The pledge to help build Hanson Hall isn't the first donation Herb Hanson has made to the school. In 1999, a $1.25 million gift went to honor one of his late professors.
March 29, 2006
Neal St. Anthony
Star Tribune
Herb Hanson was a just-discharged, 22-year-old Army paratrooper and a fledgling undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota business school when he knocked on Prof. Arthur Upgren's door one day 60 years ago.
Hanson was struggling with Econ 101 lectures.
"I had listened carefully and didn't understand a thing he had said," recalled Hanson, a Browns Valley, Minn., native who had just returned from U.S.-occupied Japan. "I was on the G.I. Bill and working part time for room and board. I didn't have any money. I told him that I needed to learn something practical and get a job after I graduated."
Upgren thanked the candid Hanson and told him not to quit. Upgren remembered to use more plain-talk English in his lectures. Hanson went to school year-round, worked two part-time jobs and graduated with a degree in economics in three years. Upgren was Hanson's mentor and wrote glowing letters about him to prospective employers.
"Upgren was kind and charming and turned out to be a great classroom teacher," recalled Hanson, 82, a retired investment manager from San Francisco. "He wrote letters to three big banks in San Francisco. I took a job at one of those banks for $225 a month. It was a start. I owe Upgren and the university."
Hanson and his wife, Barbara, have pledged $10 million to the planned $39.9 million expansion of the university's undergraduate business school. The school currently rejects most applicants because of its limited capacity. Of those turned away, 40 percent leave Minnesota to study elsewhere.
In ceremonies today to be attended by several hundred alumni, faculty and students, U of M President Robert Bruininks will unveil architectural plans for what will be Hanson Hall.
Jim Campbell, the retired business executive who is interim dean of the school, plans to raise an additional $5 million or so to go toward the new building and improvements to the existing business building on the west bank of the Minneapolis campus. Alumni and others will be tapped for $15 million more in scholarship funds for needy students.
The four-story Hanson Hall would connect to the existing Carlson School building by skyway. The undergraduate school, ranked 12th nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, will be able to handle a 50 percent increase in enrollment, to 2,500 students.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota House of Representatives have earmarked $26.6 million in their respective capital-spending budgets for the next two years toward the project. The Minnesota Senate, in its bonding bill passed this month, included only $13 million for the new building, or half the amount requested by the university.
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Posted by reas0011 at March 30, 2006 10:35 AM