2005 and a Doctor of Humane Letters degree (honorary) from Wabash College in 2003. White is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Beta Gamma Sigma. Ross School of Business deanship White served from 1990 to 2001 as dean of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. During his deanship, the School's MBA, BBA, and executive education programs were highly ranked. The School's endowment rose from $30 million to more than $250 million. Endowed Chairs increased from nine to thirty-nine. White led a major MBA curriculum overhaul, which aimed to intensify the development of students' professional and practical skills. The reforms re-defined the school's image and fueled a rise in its reputation, including being named one of the two "most innovative" business school's in the nation, according to Business Week magazine's surveys of corporate executives. Michigan became known for both innovation and action learning. The core innovation, called MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Project), puts students into "live cases" inside companies for seven weeks. White likened it to a medical school residency. Michigan was the first to integrate action learning, which is today common in business schools, into the core MBA curriculum as a requirement for all students. In addition, White's curriculum reform included cutting the 14-week semesters in half and adding executive education-style skills development seminars. Other initiatives, such as research on how to supplement the GMAT with a test of "practical intelligence," helped cement the school's reputation for concerning itself as much with the real-world performance of its graduates as their intellectual development. Among the other highlights of White's curriculum reform was the introduction of an intensive two-day community service and corporate citizenship boot camp as the kickoff of the MBA program—a first among business schools. Under White, Michigan's African-American enrollment was the highest among the top-ranked business schools. Enrollment of under-represented minorities hovered around 14-15 percent. The School was found to be "the best business school for blacks" by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. He also moved to aggressively globalize the School. Most notably, he founded the William Davidson Institute to position Michigan as a leader on economies transitioning from communism to free markets. White was an early mover on distance learning, initially creating partnerships with major companies to deliver management training to their employees. In January, 2000, White's team announced a partnership with FT Knowledge to provide open-enrollment e-learning classes.(FT Knowledge, at the time, was