Out of the windows of the 8th floor of Huntsman Hall, the western half of Penn’s campus glowed in the setting sun on Wednesday, Sept. 7. It was an apropos backdrop to the main event of the evening, the dinner celebrating the launch of the Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research. After all, Wharton’s newest center is set to have a large impact on all of Penn’s campus.
University of Pennsylvania President Dr. Amy Gutmann called it a “magnificent new platform” to prepare the next generation of the world’s leaders in business and finance.
One of the beauties of the center will be its ability to bring together academic and theoretical research into quantitative finance with practitioners and real-world applications. Another will be the center’s interdisciplinary reach across campus, not just in the Finance, Accounting, Statistics, and Operations and Information Management departments at Wharton, but into the schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Applied Science, and beyond.
Of course, Wharton and its faculty and students are the direct recipients of the largesse of Bruce I. Jacobs, G’79, GR’86, and Kenneth N. Levy, WG’76, G’82, principals and co-founders of Jacobs Levy Equity Management.
As Sam Lundquist, associate dean of Wharton External Affairs, put it during the dinner’s opening remarks, the gala recognized a moment when Wharton is becoming even more distinguished and ever more capable of fulfilling its mission.
“That is indeed our objective: to be the best business school in the world, and for the world,” said Thomas S. Robertson, Wharton Dean and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise.
The outside media took notice of Wharton’s new center as well. Be sure to read coverage of Wharton’s Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center and and Jacobs and Levy’s $12 million gift to Wharton in the Wall Street Journal and Pensions & Investments.
