U. alum gives $5.5 million to program

Money to improve M and T For the Management and Technology program, the holidays came a little late this year. The dual-degree program received a $5.5 million gift earlier this week from Wharton graduate and Chairman of the Nine West shoe company Jerome Fisher. "It's a great honor for me to endow such an enlightening program, and one that places Wharton and Penn on the cutting edge of the future of business education," Fisher said in a statement. Fisher previously contributed to the restoration of the library within the Furness Building, later renamed the Jerome and Fisher Fine Arts Library. He was also a "founder" of the Penn Club of New York that opened early last year. Management and Technology Professor William Hamilton said the endowment will enable administrators to make improvements to the program, which has been operating on a "very, very lean budget." Hamilton said the gift will expand student advising, the summer internship program and the student research center as well as increase alumni networking. Currently, Hamilton is the only full-time staff member running the dual-degree program. Several work-study students work in the program's office. "It's going to make a great program even better, rather than to expand it dramatically," Hamilton said. "The [Management] and [Technology] program symbolizes what Penn does exquisitely well -- to give students the opportunity to study across discipline and across school boundaries. "We will no longer be lean," he added. "But we will still be mean." Wharton School Dean Thomas Gerrity said there is "a growing need in both industry and government" for Management and Technology graduates. He added that the endowment will continue to enhance the program's reputation. The dual-degree program began in 1976 and has seen a 50 percent increase in applications since 1993.