White led a major MBA curriculum overhaul, which aimed to intensify the development of students' professional and practical skills.
The core innovation, called MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Project), puts students into "live cases" inside companies for seven weeks.
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.
[10] 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.
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.
White built on a reputation in entrepreneurship grounded in the Michigan's long-running Growth Capital Symposium, which had started in 1981.
In his second term as dean, White proclaimed that increasing female enrollment in business schools would be a top priority of his administration.
In his inaugural address, White proposed a new "compact" among five parties - the state, tuition payers and their families, donors, faculty members with research grants and contracts, and university leaders – all doing their parts to provide the resources needed to ensure what he termed "excellence and access.
On White's recommendation to the Board of Trustees, the Global Campus Partnership was terminated in 2009 due to an inadequate number of programs and students.
In February 2007 the University of Illinois Board of Trustees announced an end to the Urbana-Champaign campus tradition of Chief Illiniwek.
White supported the board's decision saying, "While I understand many people have strong feelings about this 80-year-old tradition, for the good of our student-athletes and our university it is time to come together and move on to the next chapter in the history of this distinguished institution.
As the university faculty-student senate prepared to vote on whether to call for White's removal, he appeared before the group and told them, "I stood behind every admissions denial, no matter who the advocates or how persistent they were.
"[30] Nevertheless, the faculty-student senate passed a resolution on September 14 calling for his removal, along with that of the chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the campus that was at the center of the admissions controversy.
[32] While serving as president, White was honored with the Leadership Award (December 2005) from the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.