News > April 3, 2008

By Katie Phillips | Staff writer

Representatives from the international accounting firm Ernst & Young, along with the university’s Calloway School of Business and Accountancy students and faculty, gathered for a special ceremony regarding future plans of a development center in Kirby Hall. A major gift to the university was contributed along with the announcement of the construction of a new student professional development and advising center.

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Jack Wilkerson, Dean of the Calloway School, welcomed Ernst & Young officials April 1. (Kelly Makepeace/Old Gold & Black)

The new center will be managed by the first director of student professional development in the Calloway School.

It will open in the fall of this year. The director will offer professional development skills and advising services to all Calloway School majors.

A donation of $500,000 from Ernst & Young will be used towards the development of the professional and advising center.

Named the Ernst & Young Development Center, it will be housed in an area of 900 square feet of newly remodeled space on the ground floor of Kirby Hall. “For Ernst & Young, this gift underscored our commitment to Wake Forest and the future business leaders that are graduating from the Calloway School,” Tom Hough, vice chair of the firm, said of the donation.

President Hatch also spoke at the ceremony. He noted the importance of the Calloway School’s relationship with Ernst & Young, thanking both parties for their commitment.

Hatch said that the new development center exemplifies the “signature of Wake Forest University’s quality and personal attention given to students at our first rate school.”

Dean Jack Wilkerson of the Calloway School noted the importance of the firm’s “longstanding support for academic programs.”

“The center will help students add business savvy and a more polished professional demeanor to the technical skills they have acquired through the school,” he said.

“The thing that has been most impressive to me about the friendship and support of this firm is Ernst & Young’s sustained efforts to enhance our school and especially to enhance our learning environment and the development of our students.

This generous gift, this Center, will assure that our graduates are exceedingly ready on day one.”

At the announcement of the proposed center, an artist’s rendering of what the center will look like was also revealed.

Business Week magazine ranks the Calloway School 21st among the nation’s top undergraduate business schools.

The school began offering a Master of Science in Accounting degree in 1997, and since then graduates have received top national ranking on six different occasions.

It has also placed second in the nation three times for the highest percentage of candidates passing all four sections of the accounting test on during their first time taking the exam.

Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transactions and advisory services with over 130,000 employees in 140 countries.

It was founded in 1937 to provide “philanthropic support to institutions of higher education.”