Virginia State University News June 29, 2010 Reginald Lewis Foundation grant is largest gift in VSU history The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, Inc. has committed a grant of $1.5 million to Virginia State University. The grant will be placed in an endowment from which earnings will be used to support student scholarships; student travel related to academic pursuits; faculty travel and supplemental sabbatical support; and a prize to be given to a student who, upon graduation, demonstrates the highest level of academic achievement from sophomore through senior year. In recognition of the largest gift in the University's history, VSU will name its business school the Reginald F. Lewis School of Business. Through federal matching funds, and additional fund raising over the next three to five years, led by President Emeritus Eddie N. Moore, Jr., who is retiring on June 30, the total value of the endowment initiated by the Lewis grant will be in excess of $3 million. "This is a momentous achievement for Virginia State University," said President Moore. "Reginald Lewis succeeded through savvy business dealings and by wisely choosing his investments. It is a tribute to the excellence of Virginia State's academic programs that the foundation bearing the Lewis name has chosen to invest here." Reginald F. Lewis graduated from Virginia State in 1965. He came to the school on an athletic scholarship and was a quarterback on the football team, until an injury ended his athletic career. He was also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. After graduation, he attended Harvard Law School. Lewis took the business world by storm when he acquired McCall Pattern Company for $22.5 million and sold it three years later for a $50 million profit. Lewis' most impressive business deal came in 1987, when he managed a billion-dollar, leveraged buyout of Beatrice International Foods, a global conglomerate. That deal, Black Enterprise magazine said, made Lewis the most successful black entrepreneur in the history of the United States. Lewis died from brain cancer at the early age of 50. At the time of his death, Forbes magazine listed him among the 400 wealthiest Americans. He was also the first African American to build a billion dollar company. Virginia State University's School of Business recently developed a new, integrated business curriculum that will focus heavily on technological participation and digital content. The initiative makes VSU the first HBCU (Historically Black College and Universities) in the country to develop a system to deliver an integrated core curriculum to students and the first university in the country to deliver the core curriculum in a predominantly digital format. In 2006 the School of Business earned international accreditation through The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the premier global accrediting body for schools that offer undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in business and accounting. VSU joined an elite group of 540 institutions worldwide that have earned specialized AACSB accreditation. Fewer than 10 percent of the world's business schools have achieved business and/or accounting accreditation from AACSB International. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Register now http://www.hbculibraries.org/html/meeting-form.html for the October 24-26, 2010 HBCU Library Alliance 4th Membership Meeting and the "Conference on Advocacy" pre-conference in Montgomery, AL. The Pre-Conference and Membership meeting are open to directors and other librarians.