Wharton graduate donates $10 million

The gift will support the University's International Studies and Business Program, founded in 1994. Wharton alumnus Jon Huntsman has donated $10 million to fund the University's International Studies and Business Program. The three-year-old ISB program -- which combines international studies, foreign language and business education -- is the first of its kind in the United States. Huntsman, who graduated from Wharton's undergraduate program in 1959, is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Huntsman Chemical Corporation. He also served as a University Trustee from 1987 to 1994 and currently holds a position on Wharton's Board of Overseers. His son, Jon Huntsman, Jr., is also a Trustee. The endowment will be used to maintain the program -- established in 1994 on "shaky funding" from Wharton and the College of Arts and Sciences -- according to Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity. "We launched it with no funding other than limited resources from each of the two schools," he said. "Providing an endowment always stabilizes a program even during hard times," University President Judith Rodin said. "This allows it to really excel, to become a crown jewel in the University." The donation -- which will be in use by next fall -- will also allow ISB to expand its programming and course offerings, Gerrity added. Some programming improvements will be made in the area of ISB's language training, according to Arabic Professor Roger Allen, who coordinates the College's side of the program. Allen said ISB has become a "flagship" for the rest of the University and will be the testing grounds for plans to strengthen students' foreign language skills. He added that the endowment will allow ISB to experiment further, testing many ideas under consideration as part of the University's Agenda for Excellence. Huntsman expressed a wish to support the program -- which focuses on the international complexities of business -- since his company and his family have a particular interest in the globalization of the business world, Board of Trustees Chairperson Roy Vagelos said. "It is a wonderful thing when you want the University to increase internationalization and a family, a company is thinking globally and these interests coincide," Vagelos said. Rodin said she is "thrilled" with the donation, and Vagelos noted that it will fund one of the interdisciplinary programs outlined as a strategic goal of the Agenda for Excellence. "I see the International Studies and Business program as one of the outstanding examples of interdisciplinary inter-school work at the University of Pennsylvania that makes us quite unique," Vagelos said. He explained that the program -- which attracts students from across the globe -- also fits into the long-term goals of the University and its Trustees to increase the internationalization of the Penn community. Huntsman has made several large donations in the past. In 1989, he established the Huntsman Center for Global Competition and Leadership -- a Wharton research program. And in 1993, he made a $4.4 million donation to the "Campaign for Penn" fundraising effort. Rodin added that although the University is pleased with the number of the donations announced recently, donors are still being sought for the new Wharton building and the University's other capital projects.

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