WisBusiness: Edgewood gets $2.4 million gift to expand business school

By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com

An anonymous donor has given Edgewood College a building in a west Madison office park worth nearly $2.4 million.

Richard Nagel, a spokesman for Edgewood, said the donation was made last year and that the donor serves on the college’s 31-member board of trustees.

He said the building’s address is 1255 Deming Way in the Old Sauk Trails Park. It was valued at $2.35 million in 2004, according to the Dane County Land Information office. Nagel said the building is now being used as the college’s Corporate Learning Center, where the mission is to develop managers of small and medium-sized businesses. The program is headed by Rolfe Nervig.

Nervig described the Corporate Learning Center as a college start-up for professional development and said the courses are not for academic credit. Instead, he said, the program does assessment, coaching, one-to-one training and runs workshops and seminars.

“The aim is to improve managers’ and supervisors’ management skills to increase employee productivity and thus drive economic development in the region,” Nervig said.

Nagel said the center will hold its grand opening later this month. It will be held from 4-6 p.m. on April 25 and Edgewood president Daniel Carey will speak.

Nagel said the business school will expand its programs at the site later this year.

“We’re not sure exactly how we’ll do it, but we’ve had quite a lot of discussions on the subject,” Nagel said.

He said the building is ideally suited for use by the college because it was designed for adult education, which will remain its purpose under Edgewood ownership. The structure was most recently owned by New Horizons Computer and used as a training center.

“This building opens up a lot of opportunities for us,” Nagel said.

“We’re pretty much maxed out for space on our main campus,” he said. “We hope to tie in with businesses in the office park and work with local and regional businesses as well.”

Nagel said Edgewood has 2,400 undergraduate and graduate students. The MBA program has 218 students, while there are 222 undergraduate business majors and 87 students in the Bachelor of Business Administration program.

He said business is one of the private, Catholic college’s largest majors, along with education and nursing. The school is affiliated with the Dominican order.