By Jeannie Griffith
The Dyson Scholars Program, to be funded with a $5 million gift from the Dyson Foundation, will begin making awards to UBP freshmen in the fall of 2008. The program will expand in subsequent years to cover all four undergraduate classes and, ultimately, to a select number of UBP students who commit to enrolling in the Johnson Graduate School of Management’s MBA program.
Dyson
Dyson Scholars will be chosen based on academic performance, with award amounts determined by financial need. Once fully funded, the Dyson Scholars Program will offer awards to approximately 60 students each year.
“The university is profoundly grateful to the Dyson family and foundation, not only for this most recent grant, but also for the many ways they have strengthened business education, at all levels, at Cornell,” said David J. Skorton, Cornell University’s president. “The Dyson Scholars Program will advance Ezra Cornell's founding vision of ‘an institution where any person can seek instruction in any study’ while also allowing us to recognize the accomplishments of the best and brightest in our undergraduate business program—a program that is rapidly gaining the visibility and renown it has long deserved. Once again, the Dysons are raising the bar for business education, bringing new energy and vitality to Cornell's curriculum, and ensuring that deserving students have access to a world-class education.”
The new endowment will also allow faculty in the Department of Applied Economics and Management to develop special program offerings for the Dyson Scholars, such as an annual visiting speaker, teaching-assistant experience and/or faculty-guided independent study or research, and networking activities.
“The Dyson Scholars Program is intended to build a special sense of community among Cornell’s most exceptional undergraduate business students and to offer an added incentive to the best among them to continue their business studies in Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management,” explained Robert R. Dyson, a 1974 graduate of the Johnson School and president of the Dyson Foundation. “At the same time, this program will allow outstanding students with financial need to participate more fully in the academic experience at Cornell without undue hardship. A strong motivation for this gift was the firmly held belief of my father, Charles Dyson, that students should be able to focus on their studies without having to support themselves, especially during the all-important freshman year.” The Dyson Foundation was founded in 1957 by Charles Dyson and his wife, Margaret.
Dyson is chairman of Dyson-Kissner-Moran, a privately owned holding company based in New York City. He served on Cornell’s Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2001 and currently serves on the advisory council of the Johnson Graduate School of Management. In 1995 he made a gift through the Dyson Foundation to the Johnson School to renovate the Sage Hall atrium. Another gift, in 1989, was made to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center to establish the Margaret M. Dyson Vision Research Institute. In March 2004 Robert Dyson and the foundation endowed the John S. Dyson Professorship in Marketing within the UBP to honor his brother.
It was John Dyson, a 1965 graduate of the Department of Applied Economics and Management and the chair of the CALS advisory council, who first proposed the idea for the Dyson Scholars Program. Now chairman and chief executive officer of Pebble Ridge Vineyards & Wine Estates and a Cornell presidential councillor, he also spent a distinguished career in public service and served as New York’s governor-appointed member of the Cornell University Board of Trustees from 1981 to 2001. In 2001 both John and Robert Dyson were elected trustees emeriti. In 1992 John Dyson established the Kenneth L. Robinson Professorship in Agricultural Economics and Public Policy in CALS.
“John and Rob Dyson have played key roles in the rapid rise to prominence of the Undergraduate Business Program, both as benefactors and advisors,” said Susan A. Henry, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “The Dyson Scholars Program will further enhance our success in attracting top-flight students to the UBP, regardless of need, as well as strengthening our links with the Johnson School. These are exciting times for the Undergraduate Business Program, and the Dyson Scholars Program ensures an even brighter future for the program and for many of tomorrow’s outstanding business leaders.”
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