Woodbury University has embarked on its first-ever full-scale fundraising campaign that includes plans for a new building to bring students and faculty of its business school under one roof. Having that separate business school facility will aid the university in receiving accreditation that will place it on the same footing as the business schools at UCLA, USC and Pepperdine University. Business school Dean Andre van Niekerk said that having the gold standard accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business places Woodbury in “a whole different league” and shows that even a small school can compete against larger ones. “It’s a matter of pride, it’s a matter of marketing, it’s a matter of strategic positioning,” Van Niekerk said. Woodbury’s main campus encompasses 22 acres in Burbank, nestled in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains. Since the university took over the site in 1987, the business school has not had a home of its own. Faculty has offices in several buildings and classrooms are scattered around the campus. The Building Initiative will change that as the university faces a growing student population yet is stunted by a lack of opportunities to reallocate or renovate space. The $20 million campaign will be funded by a two-fold approach approved by the school’s board of trustees. A refinancing of debt generated $13.7 million in new money with a minimal increase to the university’s overall debt service. The remaining $6.3 million will be collected through donations from alumni, foundations, area corporations and other interested parties. “Students can’t pay for all of the operating costs with their tuition,” University President Ken Nielsen said. “We need to find other sources. Some schools have large endowments or state-supported funds. We don’t have those things so we need to raise it.” The Building Initiative will fund the new business school facility, additional studio space for the architecture and design programs, and a parking lot. Over 1,400 students enrolled at Woodbury for the 2005-06 school year, about 550 of them in the business program. With a new business school building, potential students visiting the campus can see that Woodbury is serious about being “in the business of business,” Van Niekerk said. The new building will include teleconferencing capabilities, state-of-the-art classrooms, a 250-seat auditorium and a glass lobby featuring a tickertape machine and four flat-screen monitors tuned to financial news channels. Leonis and Leonie Malburg have made a $1 million pledge to go toward its construction. The lobby will be named for them. Leonis Malburg is a 1949 graduate of Woodbury who sits on the board of trustees and serves as the mayor of Vernon, a small city south of downtown Los Angeles. Naming opportunities still exist for the entire building, the auditorium and the school of business itself, Van Niekerk said. The members of the school’s board of trustees have pledged about $2 million for the campaign, said Charlie Jackson, a university trustee and chairman of the capital campaign committee. Getting the board to contribute will make it easier to now approach alumni, foundations and endowments to raise the remainder of the money needed, Jackson said. Donations to the university have steadily increased over the years, according to Vice President of University Advancement Richard M. Nordin. Ten years ago, Nordin said, donations totaled about $500,000. This year, the figure was closer to $2.5 million, he added. Woodbury had been a for-profit institution until 1972, Nordin explained, and following the switch to non-profit status it took time to build up relationships to get the donations flowing. Past remodeling projects on university buildings have been in the $1 million to $1.2 million price range so the Building Initiative is a five-fold increase, Nordin said. Still, the timing is right for the university to succeed with its goal and the type of project proposed. When completed, the university will see a 30 percent increase in the roughly 165,000 square feet of building space it now has, Nordin said. “When someone makes a gift to a place like Woodbury there is a huge impact,” Nordin added.
