Tower Editorial: Open for Business

$47 million is a large sum. Almost twice as large as the donation that ended up becoming the Edward J. Pryzbyla Center, the student hub for the University. This donation was made by a group of people, but the largest contribution is that of the Busch Family, totalling $15 million. The bulk of the money will go to the School of Business and Economics, there will be a mass of renovations to Maloney Hall.

However, the question on everybody’s lips is: Why not my major? The business school is the recipient of the biggest influxes of cash in our campus’ history, and every other department froths at the mouth to scream and shout, “We deserve this sort of money!” But do you? Why are the business students getting such a boone? Is it fair? Finally, the question that pops out is: how does a department procure this sort of capital?

Maloney is condemned and the business school doesn’t have accreditation, it isn’t in the best shape. There are a few things that needs to be considered. The Busch donation will go a long way towards legitimacy for the business school. We, as a university, need to be supportive to the departments falling behind in quality, or at least provide a home for the students that enroll in the multitude of business programs that are in the school. There are quite a few.

So, what do the other schools do for these kinds of funds? There isn’t a good answer for that. The best strategy for making generous and rich students is constantly inspiring and influencing those students in a positive way. So if you’re complaining about the lack of funds, think about this: the school needs to inspire.

So spit out those sour grapes. We only have to do our best, and we’ll continue to get the kind of money that the Busch Family donated. We only have to do the best job we can, and until we do that, we need to stop complaining. The situation is that a school program that needed money got some, and we should be happy. The kind of good press an accredited business school could bring is not negligible, and we have no reason to complain about this. So let’s celebrate! Last time we got the Pryz, and we all use the Pryz almost every day. So in the future, we might be using the Maloney lobby to meet up and go to class. Hopefully we’ll get to see it.