I am pleased to announce the establishment of the James D. Kuhn Real Estate Center in the Whitman School. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony took place Oct. 6th, with James Kuhn '70 MBA '72, Marjorie Kuhn, SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor, and several members of the Whitman Advisory Council in attendance. Whitman is already making strides to emphasize real estate in our curriculum: new courses have been added to the curriculum; the Whitman Real Estate club was recently established and is currently the fastest growing student club in the school; and the Whitman faculty will vote on a new undergraduate real estate minor for the 2006-07 academic year. Stay tuned for more exciting news about real estate from Whitman.

The Whitman School is prepared to relaunch our highly successful MBA UpGrade, and we are looking for suggestions that would make this program of highest value to participants. Launched in 1995, the Whitman MBA UpGrade is a short-term executive education program designed for MBA degree holders from Syracuse University or other schools. To provide us with your input and perspective on courses that would be valuable to you, please fill out our survey. We look forward to hearing from you!

Students enrolled in the Applied Portfolio Management program through Whitman's Ballentine Investment Institute will have the unique experience of being one of the groups of business students to gain an audience with Warren Buffett. Students will travel to Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway headquarters in Omaha on April 20 to ‘rub elbows’ with one of the most successful investors in history. The same students operate Whitman's Orange Value Fund, and they officially announced on Wednesday, Oct. 4 that the fund had completed its first closing. The fund managers will now begin making investment decisions with the $1.1 million from investors.

Whitman may be in your local newspaper--our faculty are regularly called upon as experts to provide quotes on pressing news stories, including: Amanda Nicholson, assistant professor of retail management, was quoted in a Baltimore Sun article on the Boscov's department store chain; Ravi Shukla, associate professor of finance and associated dean of the MBA & MS programs, commented on investing in a Post-Standard article. Pat Cihon, associate professor of law and public policy in the Management Department, was quoted in a Buffalo News article about Rite-Aid buying out Eckerd and Brooks drugstores.