Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center first building at Harvard Business School to bear the name of a woman or that of an Asian-American
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Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center first building at Harvard Business School to bear the name of a woman or that of an Asian-American
As dean of Harvard Business School, part of Nitin Nohria’s job is to mythologise its vast campus. The inauguration last month of yet another new building offered a perfect marketing opportunity.
“One way in which one can understand the evolution of business is to just walk through HBS and see the names of the buildings,” Prof Nohria declared in a video to mark the occasion, alluding to facilities named after the likes of bankers John Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Mellon and George Fisher Baker, a father of Citigroup.
The new building, a base for executive-level courses named the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, does indeed constitute a milestone for HBS by commemorating the rise of China. It was funded with $40m from James Si-Cheng Chao, a Chinese-American businessman, and named after his late wife. It is the first building at HBS to bear the name of a woman — appropriately, as four of Mr Chao’s six daughters went to HBS — or that of an Asian-American.
Tellingly, the temporary structure that housed the dining hall for visiting executives during construction was so plush and solid that it would not have looked out of place as a permanent fixture on less-endowed campuses.
The Chao Center is just one of the more visible manifestations of the heavy spending currently under way at HBS — some arising from donations, some from its own resources — as it tries to adjust to the changing global economy.
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