$25 million gift establishes Charles H. Dyson business school at Cornell

MILLBROOK — Cornell University has announced that the family, foundation, partners and friends of Charles Dyson have amassed an endowment of $25 million for the undergraduate business school, which will now officially be named the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in honor of his contribution to American business. The size of the gift is unusually large for an undergraduate business school and the funds will be used primarily for scholarships and hiring professors.

Cornell’s undergraduate business program, which was ranked fifth in the nation by Business Week in 2010, is part of Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences School. Students receive a liberal arts college education and a grounding in practical business basics like accounting.

John Dyson, who now owns the Millbrook Vineyards & Winery and has built his own successful investment business, graduated from the school, as did his two daughters. He revealed that the gift has been under discussion for the last five years, and explained that the Dyson name will clearly brand the school as a separate institution and build its identity. The gift follows three decades of financial support from the Dyson family beginning in 1962 with a $5,000 scholarship.

The uniqueness of Cornell’s undergraduate business program lies in its origin, teaching farmers about business. Its broad based curriculum includes futures trading, rural and international community development and nutrition.

“Most business schools are too theoretical. They do not have the breadth of framing and grounding in reality that Cornell’s applied economics and management program has had for its whole 100 years,� said John Dyson when announcing the grant in June. “You can’t just take business courses.�

Dyson said the most important class he had at Cornell was international development. This course led to his own interest in public policy and eventually to positions as commissioner of New York State Department of Commerce, deputy mayor for finance and economic development of New York City and head of the New York Power Authority.

Scholarships were especially important to Charles Dyson, who worked during the day and studied accounting at Pace Institute at night during the Depression to support his family, rather than attending Columbia University.

“This is a great thing about America. I had to go to night school, but you get to go to day school,� he told his son, John, as he entered Cornell.

Each year 10 students will be designated as Dyson Scholars, with substantial financial aid based on need and merit in their freshman year.

The other focus of the grant will be to hire teachers, especially in accounting, which is the foundation of understanding any business. When his two daughters attended Cornell, John Dyson insisted on only one thing.

“You must take an accounting course,� he told them.

Buyout pioneer and philanthropist Charles H. Dyson, who died in 1997 at the age of 87, is remembered in Millbrook for his active, generous support of Hudson Valley organizations.   John recounted how his family arrived as weekenders in the town of Washington. While his father was building his business, Dyson-Kissner-Moran, in the 1950s, he traveled a great deal and found it difficult to visit his four children at summer camps scattered around New England.

“I want to know where my kids are,� John, then 14 years old, remembers his father saying.

He dutifully marked out a 50-mile radius around his home in Scarsdale, walked into a Realtor’s office in Millbrook with his mother, and found a farm for the family where brother Rob Dyson now lives.

In the mid-1980s Charles Dyson gave most of his fortune to family foundations that he had established starting in 1957. Charles Dyson believed in the idea of stewardship and giving to the community. Through 2009 the foundation has given away more than $223 million with a special interest in the Hudson Valley.

The formal dedication of the Dyson School will occur in Ithaca on Friday,  Oct. 1, and the entire Dyson clan is putting together old photographs, letters and remembrances of the truly remarkable man they will be honoring.

All of Charles Dyson’s four children have links to Cornell. The late Anne Dyson was a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College and vice chair of its Board of Overseers. Rob Dyson received an MBA from Cornell in 1974 and is an emeritus trustee of the Johnson School’s Advisory Council. Youngest son Peter Dyson is a member of the Undergraduate Business Program Advisory Council, and four of Dyson’s grandchildren graduated from Cornell.