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From Good to Great
A gift from Peter T. Paul ’67 will benefit the business analytics program in his namesake college
A coffee mug with the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics logo designed on the front in a business meeting room
Jeremy Gasowski
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usiness analysts are often thought of as the bridge between companies’ IT departments and their management. Technologically and business savvy, they take large quantities of data, analyze it to build reports that help make sense of it and provide actionable insights to drive strategic decision-making in their organizations.

To provide New Hampshire and regional businesses with the critical help they need to sustain a competitive advantage, UNH’s Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics has launched a new Business Analytics Initiative, fueled by a $6 million gift from Peter T. Paul ’67. In 2008, a $25 million gift from Paul significantly funded the new state-of-the art college, the former Whittemore School of Business and Economics that was renamed in his honor at its 2013 opening.

Paul says the investment in business analytics will enable Paul College to build on its strong foundation and accelerate its educational offerings, research contributions and industry engagement in a field that is reshaping business globally. “The college is now recognized as one of the nation’s top business schools,” he says, “and I am proud to make this new investment to help it go from good to great as a significant player in this fast-evolving and growing field.”

Peter T. Paul '67 giving a speech at a podium against a bright blue background
Peter T. Paul ’67
In a recent 12-month period there were more than 2 million business analytics positions posted nationally and more than 75,000 in the Boston and northern New England region. In response to growing student and employer demand for undergraduate and graduate education in the field, Paul College offers an undergraduate specialization in information systems and business analytics, and, at the graduate level, a popular specialization in analytics in its MBA program, new master’s programs in business analytics and analytical economics and a specialization in financial analytics in its master’s in finance program.

“Our vision is to build out a comprehensive and integrated business analytics initiative that will drive the expansion of programs, course offerings, enrollments, research and engagement to meet student and industry demand,” says UNH Paul College Dean Deborah Merrill-Sands. “We are developing business analytics as a specific area of academic expertise that will further distinguish us among business schools.”

Peter Paul’s $6 million investment will enable the college to accelerate the hiring of faculty to expand teaching and research capacity, provide scholarships and assistantships to attract high-performing graduate students and support upper-level undergraduate students, and establish a new Center for Business Analytics. Set to launch this spring, the Center for Business Analytics will serve as the “hub” for the initiative, bringing together the knowledge, expertise and perspectives of professors, students and industry professionals working in the field.

The business analytics initiative is the latest manifestation of UNH’s longstanding commitment to analytics education and training. The university established an interdisciplinary master’s program in analytics and data science in 2012 — one of the first in the country.

— Sharon Keeler