Crain’s Detroit Business: $59 million Wayne State business school opens with nod to Ilitch legacy
When Wayne State University students start classes next week at the new Mike Ilitch School of Business, they'll enjoy classrooms with views of downtown Detroit's skyline and state-of-the-art facilities in a sleek 125,000-square-foot building on Woodward Avenue. The Ilitch family starred in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday for its patriarch's namesake business school, 2 1/2 years after the largest donation in Wayne State University history jump-started its construction. The Mike Ilitch School of Business will see its first students for fall semester next week, the product of a $40 million gift from Marian and Mike Ilitch. Graduate MBA enrollment has increased by 65 percent and total enrollment at Wayne State University's business school has increased by 30 percent since the Ilitches' $40 million gift was announced in October 2015, the university said. The Wayne State business school, established in 1946, migrated from Wayne State's Midtown campus in June. It is expected to enroll 4,000 this year as it debuts on Woodward Avenue. Classes start Aug. 29. Twenty MBA students are taking on a new concentration in sports and entertainment management that includes internships with local sports teams and venues, school of business Dean Robert Forsythe said during a media tour Monday ahead of the ribbon-cutting. Wayne State created the concentration, and an entrepreneurship and innovation program, as part of the donation agreement, Forsythe said.
