The University of Detroit Mercy has received a $6.1-million estate gift to endow a new chair in the College of Business Administration. It is the largest single gift in the institution’s history.
Arnold Jarboe, class of 1954, died in 2016 and left his bequest to establish the Arnold Jarboe Chair in Business Administration. Jarboe was an attorney for the Social Security Administration.
“This extraordinary and large gift by our unassuming alumnus, Arnold Jarboe, is the best affirmation that he truly lived the Jesuit values he learned as a University of Detroit student,” says Antoine M. Garibaldi, president of Detroit Mercy. “Mr. Jarboe’s generous endowment will make it possible for generations of students and faculty at Detroit Mercy to receive and deliver, respectively, a high-quality education in business and leadership.”
Evan A. Peterson was appointed the first Jarboe chair. He is a lecturer in business law and was appointed by Joseph G. Eisenhauer, dean of the College of Business Administration.
“I am deeply grateful to Arnold Jarboe for his remarkable estate gift to the College of Business Administration and profoundly honored to have been chosen for this prestigious appointment,” says Peterson. “Through this gift, the College of Business Administration will continue to enhance its reputation as a national leader in providing students with innovative, cutting-edge business programs.”
Peterson holds bachelor’s, juris doctorate, and Master of Business Administration degrees from Detroit Mercy, as well as a doctorate degree in management from Walden University in Minnesota. He is a licensed attorney, has practiced law in Michigan, and serves as director of undergraduate business programs and co-director of the honors program.
He joined the university full-time in 2014, has helped create a minor and a concentration in business law, and published more than a dozen scholarly articles in professional journals. He has also engaged students as co-authors on articles and research papers.
The Jarboe chair will become part of the College of Business Administration’s Center for Practice and Research in Management and Ethics, for which Peterson will serve as director. The center will offer business students enhanced opportunities to interact with business leaders.
The center will also develop activities and scholarship endeavors, including the creation of a business-, government-, education- and nonprofit-based speaker series; the expansion of experiential learning and leadership opportunities, including hands-on coursework, service-learning projects, internships, leadership workshops, and teamwork projects; a student-run journal featuring research from across the nation that is relevant to the center; and the publication and sharing of professional research on management and ethics.
“The activities of the (center) will expand both academic and professional opportunities for students and ensure that we maintain our leadership position both regionally and nationally in management and ethics,” says Eisenhauer.
Future plans for the center include a Behavioral Dynamics Lab, in which teamwork and leadership will be studied through audio and video recording of group interactions and remote conferencing.
The College of Business Administration also includes The Center for Social Entrepreneurship, America’s Business High School, The Financial Markets Lab, and the Institute for North Korean Studies. The college’s accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business places it among the top 5 percent of business schools in the world.
