Will Share IBM Grant

The Claremont Graduate School and UCLA Graduate School of Management will share in a $27-million cash-and-equipment grant from IBM aimed at upgrading graduate education in the management of information systems.

The schools are among 13 institutions nationwide selected for the funding. Over the next three to five years, each school will receive about $1 million in cash and another $1 million in IBM equipment, plus free IBM software.

According to IBM’s announcement last week, the schools will use the funds to “improve existing curricula and develop new course offerings leading to advanced degrees in the management of information systems.”

At Claremont, the funding--the largest corporate grant in its history--coincides with the introduction of a Ph.D. program in management of information systems and the near-completion of a $3.8-million educational computing center.

Paul A. Albrecht, executive dean of the graduate school, said the grant reflects a growing need for managers to understand high-tech systems.

“Although computer-based information systems have grown in recent years at an astonishing rate,” he said, “the ability of managers to use these new systems has often lagged behind the arrival of technological capability.”

UCLA announced that it will apply the grant to a new study focusing on “the management of information systems as opposed to the use of information systems by management”--addressing the needs of end users and corporation-wide information systems alike.

Universities sharing in the grant were chosen from 77 candidates, IBM said. Besides UCLA and Claremont, they include: Georgia State University, Indiana University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Georgia, University of Illinois University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester and the University of Texas.