UW-Madison Business School officials Monday refuted recent allegations that alumni support has fallen at the same time as the school’s ranking.

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article published Monday, the UW School of Business is losing popularity and financial support compared with other business schools across the nation.

The school ranked 23rd in Business Week’s biannual report in 1998, the only time it has appeared on the list since 1988.

However, according to David Walsh, a 1965 business school graduate who has been actively involved with the school as the chairman of the school's advisory board, these rankings do not mean a thing.

“The Business School has dropped from where it was a couple years ago, but you have got to be careful with the rankings,” Walsh said. “We are known for niche programs, and that doesn’t come out in the rankings. We’ve got a lot of other attributes.”

R.D. Nair, interim provost for the Business School, said the article’s implication that the business administration master’s degree program is failing was both uninformed and misleading.

Nair said the school’s ranking, at 23, is still in the top 5 percent in the nation.

“We have a very good program here,” Nair said.

The article also said alumni support for the school is declining.

Ray Zemon, an alumnus who has contributed thousands of dollars to the school, told the Journal Sentinel a decrease in successful students who graduate from the school will mean less alumni funding in the future.

“It breaks my heart what’s happening to the business school,” said Zemon, who owns a private financial market speculation fund in Chicago.
Zemon said he stopped giving to the school in the mid-1990s because his concerns were not being answered.

However, according to Walsh, Zemon does not represent most business school alumni.

“We’ve gone in 10 years from $8 million in endowments to $85 million,” Walsh said. “That’s fantastic. I've never seen more support.”

Walsh also said the school’s success can be measured by its new facilities, such as Grainger Hall and the Fluno Center.

“I don’t think there are any schools in this country with better facilities,” Walsh said.

The Journal Sentinel article also claimed on-campus recruiting has declined with the lack of good ratings.

School officials refute this as well.

While admitting the number of recruiting businesses coming to campus has gone down 36 percent, Karen Stauffacher, director of the Business Career Center, said it is not due to lack of popularity.

“It was slower this fall anyway because of the economy, but after Sept. 11 we had cancellations,” Staufacher said.

But even this decline, Staufacher said, is probably only temporary. In 10 years the number of employers that have come to campus has increased from 300 total for the 1990-91 academic year to just over 500 two years ago. Last year, as the economy began to suffer, the number dropped to 482.

“If the economy picks up again, these companies will come back again,” Staufacher said.