Ernest Rady pledged to donate $100 million to UCSD’s School of Management possibly over the next several years on April 7.
The donation is expected to render an improved college education system at UCSD with a wider variety of programs and more faculty members in the Rady School of Management.
According to Robert S. Sullivan, the dean of the Rady School of Management, this monetary gift will be mainly used to grow the faculty through recruitment.
“[The fund] will allow us to provide endowed faculty chairs for the best and the brightest faculty because our campus as whole needs to be much more competitive in the market,” Sullivan told the UCSD Guardian. “Right now, we are limited with some of the special programs because we don’t have enough faculty to deliver them.”
Relatively small in size with only 27 full-time faculty members, the Rady School will also focus on expanding minor programs for undergraduate students.
“Minors are very important to the campus because we have approximately 1,400 students that have minors in our school,” Sullivan said. “So, even though we were created to be a graduate program, we are important to the undergraduates, and we will continue to grow these programs.”
According to Sullivan, the Rady School is concentrating on finding new programs that are currently in high demand and in high need. Some of these programs include business analytics, data science, social innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as quantitative finance and investing.
Moreover, the Rady School intends to use the funding as a source of reinforcement to improve student fellowship.
“[For the] individuals that are really the best and the brightest of the students, no matter where they come from, it shouldn’t be the tuition that would keep them out of [the university],” Sullivan said. “We need to provide fellowships so that the bests and the brightest come.”
Prior to this recent $100-million gift, Rady contributed $38 million in the past to the Rady School, which was mostly budgeted for the facility construction. In return, UCSD named the facility after Rady to honor his philanthropic deed.
Apart from his contributions to UCSD, Rady has also donated $180 million to Rady Children’s Hospital to help doctors treat disorders by analyzing genetic makeups.
The new donation to the Rady School is an endowment fund, which means that the money will be paid partially throughout the next several years, possibly decades.
Rady is the executive chairman of American Assets Trust, Inc. and a self-made billionaire businessman experienced in the field of financial services, investment management and real estate.
Rady graduated from the University of Manitoba with degrees in law and commerce.
