![\"Philip](\"\/alumni\/files\/2020\/04\/Philip-Gerdine-for-web-150x150.jpg\")
Phil Gerdine and his late wife, Marjorie, \u201chave quite a lot of connections with BU,\u201d he says, and that\u2019s obvious from the string of affiliations that follow their formal names: Philip Van Horn Gerdine, PhD (GRS\u201961,\u201964, Questrom\u201971), and Marjorie Wells Gerdine, PhD (CAS\u201951, Wheelock\u201958, GRS\u201959,\u201967).<\/p>\n
But after Marjorie passed away late last year, Phil reviewed their estate plans and realized that, despite substantial gifts to other institutions, \u201cthere was nothing for BU.\u201d He quickly set about changing that.<\/p>\n
The result? Two generous endowments, one at the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) and the other at Questrom School of Business, that will make a real difference to generations of BU students and faculty.<\/p>\n
The power of psychology<\/strong><\/p>\n Gerdine\u2019s first priority was to honor his wife and her ties to the University\u2014\u201cshe was Miss BU!\u201d he exclaims\u2014as well as her distinguished career as a child psychologist, including her work as a BU lecturer. So he is giving $1 million to endow the Marjorie Wells Gerdine Scholarship, to be awarded with a preference for CAS undergraduates majoring in psychology.<\/p>\n \u201cThis scholarship is a wonderful tribute to Marjorie\u2019s extensive career as a clinical psychologist and educator,\u201d says CAS Dean Stan Sclaroff. \u201cHer energy and dedication to improving the psychological welfare of children and adolescents is an inspiration for generations of students to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Like his wife, Philip Gerdine earned master\u2019s and doctoral degrees in psychology and clinical psychology at BU. Unlike her, however, he pursued a career in business instead. And he says that\u2019s because of her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the spring of \u201964,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI went over to her place\u2014we weren\u2019t married yet. We were talking, and she suddenly said, \u2018You don\u2019t belong in psychology.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c \u2018What do you mean?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c \u2018Well, you don\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI slammed out of there. I was furious: \u2018I\u2019m never going to see her again, what\u2019s she talking about\u2014\u2019 Well, she was right.\u201d<\/p>\n So he helped some friends start a radio station in New Jersey, where he expressed his lifelong love of classical music as a DJ, and then\u2014again at Marjorie\u2019s urging\u2014enrolled in Harvard Business School. Though he completed all the coursework there, he says, Harvard did not give him an MBA, a degree he earned many years later at BU.<\/p>\n Gerdine sees his gifts, in part, as a way to show his gratitude for that difference.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an endorsement of BU,\u201d he says. \u201cYou don\u2019t reject people; you educate them well. And you\u2019ve got some excellent people there.\u201d<\/p>\n After Harvard, Gerdine launched his career in business, first at Boston Consulting Group and then at General Electric and Siemens. As it turned out, his earlier education proved more relevant than you might expect.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I did,\u201d Gerdine explains, \u201cwas apply psychology in business.\u201d<\/p>\n For instance: when Siemens, a German company, bought Plessey, a British one, after World War II, Gerdine knew that postwar tensions would be running high. He also knew that the British respected and valued Americans for what they\u2019d done both during and after the war.<\/p>\n So when Siemens sent him to England to meet with Plessey executives, he says, \u201cI went out there as an American\u201d and acted as \u201cAmerican\u201d as possible, not British. \u201cI did something they never do: I went and shook hands with every employee in there.\u201d<\/p>\n He credits such insights to his training in psychology.<\/p>\n \u201cI was able to manage people,\u201d Gerdine says, \u201cand that is the thing I feel is most missing in business.\u201d<\/p>\n Building cultural competence<\/strong><\/p>\n Which brings us to Gerdine\u2019s second gift to BU: a transformative investment, made through a combination of current and planned giving, in global business education at Questrom.<\/p>\n This investment is twofold: first, $1.5 million to endow the Philip Van Horn Gerdine Professorship of the Practice in Global Business, which will bring expert practitioners to Questrom to share their insights and global connections with students. The professorship marks a significant milestone in Questrom\u2019s longstanding drive to lead the way in global business education.<\/p>\n In addition, a gift of $500,000 will endow the Gerdine Fellowship in Global Experience, which will support graduate students\u2019 participation in Questrom\u2019s global experience programs. These programs place students in a variety of business settings around the globe, giving them irreplaceable real-world experience in cross-cultural communication and management.<\/p>\n \u201cPhil knows from his own experience that understanding the nuances of business cultures in different parts of the world is key to a successful career in today\u2019s business environment,\u201d says Susan Fournier, Allen Questrom Professor and dean of Questrom. \u201cHis gifts will enable generations of our students to develop real expertise in global management, and we could not be more grateful for his foresight and generosity.\u201d<\/p>\n The admiration is mutual.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting very fond of the dean,\u201d Gerdine says. \u201cI call her Madame<\/em> Fournier now\u2014because it is, after all, international business.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Philip Gerdine’s gifts honor his wife and support global learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14533,"featured_media":6463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,4,1],"tags":[177,16,298,59,139],"featured_img":"\/alumni\/files\/2020\/04\/Philip-Gerdine-for-web-800x600.jpg","agg_excerpt":"Philip Gerdine's gifts honor his wife and support global learning.","agg_title":"This donor means business\u2014and psychology","media_icon":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14533"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6457"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6466,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457\/revisions\/6466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}