Decades before Georgia State University received national attention for a commitment to inclusion and belonging, innovation, and social mobility—and before rankings bodies paid attention to such things—leaders from Bank of America (BofA) recognized those traits within the downtown Atlanta school. One might call Bank of America an original cheerleader for Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business. The bank is, after all, one of Robinson’s longest-standing supporters.
“Our partnership dates back to the 1960s,” said Al McRae, president of Bank of America Atlanta, who not only serves on the Georgia State University Foundation board but also earned his B.B.A. in finance from Robinson in 2002. “We share the same values, such as innovation, research, and a thoughtful commitment to solving the world’s most challenging problems.”
Avoilan Bingham, Morgan Phillips, Baheejah Crumbley and BofA small business community officer Don Hunter receive “thank you” gifts from Deniece Griffin of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Institute.
A $1 million donation in the early ‘60s marked the bank’s first major gift to Georgia State. Mills B. Lane, then president of Citizens & Southern National Bank (C&S, a precursor to Bank of America), did so to encourage more students to pursue careers in banking.
C&S merged with NationsBank in 1991. One year later, NationsBank donated its former Atlanta headquarters building to the university’s College of Business Administration (renamed the J. Mack Robinson College of Business in 1998). Located at 35 Broad Street, the iconic 14-story edifice has housed Robinson administrative offices and academic departments from 1993 until this day.
Lane made another major mark in 1997 with an umbrella of scholarships available to students within the business school. The more than $800,000 endowment provides financial aid to anywhere from 12 to 40 undergraduate and graduate students per year in the amount of $2,000 on…
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