1929 -
Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick (RBS) was founded in
Newark, NJ, in 1929 as the Seth Boyden School of Business. It opened
its doors at 40 Rector Street in space shared with the New Jersey Law
School and Dana College (now Rutgers School of Law-Newark and the
Newark College of Arts and Sciences, respectively). The school
originally offered one degree--a bachelor of science in business
administration.
1930s and '40s
- In 1934, the Seth Boyden School of Business became part of the newly
formed University of Newark and was renamed the School of Business
Administration. Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International)accreditation, the hallmark of excellence in
management education, was granted in 1941, and in 1946 the school and
the other University of Newark colleges became part of Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey.
1950s and '60s
- RBS launched its master of business administration degree program in
the fall of 1950, and a master's degree in public accounting--the first
of its kind in the nation--in 1956. The graduate student population
quickly exceeded the undergraduate, and the school, in a move that
mirrored a trend in business education at the time, decided in 1961 to
discontinue the undergraduate program and concentrate exclusively on
graduate education. A new name--Graduate School of
Management--reflected the change.
1970s -
With its new focus, RBS continued to grow and innovate. The creation in
1970-71 of the Interfunctional Management program (now called Team
Consulting)--an M.B.A. fieldwork course sequence in which teams of
student consultants work on real problems for real companies--was
another first for higher education in the United States. By the
program's 30th anniversary in 2001, more than 1,500 projects had been
completed for some 700 organizations. It has been widely imitated by
other business schools.
While the Interfunctional Management program catered predominantly to
large, more established corporations, the school expanded its outreach
to small companies and entrepreneurs with the establishment of the New
Jersey Small Business Development Center (NJSBDC) in 1977. The center,
a partnership between RBS, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and
New Jersey Commerce, Economic Growth and Tourism Commission, is the
result of an act of Congress (Public Law 96-302) that called for the
creation of a pilot network of state-based small business development
centers. Headquartered in Newark, the NJSBDC offers counseling and
training to help small business owners finance, manage, and market
their companies. Today it has 11 full-service regional centers and 27
affiliate offices statewide, serving all 21 of New Jersey's counties.
In 1978, the Ph.D. program in management, administered by Rutgers and
originally taught in conjunction with the New Jersey Institute of
Technology (NJIT), was added to the curricula. Modeled on the structure
of a traditional Ph.D. program, with prescribed core courses, elective
courses, preliminary exams, dissertation, and final defense, it is now
one of the nation's largest doctoral programs in management.
1980s -
In 1980, RBS launched an Executive M.B.A. (E.M.B.A.) program for
middle-level managers who want to earn their degrees on a full-time
basis while working full time. Meeting on alternating Fridays and
Saturdays throughout the school year and in four "residency" weeks
during 20 months, the carefully selected students study subjects at a
higher level and more intensively than is possible in the regular
M.B.A. courses. International Executive M.B.A. programs in Asia
followed a decade later. The International E.M.B.A. degree is currently
offered in Beijing and Shanghai, China, as well as Singapore.
While undergraduate degrees in the broad functional areas of businesses
had been available on Rutgers University's New Brunswick Campus since
1934, Rutgers took the step toward having an official undergraduate
program in New Brunswick in 1981 when it organized several departments
into the School of Administrative Services under the Faculty of
Professional Studies. In June 1984, the university's Board of Governors
approved a reorganization of the School of Administrative Services into
the School of Business-New Brunswick. The new school received final
approval from the New Jersey Department of Higher Education in February
1986 and began operating on September 1 of that year. Its mission was
"to provide a high quality, upper-division program of study for
students wishing to pursue professional careers . . . [and] prepare the
student for imaginative and responsible citizenship and leadership
roles in business and society."
1990s -
In Newark, undergraduate business education had been offered since the
1960s not through a dedicated business school but through the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences-Newark and University College-Newark. That changed
in 1993 when the university's Board of Governors created the
Rutgers-Newark School of Management, an upper-division school
(four-year program for students entering fall 2000 and beyond) with a
mission "to offer contemporary programs . . . to students who are
broadly educated in the liberal arts . . . to equip graduates to enter
the workforce as skilled professionals . . . and lead rich lives
appreciative of their cultural heritage."
At the same time, the Board of Governors merged the Departments of
Business Administration and Accounting and the faculty of the Graduate
School of Management to form the Faculty of Management (FOM). FOM was
initially given responsibility for management education on the
undergraduate level in Newark and on the graduate level in Newark and
New Brunswick. In 1995, the School of Business-New Brunswick was also
put under the auspices of the Faculty of Management.
2000 to present -
In the fall of 2001, the FOM label was officially dropped in favor of
Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick, encompassing the
undergraduate and graduate business programs offered on the Newark and
New Brunswick campuses.
Today, RBS has an international reputation for
teaching and research excellence. The school is educating more than
4,500 undergraduate and graduate students per academic year--and
growing--at two main campuses in New Jersey as well as six satellite
locations in New Jersey, China, and Singapore.
Steeped in academic excellence, with a distinguished faculty and a
corps of nearly 30,000 successful alumni, RBS is highly ranked by the Financial Times, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, and the Wall Street Journal.
It is recognized as one of the top three business schools in the
greater New York metropolitan area, and in 2008 was ranked #10
nationwide for "Most Competitive Students" by the Princeton Review.
Under the new leadership and vision of Dr. Michael R. Cooper, who
joined RBS as dean in 2007, Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick is poised to become
widely recognized as a premier business school.
For additional information, visit
www.business.rutgers.edu.