The University of Delaware has received a $71.5 million gift for its business school.
The gift, from UD alumni Robert and Kathleen Marie Siegfried, is the largest contribution from an individual or family in UD’s 282 year history. The university’s Lerner College of Business and Economics will use the gift to design and build a new building named after the couple.
UD President Dennis Assanis says the new building will enable UD to prepare students for the demands of employers today.
“They are emphasizing nowadays digital skills, AI, emerging technologies, data analytics - and Lerner has been doing an amazing job in all those areas, except that we were constrained and confined by the environments that we had to deliver those,” he said.
The new building will have state-of-the-art classrooms, as well as labs and collaboration spaces according to Lerner Dean Oliver Yao.
“There will be modern classrooms,” he said. There will be state of art classroom technology. There will be teaching and research labs. There will be public access to computer equipment.”
The new building will also have collaborative spaces, something Yao says is crucial in today’s business environment.
“They can walk into those collab spaces and work on projects. They can work on preparing for interviews, and all that altogether will enhance our student experience,” Yao said.
Yao says he hopes the construction of the new building will be complete in five years.
Assanis says the creation of the Institute for Leadership and Free Enterprise will also benefit students.
“It's really going to enable an usually impressive and responsive environment to the needs of educating the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs that our country and our society needs so much,” Assanis said.
UD says the institute will focus on, “the critical role basic principles of limited government, rule of law, and free enterprise play in supporting individual freedom and leadership.”
In a statement, the Siegfrieds said those principles are, “pivotal to free enterprise and align with the foundational values of the United States.”
Calling the gift, “transformative,” Assanis said he was grateful for the $71.5 million contribution from the Siegfrieds.
“They're extraordinary,” he said. “They lead by example. They've shown an unusual commitment, and this is fantastic because in so many ways they are helping us transform the lives of our students, and our students are going to be the ones who will transform the world for years to come.”
Rob Siegfried , in a statement, said, “My time at UD — my incredible professors, the many unique experiences inside and outside the classroom, my vibrant network of friends and colleagues — helped to make me who I am today,”
Assanis says, considering widespread uncertainty about sweeping cuts to federal funding for higher education, philanthropy like the Siegfrieds’ is especially important.
“It's very likely that the resources that they will be seeing would be less when it comes to federal and even maybe state support,” he said. “I like to believe that that won't be the case for us because we built a great research profile with triple the research expenditures over the last few years, but nonetheless the ability to attract more support from individuals and corporations is especially meaningful.”
Assanis says the gift will help propel UD’s business school into higher prominence.
“We have built so much momentum and we're really ready to ignite. And with this environment and the people that we have and the things that we're attracting, we're just going to be amazing. We’re going to be a top 25 business program in the country before too long.”
In 2024, US News and World Report ranked UD’s business program 77th out of 532 schools across the country.
