Welcome Alumni and Friends

For the College of Business, Fall 2007 is a time of great news and change.  The first great news is that College of Business was extended AACSB accreditation for the next six years for both business and accounting.  AACSB International is recognized worldwide as the premier accreditation organization with less than 7% of all business schools meeting or exceeding their standards.  The AACSB review team noted several strengths, innovations and unique features.  Among these were: 1) Quality of the teaching particularly at the undergraduate level, 2) High level of alumni loyalty, 3) Faculty collegiality, collaboration and support for each other and 4) The well-developed emphasis on and support for distance education placing Auburn ahead of many other schools.  With maintenance of accreditation secured, we continue to place our sights on strategic initiatives and projects that will move of us closer to our vision of a being a top 20 public business school.

As Auburn University heads into the final months of the $500 million campaign, the College of Business announced its single largest gift in the college’s history.  The second bit of great news is that a $5.0 million gift from Raymond and Kathryn Harbert moved the College of Business past its vision goal of $25 million.  With great fanfare, the Harbert’s gift also pushed Auburn over the $500 million mark with almost eight months left in the campaign. The gift will significantly impact the Department of Finance.  With more than 80% of the gift earmarked for the endowment, the department will hire its second eminent scholar and provide needed funds to support research and learning initiatives in finance.  The most visible use of the gift, however, will be the creation of a trading laboratory where students will get hands-on experience in securities analysis and decision making in both real and simulated environments.  This will be only the third such trading lab among our peers in the Southeastern Conference.  This is just another example of how we intend to prepare our students for business leadership in the 21st century.

Change in any organization comes in many forms.  The College of Business, like many organizations, is facing a wave of faculty and staff retirements from the “baby boomer” generation.  Many years of teaching, research and administrative experience will be absent as these talented individuals leave the faculty and staff of the college.  We will miss them and what they did to help the college achieve over the past years.  These retirements, also, provide an opportunity for organizational renewal and change as we add new members to the faculty and staff.  This year we welcome six new assistant professors to our faculty, and we have several searches on-going for additional faculty and staff.  With a great many accomplishments in the recent past and a history of being a great place to work, we are confident that the College of Business will attract many exceptional candidates. 

We anticipate that the 2007-2008 academic year will be a banner year for the college.  Prominent is our celebration of our 40th anniversary of being a college.  We hope that all of our stakeholders will help us make this 40th anniversary memorable.  A celebration and special recognitions will be part of this year-long anniversary.  At this moment in time – 40 years into our existence, we in the College of Business are setting the stage for even greater accomplishments.  We hope that you will join us now and in the future to continue to move the College of Business upward and forward.

With Best Wishes,

Paul M. Bobrowski, Ph.D.
Dean and Wachovia Professor