success. We thank you for your role in this great partnership. With your help, we will sustain and strengthen the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s legacy of business leadership.

Mike Knetter