Olin Business School

Mahendra Gupta, PhD (middle), dean of Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management, chats with guests during the 17th annual Olin Thanksgiving Feast Nov. 24 in the Knight Executive Education Center.

The following are among the new faculty members at Washington University: Joseph Cullen, PhD; Amr Farahat, PhD; Exequiel Hernández, PhD; Baojun Jiang, PhD; Ping C. Lieser, PhD; Asaf Manela, PhD; Matthew Ringgenberg, PhD; and Adina Sterling, PhD. Others will be introduced periodically.

Lead gifts totaling $25 million by two of Washington University in St. Louis’ most dedicated benefactors will support the university’s Olin Business School and its plans for two new innovative facilities for graduate education. The gifts — $15 million from Charles F. and Joanne Knight and $10 million from George and Carol Bauer through the Bauer Foundation — will provide the capital foundation for Olin’s second century of top-ranked undergraduate and graduate business programs, which have grown steadily since the establishment of the school in 1917.

Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis has been selected as the inaugural winner of the MBA Roundtable Innovator Award for its Critical Thinking@Olin initiative, designed to develop critical thinking skills in MBA students.

Albert Pujols, the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman and Major League Baseball’s most coveted free agent, is clearly the best player in the game. But whichever team signs him this offseason will be overpaying, says an expert on pay-for-performance at Washington University in St. Louis.

Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for United States home loans, said last week it will need another $7.8 billion in federal aid following a third-quarter loss of more than $5 billion. As long as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are receiving subsidies, say banking experts at Washington University in St. Louis, there exists potential for another economic meltdown.

A field of 18 teams was narrowed to just eight finalists during the annual Olin Cup “elevator pitch” competition Nov. 10. Forty teams began the competition in September, vying for $70,000 in seed money to start a new company, but 12 were eliminated in an earlier round of judging.

Crowd funding, in which a group of investors pools money to fund a project or startup business — often online through social media and sites such as Kickstarter.com — has gained attention recently as a possible source for stimulating economic growth. But an expert on entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis says crowd funding may not be all its cracked up to be.

Olin Business School aggressively seeks and recruits students with military backgrounds like Tod Stephens, who is in the joint MBA/JD program. Olin recently become a full partner in the Yellow Ribbon Program, in which tuition costs are covered jointly by Olin and the Department of Veterans Affairs. And it has for years provided scholarship opportunities for many former junior military officers and non-commissioned officers through Olin Veterans Association Scholarships. 

When it comes to charitable giving, details matter. A new project by a marketing professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis finds that when charitable organizations approach potential donors with a more detailed description of the charity, donors give more.