a division of Pearson plc, owner of the Financial Times and other major media properties.) White built on a reputation in entrepreneurship grounded in the Michigan's long-running Growth Capital Symposium, which had started in 1981. White's team created additional opportunities for students to get venture capital and entrepreneurship experience by launching a student-run venture capital fund, called the Wolverine Venture Fund. Founded in 1997, its first investments were reported in the New York Times in 1999 and by 2004 at least one of those investments had turned into an IPO. In 1999, real estate mogul and University of Michigan Law School graduate Sam Zell joined with Ann Lurie, the widow of Zell's business partner, to provide $10 million to found the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, and quickly began offering a wide array of courses, heavily oriented toward action learning. In his second term as dean, White proclaimed that increasing female enrollment in business schools would be a top priority of his administration. This led to a major School initiative, a study of the reasons for low female enrollment at a dozen top business schools, and, ultimately a series of changes at the School. This work also ultimately led to the founding of a major new national advocacy organization, the Forte Foundation. Under White, several of the School's other major new programs were created. In addition to the William Davidson Institute and the Zell-Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, White also raised funds for and oversaw the creation of The Erb Institute for Sustainable Global Enterprise and The Joel D. Tauber Institute for Global Operations. His administration launched Michigan's first Executive MBA program and built Sam Wyly Hall, a new home for the school's highly ranked executive education programs. White served as interim president of the University of Michigan in 2002. In January 2005 the board of regents recognized him as dean emeritus of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and professor emeritus of business administration. University of Illinois presidency White was named the sixteenth president of the University of Illinois in 2004, succeeding retiring president James J. Stukel. As president, White oversaw the three campuses in the University of Illinois system—Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield. (In the University of Illinois system, each campus is headed by a chancellor. Each chancellor reports to the president.) White took office on January 31, 2005. He was inaugurated on