Darden Graduate School of Business Administration

Infobox_University
name = The Darden School of Business


established = 1954
type = Public
dean = Robert F. Bruner
city = Charlottesville
state = Virginia
country = USA
coor = coord|38.052096|-78.513901|type:edu|display=inline,title
website = [http://www.darden.edu/html/default.aspx http://www.darden.edu/] The Darden School of Business Administration, founded in 1954, is the graduate business school associated with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Darden School is (in the Dean's words) "high touch, high tone and high octane". It is named after Colgate Whitehead Darden, Jr., a former Democratic congressman, governor of Virginia, and president of the University of Virginia.

Darden MBA

Darden offers a two-year MBA program that relies heavily on case-based teaching methods (see Case Study Analysis), similar to teaching methods used in many law schools and at Harvard Business School. Darden teaches solely through the case method, one of the few prominent schools to do so. The Darden case method relies heavily on strong preparation (done both on an individual basis and group basis) and deep discussions within Sections.

The school is known for its particular strength in General Management, and it is regularly ranked by "Business Week", the Economist Intelligence Unit, Forbes, US News and World Report and other sources as a top business school in the world.

In 2002, Darden expanded the class size by 20% from 250 to over 300. Darden's Dean, as of August 1, 2005, is Robert Bruner, who is also the school's Distinguished Professor of Business Administration.

George David, 1967 Darden graduate and current CEO and Chairman of United Technologies Corporation, said of his time at the school, "My two years at Darden were the best ones of my life. The intensity was amazing, and the skills acquired life-long. I learned for the first time that classmates and I could push problems around with the sheer force of trying. I am profoundly grateful for this experience."

Darden's top student award is the Samuel Forrest Hyde Memorial Fellowship, which is awarded by the faculty to the first-year student who has contributed the most to the welfare of the school and shows the greatest career promise. Darden also awards the Frederick S. Morton Leadership Award to a second-year student in recognition of exceptional leadership.

Darden awards the C. Stewart Sheppard Distinguished Service Award to recognize first-year Darden students for exceptional service to the School. Darden faculty awards the William Michael Shermet Award to fifteen (top 5%) first-year students for exceptional academic performance and classroom contribution.

Darden also awards Frank E. Genovese Fellowships each year in recognition of academic performance and General Management

Darden's Executive Education program continues to be ranked strongly by the The Financial Times including:
* Number 1 in the World in Open Program Executive Education. Fact|date=May 2008
* Number 1 in Open Program Faculty (for the 3rd consecutive year).Fact|date=May 2008
* Number 1 in Open Program Course Design (for 4th consecutive year). Fact|date=May 2008

The program offers both open and custom programs. Executive Education programs include sustainability, service excellence, leading strategic change, and bargaining and negotiating.

The Darden School launched an MBA for Executives program in June 2006. The executive program takes 22 months.

Batten Institute

The Batten Institute is a prominent institution at the Darden School of Business. A leading business think-tank, the Batten Institute invests in applied research and knowledge transfer programs on the frontiers of change in organizations, markets, and technologies. The Institute is a nexus of practitioners and scholars who foster new practical knowledge about business innovation and change.cite web
publisher=Darden Graduate School of Business
year=2006
url=http://www.darden.edu/html/standard.aspx?menu_id=72&styleid=2&id=814
title=Entrepreneurship
accessdate=2007-10-05] The Institute was founded in 1996 and fortified in 2000 by a record $60 million gift from UVa alumnus Frank Batten, Sr., retired Chairman and CEO of Landmark Communications and founder of The Weather Channel.

Rankings

Darden is regularly ranked as being among the Top 15 business schools in the world. Its current rankings (updated September 2009) are as follows:

*US News and World Report ranked number 14 in 2009. (12 in 2008, 13 in 2007, 14 in 2006)
*Forbes ranked number 4. [ [http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/16/best-business-schools-biz-07mba_cz_kb_0816bschool_land.html Best Business Schools - Forbes.com ] ]
*Wall Street Journal ranked number 10 and 4th among most improved Business Schools. [ [http://www.collegejournal.com/reports/bschool05/ Education - WSJ.com ] ]

*Business Week ranked number 15 in 2006. (12 in 2004) [ [http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/06/index.html 2006 MBA PROGRAMS ] ]
*Financial Times ranked number 14 globally. (ranked number 1 globally under "best in general management") [ [http://news.ft.com/businesslife/mba/ FT.com business education: MBA and executive education rankings and news ] ]
*Economist Intelligence Unit ranked number 10 USA and number 13 globally. [http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2002rankings/]
*Financial Times ranked the Darden Executive Education program number 1 in the World for Open Program Executive Education. Fact|date=May 2008

Prominent alumni

Darden's list of prominent alumni (in order of graduation) includes:

*John H. Bryan (MBA '60), CEO and Chairman of Sara Lee from 1976 to 2001
*George David (MBA '67), CEO and Chairman of United Technologies Corporation
*John D. Shafer Jr. (MBA '68), CEO of Dunkin' Donuts
*Rea S. Hederman (MBA '68), Chairman since 1984, [http://www.nybooks.com/ New York Review of Books]
*Ronald E. Trzcinski (MBA '71), President and Founder of [http://www.originalmattress.com/ The Original Mattress Factory]
*Henri Termeer (MBA '73), the President, Chairman and CEO of Genzyme Corporation
*L.F. Payne (MBA '73), former Virginia congressman
*Roger L. Werner Jr. (MBA '77), founder Speedvision and Outdoor Life Network
*Charles A. de Mestral (MBA '78), the current CEO of Winstar Resources Inc.
*Steven Reinemund (MBA '78), the current CEO and Chairman of PepsiCo (has opted to retire in May). Voted number 15 in Barron's 2006 "World's Most Respected US CEOs."
*Mark B. Templeton (MBA '78), President & CEO, Citrix Systems Inc.
*Bill Hawkins (MBA '82), President & CEO, Medtronic Inc.
*Frank Batten Jr (MBA '84), CEO of Landmark Communications (owner of The Weather Channel and many newspapers).
*Mark Sanford (MBA '88), Governor of South Carolina
*Martina Hund-Mejean (MBA '88), Treasurer of Tyco International Ltd.
*Naren K. Gursahaney (MBA '89), President of Tyco Engineered Products and Services
*James Geisler (MBA ’93), Vice President Finance, United Technologies Corporation
*Trip Davis (MBA ’94), President & CEO, [http://www.trx.com/ TRX, Inc.]
*Doug Lebda, founder of Lending Tree, which was conceived as business plan during his first year. Doug left Darden (Class of 98) to pursue the business.
*Dustin Masaru Shindo (MBA ’99), Chairman & CEO and Founder, [http://www.hokuscientific.com/ Hoku Scientific] .

ee also

*List of United States business school rankings
*List of business schools in the United States

External links

* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/ Darden official site]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/html/DardenBlogger.aspx?styleid=4/ Darden Student Bloggers]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/news/index.htm Darden News]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/exed/ Darden Executive Education]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/MBAexec/ Darden MBA for Executives]
* [http://www.dardenbusinesspublishing.com/ Darden Business Publishing]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/batten/ The Batten Institute (Darden's Center of Excellence for Entrepreneurship & Innovation)]
* [http://www.darden.virginia.edu/olsson/ Olsson Center for Applied Ethics (Darden's Center of Excellence for Business Ethics)]
* [http://faculty.darden.virginia.edu/brunerb/ Dean Robert Bruner's personal page at Darden]
* [http://www.weather.com/weather/local/22903?lswe=22903&lwsa=WeatherLocalUndeclared&from=whatwhere Weather at Darden]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=darden,+charlottesville&ll=38.043495,-78.476887&spn=0.094634,0.161018 Directions to Darden]

References