Carnegie Mellon receives $10m gift from venture capitalist

Carnegie Mellon University has received a $10m gift from business school alumnus and venture capitalist James Swartz to promote collaboration in research and teaching across the university.

The money will contribute to the building of the Tepper Quadrangle, a hub centred on the business school which also bears David Tepper’s name. Mr Tepper’s charitable foundation gave $67m to CMU in November 2013 to support the building of the quadrangle.

Mr Swartz was founding partner of Palo Alto-based Accel Partners and an inaugural member of the Tepper School’s Business Board of Advisers. He already supports a scholarship for first-year MBA students at the Tepper school for those who demonstrate exceptional leadership potential, and an entrepreneurial fellowship programme that links students with Silicon Valley venture-backed start-ups for coaching, networking and internships.

Robert Dammon, dean of Tepper, described Mr Swartz as a pioneer in the world of entrepreneurship. “The new home for our business school will enable an expansion of entrepreneurship across the university campus and will allow us to expand the possibilities for innovative research and interdisciplinary degrees and provide a flexible technological framework that anticipates the needs of next-generation learning.”