PSU business school preps for long awaited redesign, expansion


After securing a $40 million bond from the state legislature, Portland State’s business school is looking forward to updating its facilities.

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BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR

After securing a $40 million bond from the state legislature, Portland State’s business school is looking forward to updating its facilities.

Though most of the donors are recognizable Portland philanthropists, the second-largest private donation comes from halfway around the world. Sheikh Fahad al-Athel of Saudi Arabia got his undergraduate degree in business at PSU in the 1970s. PSU spokesman Scott Gallagher says the sheikh’s gift underscores the strong ties the business school has with the Middle East.

Portland State University has the largest population of students from Saudi Arabia of any American university, according to Marshall.

Read more about PSU’s plans for the future at the Portland Tribune.


Robin Anderson, the dean of the Pamplin School of Business at the University of Portland was interviewed by Oregon Business about his vision for the other business program in the Rose City.

Some highlights of Kim Moore’s interview with Anderson include him bucking the notion that MBA programs are more popular in a recession:

“That is not always the case,” [Anderson said]. “This recession caused people to pause in terms of their confidence in where business was going. Now confidence in businesses has grown again. People are recognizing again the value an MBA can bring in building organizations. As the business economy continues to grow, it is growing in such a way that people are looking at social responsibility: You want to do it well, but also do it right. Some of the things that happened previous to the recession — people look at that and are saying that is not how we want businesses to work.”

Read Anderson’s MBA Perspective with an abridged power list ranking Oregon’s MBA Programs by total enrollment here.