Training Future Business Executives
Published Apr 16, 2008
More than 300 undergraduates are enrolled in business-related programs at the University of Evansville.
When it comes to getting a business-related education, Southwest Indiana is open for business.
Making headlines in 2007 was the University of Evansville, where the Schroeder Family School of Business Administration added 35,000 square feet of additional learning space just in time for the fall semester. The space is an addition to the McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union, which the business school will take over and renovate once the new Ridgeway University Center is completed in late 2008.
The school certainly needs the extra room, says Dean Robert A. Clark, with more than 300 undergraduates enrolled in either the accounting or business administration program. In March 2007, the school launched its Executive Master of Business Administration Program, with the first class of 12 professionals averaging 15 years of career experience. Recruiting has begun for a second class, set in August 2008.
“We originally thought we wouldn’t start a second cohort group until 2009 because of its highly selective nature, but there’s demand from the community,” Clark says. “The word has spread.”
Word is spreading, too, about the University of Southern Indiana College of Business. In the works is a new 117,000-square-foot classroom and laboratory building, which will be shared by the Business College and USI’s Engineering Department – thus setting the stage for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
At Oakland City University, enrollment in the School of Business nearly tripled from 2004 to 2007. Of the 615 students on the main campus for fall semester 2007, almost 180 were business majors. Dean Darrin Sorrells credits the school’s escalating enrollment to its flexibility. “We want you to make yourself as marketable and employable as possible, so we allow you to take up to two concentrations,” he says.
Another option for a business education is Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, with the main campus for Southwest Indiana in Evansville. More than 5,600 students were enrolled in the region for fall 2007, Chancellor Dan Schenk says. The college offers three types of certification programs plus an associate degree program in several disciplines.
“A real growing part of our business would be the transfer programs. Each of the business programs are set up as two-plus-two programs, where students complete the first two years of a degree program at Ivy Tech and then transfer to a four-year institution and continue their education,” Schenk says.
Yet another option is ITT Technical Institute, with a School of Business as one of several on its Newburgh campus offering both two-year and four-year degrees.
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Brian McCord
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