Dean's Message

Welcome to the College of Business and Economics

Our college’s vision is to be a leader in integrated business education through innovative and transformational learning experiences that prepare our students to meet the opportunities and challenges of a globally competitive world.

Our undergraduate class of 2012 will encounter one of the most innovative and exciting undergraduate business programs in the country. Our cohort-based Integrated Business Curriculum (IBC) has been providing a systems view of organizational problem solving for over a decade. Our graduates are problem solvers who have excellent critical thinking skills and understand what it takes to be successful in a team environment.

Students in our programs also enjoy a palette of hands-on learning experiences such as working in the Rotchy Barker Bulls and Bears Trading Room where they learn how markets work, develop trading strategies that create wealth, and manage a million-dollar portfolio. Other students partner with colleagues from engineering, physics, agriculture, and natural resources to help bring new products to market through our new university-wide entrepreneurship program, Vandal Innovation and Enterprise Works (VIEW). Vandal Solutions offers yet another choice to students who would like a chance to run their own business and be a stakeholder in an enterprise that not only has an impressive bottom line but also teaches corporate responsibility.

Our students also learn that the “world is flat” and that they will have to compete in a global economy. But the classrooms in our state-of-the-art J.A. Albertson Building are only the beginning of our students’ educational experience. This year, students participated in faculty-led study trips to Italy,China, and Japan to learn more about the challenges and opportunities in international markets. Many others spent a semester studying abroad in Europe, Asia, and Australasia with our partner institutions.

Last year, we launched a new Executive MBA (EMBA) program in partnership with Coldwater Creek at their Sandpoint, Idaho corporate site. Our MBA curriculum builds upon our experience in integrated management education and features thematic areas in decision making and execution, globalization, relationships, sustainability, and leadership. Students also have opportunities to customize components of their program that build on issues that are critical to success in their own organization. This fall, we welcomed a new student cohort in the University of Idaho's Coeur d’Alene Center. The EMBA program joins our very successful Master of Accountancy program, which was also developed in response to stakeholder demand.

I hope to have a chance to see many of our alums and friends at college events in Hawaii, Portland, Seattle, Coeur d’Alene, and Boise. Your support is critical to our success, and I am proud to represent the Vandal family.