B-School

Downtown that is. University of Colorado at Denver has announced that it will be consolidating its business programs in a new downtown location. The school currently has 1,249 students with part-time, executive MBA, and evening programs. The average starting salary for graduates is just below $60,000.

The University of Bridgeport announced that it has appointed Paul Lerman as Interim Dean of its business school. Lerman has administrative experience from the Metropolitan College of New York and 30 years of teaching experience at Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Business. Mr. Lerman himself is a graduate of New York University (NYU).

Bridgeport is an accredited business school with an undergraduate enrollment of 1,694. Incoming freshmen have an average 2.78 GPA. Other popular majors include Computer Engineering and Dental Hygiene.

A team from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business won the 2008 Key Foundation Minority MBA Case Competition IV recently at KeyBank headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio. The Kelley students beat out 16 teams from across the country, including ones from University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon. The winning team received $6,000.

The first event of its kind was held in March 2005 when Ohio State won the first place honors.

According to its "Hatchet" newspaper, business school leadership sent an email to all seniors to foster participation in Business Week's student survey. Problem was, it also reminded them that their responses played a key role in the school's rank and, consequently, the value of their degree. The email seemed to get more students to respond with some 44 percent completing it, compared to a 28 percent national average. Although Business Week editors threatened to remove GWU completely from the rankings, they ended up in anyway, moving up a modest two places to #51.

On the heels of topping Business Week's ranking of undergraduate business programs, The Wharton School topped the University of Texas - Dallas Top 100 Business School Research Rankings. NYU's Stern placed second, followed by Duke's Fuqua, Harvard Business School, and Columbia's GSB. The entire top 10 consisted of schools in the United States. These rankings offer the top 100 business schools worldwide based on faculty research productivity over a five-year period.

The Utah State Legislature, it seems, will not be awarding money to the University of Utah to help renovate its David Eccles School of Business building. Without funding from the legislature, which still has a slim chance of getting in, the university will cut back, but not eliminate, the proposed renovations. The school has done well raising private funds for the renovation - around $80 million, or nearly 75% of total costs.

A veteran Penn St. team recently took home 1st Place in the Rotman International Trading Competition (RITC). The annual event, hosted by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, saw 34 schools (136 traders) compete for the championship. The winning team from Penn St. received $5,000. From the United States Penn St., Ohio St., Bentley, Carnegie Mellon, Fairfield, MIT, SUNY Brockport, Univ. of Michigan, and Univ. of Texas all competed.

Business Week has published its most recent list of undergraduate business school rankings. The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) topped the list with McIntire (Universiry of Virginia), Mendoza Business School (Notre Dame), Cornell University, and Goizueta Business School (Emory University) rounding out the top 5.

Harvard Business School (HBS) has officially launched the application process for its 2+2 MBA Admissions process. The program is an innovative attempt at a deferred MBA admissions program. Undergraduates are eligible to apply to the program after junior year. Acceptances are mailed in September of their senior year. Applications for the first group of HBS 2+2 candidates are due July 1. Each accepted student must still complete two years in the 'real world' with the jobs needed approval of the school.

California State University at Bakersfield has named John Emery as dean of its School of Business and Public Administration. Emery follows Henry Lowenstein who resigned last year for the illustrious Coastal Carolina University. Emery has a pretty good track record as dean at University of Texas - Pan American (existing here for CSUB) and Louisiana Tech University.