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$10 Million Fund-Raising Campaign for
New Facility
To Be Launched At November Dinner
MIAMI, Fla. – (Oct. 17, 2001) – Underlining
its commitment to become one of the country’s leading business
schools, Florida International University’s College of Business
Administration (CBA) will name its Graduate School of Business
after former Knight-Ridder CEO Alvah H. Chapman, Jr., at a Nov.
1 dinner that will kick off a $10-million fund-raising campaign
to help build a new $30-million graduate school of business facility
as part of a proposed $75-million business school campus.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other state leaders will join FIU President
Modesto A. Maidique and CBA Dean Joyce Elam at the event, where
the formal naming ceremony will take place. The fund-raising effort
to be launched that evening will identify key community support
for a new, state-of-the-art facility expected to cost about $30
million.
Chapman has been perhaps South Florida’s most influential
business and civic leader over the past 30 years – responsible
in many ways for Miami’s emergence as an international business
center. His leadership has also been evident in a wide range of
civic causes, most notably the massive “We Will Rebuild”
effort following Hurricane Andrew’s devastation of Miami-Dade
County in 1992. Chapman was tapped to head that project by President
George Bush.
Chapman also has been the leader of this community’s nationally
recognized homeless program as founding chairman of Community
Partnership for Homeless, Inc.
Maidique said Chapman represents the best in leadership that South
Florida has to offer. “Mr. Chapman’s leadership within
our community is exemplary,” said Maidique.
“His life’s work embodies the integrity and civic and
business leadership we take pride in instilling in our students.
We’re grateful for his longstanding commitment to FIU.”
Chapman has served as a champion for FIU’s CBA for many years.
His leadership has been key in channeling gifts worth more than
$14 million from himself, Knight-Ridder, the Knight Foundation
and other donors to the University and the CBA.
According to Elam, the Chapman Graduate School of Business is
a critical component of her vision to further establish the CBA
as a recognized force in international business education.
“The Alvah H. Chapman, Jr. Graduate School of Business will
enable us to strengthen our graduate programs and continue to
propel us to the forefront of top-rated graduate international
business schools in the world,” she said. Other major leaders
are already behind the emerging Chapman School, among them Gov.
Jeb Bush, who will address the audience at the Nov. 1 dinner,
and South Florida businessman Armando Codina, who will chair the
fund-raising effort for the school’s new facility.
“I couldn’t be more honored than to help make this important
new facility a reality, especially since it will carry Alvah’s
name,” said Codina. “He is real treasure to both this
university and the greater community.”
Individual tickets for the dinner, which begins at 7 p.m. at the
J.W. Marriott Hotel on Brickell Avenue, are $500. Tables range
in price from $5,000 to $25,000. For more information or to purchase
tickets, contact Monique Catoggio in the College of Business Administration
at (305) 348-4227.
Florida International University’s College of Business Administration
(CBA), South Florida’s business education leader with unique
expertise in international business and information technology
(IT), is the second largest of FIU’s 12 professional schools,
enrolling approximately 3,800 undergraduate and more than 900
graduate students each year. South Florida’s top-rated business
research school and one of only 405 business schools in the world
accredited by the AACSB--International, the College offers the
8th- largest part-time MBA program among this group, and its IT
faculty has been ranked among the top 20 (11th) in the U.S. in
terms of research productivity. Its international MBA program
was rated tops in Florida by American Economy in the Aug. 2001
edition. It is one of only 28 business schools to have received
a Department of Education grant to establish and support an international
business center.
For additional information about the College, please call Assistant
Dean Sally Gallion, (305) 348-2751.
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