Trustee Shipley Gives $2.8 Million to SMG
Gift to recognize, promote faculty excellence
Boston University trustee Richard Shipley announced this week that the Shipley Foundation will donate nearly $3 million to the School of Management to recognize faculty excellence.
“This generous contribution underscores Dick Shipley’s profound desire to promote world-class scholarship and teaching at his alma mater,” says President Robert A. Brown. “We deeply appreciate his benevolence and commitment to mentorship.”
Shipley (SMG’68, GSM’72), a member of the Board of Trustees since 2003, designated $2.5 million to establish a permanently endowed professorship, which will be held by a faculty member considered an outstanding contemporary business intellectual with a proven record of superior scholarly research and teaching. An additional $300,000 was pledged to underwrite the Shipley Fund for Excellence, an endowment for use at the discretion of the school’s dean.
“Boston University is on a roll under Dr. Brown’s leadership, and nonprofits are no different than the for-profit world in that we invest if we see results,” Shipley says. “Our faculty is the lifeblood of the University — often not fully appreciated in university rankings — and it is important to support them.”
Shipley also points to the student body as one of SMG’s key strengths, but he adds that building the endowment and upgrading the building infrastructure remain critical needs. He says increasing the endowment at a time of “top-to-bottom strength” for the University is a priority.
“Dick Shipley’s generosity reflects a renewed interest among alumni to support President Brown and the University’s 10-year strategic plan to elevate the University to preeminent status among institutions of higher learning,” says Louis E. Lataif (SMG’61, Hon.’90), the Allen Questrom Professor and Dean of the School of Management. “We are deeply grateful for his ongoing commitment to the work of the School of Management.”
Until 1999, Shipley was president and CEO of the Shipley Company, L.L.C., a Marlborough, Mass., firm founded in 1957 by his parents. The company, now called Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials, is a leader in electronic chemicals and process innovations for advanced circuit board technology, semiconductor manufacturing, and advanced packaging. Its products are integral elements in mobile phones, smart cards, computers, flat panel displays, automotive electronics, and equipment that powers the Internet.
Shipley is the founder and CEO of Shiprock Capital, L.L.C., a private equity firm that invests in early- and expansion-stage technology companies focused in the fields of information technology and physical sciences.
His studies at Boston University, he says, “furthered confidence and internal discipline.”
“I quickly learned that there were no silver bullets, no shortcuts,” Shipley says. “I enjoyed my time there.”
Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.
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