At Temple’s Main Campus, several hundred celebrants nibbled at anniversary cupcakes, listened attentively to Dean M. Moshe Porat’s remarks about the school’s progress, and took a virtual tour of the new Alter Hall.

About 4,300 miles away in Rome, students, faculty and administrators watched a digitally captured message from the deans and toasted the anniversary.

“It’s really cool that so many campuses — Main, TUCC, Ambler, Fort Washington and Temple’s Rome and Japan campuses — all celebrated the school’s 90th birthday,” said David Kaiser, director of undergraduate enrollment management. “The fact that we had a global party really reflects how international the school has become.”

Full-time and professional M.B.A. students celebrated at Temple University Center City and Fort Washington, and executive M.B.A. students commemorated the school’s 90th birthday at the Desmond Conference in Malvern, where classes are taught, and students in the B.B.A. and the E.M.B.A. in Japan will also soon celebrate at their campus. At the Ambler Campus, undergraduates also participated in a meet-and-greet session with Fox deans.

At each location, the emphasis was on the path the Fox School has taken — from teaching shorthand and typing 90 years ago, to the school’s status today as the largest, most comprehensive business school in the Philadelphia region and among the largest in the world.

“This is an exciting time to celebrate our 90th birthday,” Porat said. “In addition to Alter Hall nearing completion, we have hired 11 new faculty members this year and will be hiring 20 more faculty members next year, and then another 20 more over the following years. This is the most transformative event in the history of the school.”

Porat also noted that the rising quality of the Fox School’s faculty, students, technology and campuses is boosting the quality of a student’s degree — or as he called it, a “student’s stock.”

“You are the full-time stockholders in a Fox School education, because you are holding the degree,” Porat said. “And the value of that stock is increasing, due to the school’s high rankings, our cutting-edge Alter Hall, our award-winning faculty, our advising staff and our top-quality students.”

The highlight at several of the celebrations, was the virtual tour through the new Alter Hall.

“The new Fox School complex, an $80 million, state-of-the-art building, is a great capstone for our 90th birthday,” John DeAngelo, associate dean for information technology, said as he guided students on the virtual tour. “Alter Hall will have plenty of breakout rooms, e-mail stations, fast battery-charging areas for laptops, and many other technology-savvy features.”

The tour is available on the Alter Hall web site at www.fox.temple.edu/alter.

Students celebrating the Fox School’s 90th birthday expressed pride in their alma mater, as well as hopeful anticipation for its future.

“Everyone is excited about Alter Hall’s new breakout rooms,” said Chris Hagen, a junior marketing major. “And of course the building’s technological advances are also being talked about. I am also very happy with the new faculty being hired.”

Val Burlak, an M.B.A. student, echoed Porat’s sentiments.

“Fox has already attracted high-level talent, and when Alter Hall is completed, we will have a technologically advanced building,” Burlak said. “This will entice even more talented students, which increases the value of our degree.”

Stephen Fogg, an associate professor of accounting, who served as department chair for 20 years and has worked at Fox for 32 years, and is also president of the Fox School’s Collegial Assembly, summed up his impression of the 90th anniversary celebration.

“We have always been successful, but the school has moved forward especially rapidly in the last five years. This makes it a great time to celebrate,” Fogg said. “We have expanded in technological capacity, and there has been a big improvement in the quality of students. There has just been a powerful feeling of optimism overall.”

—Written by Holly Otterbein

For the Fox School of Business