Purdue University Receives Record $50 Million Gift For Its Business School

Purdue University has announced that it has received a $50 million gift from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation. The gift, which is the largest monetary donation ever made to Purdue’s recently renamed Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, will support an undergraduate business institute that will be the umbrella for several undergraduate education initiatives.

In recognition of the gift, Purdue will name the institute the Bruce White Undergraduate Institute after the founder and chairman of White Lodging Services Corp. White, a long-time supporter of Purdue and a former member of its Board of Trustees, died in January of this year.

Purdue said the donation will serve as the lead gift in its effort to reimagine and expand its school of business, an effort that was announced last year.

“The White Family Foundation has long been a truly dedicated partner in helping Purdue achieve excellence at scale. The naming after Bruce White, one of the most prominent Boilermakers our university has ever known, is particularly meaningful to us,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said in written remarks. “This gift ensures Purdue will educate exceptional undergraduate business students who will create and grow competitive businesses in a technology-driven, free-market economy.”

The Bruce White Undergraduate Institute will serve as a key component of Purdue’s business school along with the renamed Krannert Graduate Institute, subject to final approval by the university’s Board of Trustees.

The Daniels School, named after Purdue’s former president and governor of Indiana, plans to grow new undergraduate degree pilot programs that it began in the past two years. Those programs include the integrated business and engineering (IBE) and business analytics programs. The IBE program already has twice the number of expected students, and the goal is to grow the number of IBE and business analytics degree students to 1,600, constituting 40% of the Daniels School’s undergraduate population.

In the next several years, the Daniels School is also aiming to:

• Increase enrollment to 4,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students by 2028.
• Hire more tenure-track and clinical faculty.
• Add additional space to its current business facilities.

“Purdue is recognized as a dynamic national leader in higher education, where it has redefined the meaning of value. As such, Purdue is seen as a strategic partner of our foundation,” said Bill Hanna, executive director of the White Family Foundation. “Bruce was an instrumental part of Purdue’s progress over the last decade and more, working closely with senior university leadership as both a trustee and a dedicated alum. He represents a true north that students can look to as a model, and the White Family Foundation is proud to support the Bruce White Undergraduate Institute.”

The White family has been a frequent, major contributor to Purdue over the years. Bruce White and his wife, Beth, along with the Dean and Barbara White Foundation, donated $30 million to Purdue to renovate its on-campus Union Club Hotel. The White Family Foundation also made a $20.8 million pledge last year to support the Dean V. White Real Estate Finance program.

In 2021, Purdue renamed its hospitality and tourism school the White Lodging-J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management in recognition of the company’s ongoing support and partnership.

“The White Family Foundation’s commitment to an increasingly prominent Purdue inspired us to imagine a business school that addresses the need to reshape business education and produce technology-based graduates who build and lead successful companies,” said Mitch Daniels in the university’s announcement Monday. “Their gifts provide tremendous momentum to realize our goals.”

“My brother Bruce was a phenomenal human being,” added Craig White, president of the board of trustees at the White Family Foundation. “His success in business was tremendous, but his success as a person and as a leader is even more impressive — he put his heart and soul into every aspect of his life, and he has inspired countless other people to do the same. Naming the undergraduate program after him couldn’t be more natural.”