The Singapore Management University (SMU) is a public autonomous university in Singapore. The university is the only city campus in Singapore. It ranks third in Asia as a specialist university, behind Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Business School and College of Business, City University of Hong Kong. SMU was established in 2001 and models its education after the Wharton School. The university was also awarded triple accreditation by AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA. SMU enrols about 10,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programmes in accountancy, business administration, business analytics, economics, financial services, information systems management, law, and the social sciences. The university is organised into 8 schools; School of Accountancy (SOA), Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB), School of Economics (SOE), School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS), Yong Pung How School of Law (YPHSL), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), College of Integrative Studies (CIS) and the new College of Graduate Research Studies (CGRS). History In 1997, the Government of Singapore began considering setting up a third university in Singapore. Ho Kwon Ping, a Singaporean business entrepreneur, was appointed to chair the task-force which determined that the new institution would follow the American university system featuring a more flexible broad-based education. Following a review of undergraduate business schools to serve as a model for SMU, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania emerged as the best candidate. The Wharton-SMU agreement was signed in February 1999 followed in June by the Wharton-SMU Research Center collaboration. In July 1999, Janice Bellace, then Deputy Dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, commenced a two-year term as SMU's first president alongside founding provost, Tan Chin Tiong. In 2000, SMU made its first home at the former Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus) on Evans Road near Hwa Chong Institution. The campus, first opened in 1929, had already been home to several institutions before SMU. In 2001, SMU upgraded and occupied the main campus facilities, balancing the need to refit and refurbish it with facilities while preserving the heritage of colonial architecture. From 2001 to 2004, Ronald Frank served as SMU's second president and was succeeded by Howard Hunter. Between 2000 and 2005, SMU saw the formation of four schools, its library and three centres of excellence as well as the graduation of the first batch of its students. After