ANN ARBOR—Gifts will fund “green business” students Increasingly corporations are recognizing that a successful business must be sound-not only economically, but ecologically and socially as well. The University of Michigan’s top-ranked Business School and School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) have been working together towards fostering ecologically sustainabsle commerce with their joint-degree Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP). Students in the program will now receive a boost with a major gift from Ford Motor Company Fund that provides the needed match to secure a challenge grant from the McGraw Foundation. Recently, the Max McGraw Foundation of Illinois, citing U-M’s CEMP program as one at the forefront of training the next generation of sustainable leaders, made a $75,000 challenge grant to provide financial support to CEMP graduate students. The funds will be distributed over a three-year period at $25,000 a year. In response to the first year of the challenge, Ford Motor Company Fund will provide $50,000 to support third-year CEMP students, making $75,000 available to third-year students this fall. “Education is our top priority,” said Sandra Ulsh, president of Ford Fund. “We are proud to support the CEMP program and to continue building on our longstanding relationship with the University of Michigan. It is important to us to help provide opportunities to the people living and working in the communities where we do business, and this program is another example of that commitment.” CEMP is a joint three-year master’s degree program offered by U-M’s School of Natural Resources and Environment and Business School. The program’s mission is to prepare leaders with the skills and knowledge necessary for organizations to achieve the “triple bottom line”—that is organizations that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Prof. James Reece, Business School faculty co-director of CEMP, commented: “The academic value of the third year of CEMP is a major factor in distinguishing our students from those getting only business degrees elsewhere. Yet, when one adds up the tuition and living costs for this third year, plus the opportunity cost of not taking a job a year sooner, the total cost can be quite daunting. The combined generosity of Ford Fund and the McGraw Foundation will be a big help in ensuring that CEMP students continue to benefit from this additional breadth and depth, which will make them even greater contributors to their employers and society.” “The Ford Motor Company grant is especially valued and timely as it ensures that the current CEMP students starting their third year in September will be able to take advantage of the Max McGraw Foundation’s challenge grant,” says Jonathon Bulkley, CEMP co-director and SNRE professor. “These CEMP students who will graduate in April 2003 are exceptionally motivated and dedicated young men and women who will help provide leadership in industry, non-governmental organizations and government agencies, enabling all of us to achieve and maintain more sustainable societies in the future, both in this country and overseas.” CEMP students earn both an M.B.A. and an M.S. and complete the program well versed in both management methods and environmental science. The size of the student body has doubled over the past five years, outpacing student funding and making this support especially important.

Ford Motor Company FundJames ReeceJonathon Bulkley