Andrew “Andy” Policano, the new business school dean at the University of California, Irvine, said he plans to detail his fund-raising plans for the Graduate School of Management in the coming months.
In doing so, he’s venturing into waters where his predecessors have fallen short.
Policano, a prolific fund-raiser as dean of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s business school, has his work cut out. UCI’s last recruited business dean, David Blake, stepped down in 2002 in part because of a lack of fund raising.
“We have to bring in additional funds from outside,” Policano said. “It’s very difficult for any state to support schools at this level of quality. We need more funding from businesses and alumni in general.”
The numbers are telling. According to BusinessWeek’s recent profile of business schools, the endowment at the Graduate School of Management is $6 million, small for a top 50 school.
At the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles,a more prestigious school with a longer track record,the endowment is $61 million.
At Policano’s former University of Wisconsin, the business school endowment is $89 million.
The dean’s fund-raising prowess made him a coveted man for UCI and other schools, according to Charles Martin, a retired venture capitalist who helped bring Policano to UCI.
“We undertook what was almost a two-year search and looked at a huge number of candidates,” Martin said. “He was by far the best. There were some very high profile business schools,many of them in the top 20,that we’re heavily recruiting Andy. It’s a great move for UCI.”
The Challenge
Even with a solid track record, there are questions about how much Policano can do for the Graduate School of Management.
Predecessor Blake also was a prolific fund-raiser at Southern Methodist University near Dallas, where he doubled the endowment to $80 million by the time he left.
But at UCI, Blake was only able to bring in a small amount of grants and never achieved his goal of luring a name donor for the business school.
Of course, UCI is younger than UCLA, SMU and other schools with larger endowments. The 40-year-old university and 37-year-old business school haven’t had as much time to yield a broad pool of graduates who give back to their alma mater, officials say.
But how young is young?
The new School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, already has raised $57 million toward a goal of $115 million for a school that started in 2001.
The bulk of the money so far has come from Ernest Rady, chief executive of Irvine-based Westcorp. Irwin Jacobs, a former UCSD engineering professor and founder of Qualcomm Inc., also gave a big chunk. Separately, Qualcomm endowed a professorship at the business school for $3.5 million.
Perhaps it may be easier to raise money for a startup school than at UCI. And the Graduate School of Management has to compete for money with other departments on campus.
Earlier this year, Donald Bren, chairman of The Irvine Company, had UCI’s School of Information and Computer Sciences named after him after giving $20 million.
And UCI’s engineering school bears the name of Broadcom Corp. cofounder Henry Samueli after he gave $26 million in 2000 to the department and to the College of Medicine.
Martin said he is bullish about Policano’s chances of boosting the business school:
“It’s my view that Andy’s going to make a huge difference in the OC business community. I believe he’s going to take what is already a very good school and build it into one of the nation’s best. He’s off to a very good start. He’s already built some remarkable relationships with business community leaders.”
For now, Policano isn’t offering details on how he plans to overcome the business school’s fund-raising challenge, saying he’ll be out with his plan early next year.
The dean has been forging ties with business, in part through a series of notable events.
Earlier this month, Policano moderated “Celebrating the Entrepreneurial Spirit,” a breakfast program featuring Ron Simon, chief executive of Newport Beach-based RSI Holding Corp., and others.
The business school put on the event as part of its Orange County Leadership Forum sponsored by the Newport Beach office of Los Angeles-based O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
“We invite the community and have a panel of experts,” Policano said. “The public comes in and gets to talk to a panel of people who have done well in business. We do stuff like that all the time.”
This week, Orange County Register Publisher N. Christian Anderson III is set to talk about media changes in OC as part of a business school event at the Pacific Club in Newport Beach.
The school also has a forum where students and businesspeople get to hear from chief executives. Earlier this month, Lee Roberts of Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp. spoke.
The school has started an experiential program for full-time, non-working MBA students, Policano said.
“We’ll have projects each year where we’ll be partnering with 20 or 25 companies that need additional hands,” he said. “Companies will be integrally involved.”
Rankings Focus
Those who recruited Policano were looking for someone to push UCI’s rankings higher, he said.
“They’re looking to bring the business school into the top echelons of business schools,that will take a decade or more. That’s where we’re on the same wavelength,” he said. “As dean and with the work I’ve done nationally I know what it takes to do that. I view it as a challenge and as a fun project to work on.”
Policano got an early boost when the Financial Times recently ranked UCI’s Executive MBA program No. 10 in the country.
“There’s a lot of strength here,a lot of interactions with the business community that can be helpful for both sides,” he said.
The school also has lured business leaders on the teaching front. A recent coup: Thomas Madden, chief financial officer of Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc., is retiring from the company in spring and plans to teach at the Graduate School of Management.
Policano already has won over at least one business donor. Martin is offering second-year students investing experience,using his money.
Martin plans to invest up to $1.5 million in stocks picked by students, who can earn $4,000 to $12,000 toward tuition, depending on how well their portfolio does in the next year against the general market and the other teams. Students have to invest $200 of their own money, which they’ll lose if their stocks tank.
Policano, who headed the University of Wisconsin’s business school from 1991 to 2001, officially started at UCI in August. He replaced Jone Pierce, who had served as UCI’s interim business dean since 2002.
At the University of Wisconsin, Policano oversaw the redesign of the full-time MBA program and the addition of new specialty areas, such as agribusiness and technology management programs. He also spearheaded the school’s executive and evening MBA programs.
Big Money
During his decade term as dean, the school’s total endowment rose from $6 million to $100 million. In 2000, the school received a record-high one-year endowment of $11 million.
UCI was one of five dean positions Policano said he looked at, declining to name the other four.
“A lot of schools had entered a phase where a lot of deanships were available, and everyone wants to have a seasoned person,” Policano said. “What we’re trying to do now is redoing the MBA program and trying to make it very distinctive. We want to make it into one that stands out in the community and the nation. We’re trying to build on a reputation that is very strong.”
UC salary and budget constraints kept UCI from matching the compensation packages of several other competing schools. Martin, along Dwight Decker, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc., and other business leaders, formed an independent research institute that Policano heads for extra income.
Policano said he loves it here so far.
“What’s not to like?” he said. “My wife and I are really enjoying it. It’s just wonderful.”
Policano’s hobbies include golf, opera music, travel and reading. He’s 55 and is an economist. He married his wife, Pam, just before moving to Irvine. They each have two children.
