USF’s College of Business does more than simply disseminate knowledge—it transforms minds while arming students with the skills and knowledge to take leadership positions in business and society. Here, students begin developing as professionals from their first moments on campus. The College of Business is an unstoppable force in the business community, shaping business thinkers and community leaders.
Talk to students, alumni, entrepreneurs and global captains of industry and you will discover USF’s business school is more than a college nestled inside the university. You will discover the College of Business is a rising star, a place where faculty and students share a common thirst for meaningful learning that bridges theory and practice.
To us, the business world is our classroom! USF’s metropolitan location provides rich opportunities to integrate real-world experiences into classroom learning as large and small companies offer internships and jobs, speakers and service-learning projects.
Our priorities are simple: pursuing academic excellence by attracting and retaining the very best faculty, ensuring student success in a progressive environment, enhancing student experiences through innovative programming, and creating centers of excellence where students learn from faculty who practice what they teach.
Pursuing Academic Excellence
Building and supporting a faculty comprised of top researchers is a priority. Simply put, we must foster a culture where brainpower is generated and harnessed, where faculty create knowledge. Students learn about business innovations as they develop, from educators who are passionate about both the field and their students.
Faculty support includes chairs and professorships, typically awarded to established senior scholars who are the intellectual cornerstone of a business school. These educators are academic leaders who significantly impact both the industry in which they teach and the external business community. Such support helps attract and retain our best and brightest faculty members by providing critical financial support for teaching and research activities.
Faculty fellowships, often awarded to newer faculty, help build our pipeline of future academic scholars by supporting faculty teaching and research.
Ensuring Student Success
Because students here start their professional lives from day one, tomorrow’s workforce must be educated in an environment that is as progressive as it is professional. Bridging the gap between classroom and boardroom, the planned Student Success Center—a collaboration between the College of Business and USF’s Career Center—will allow students greater access to employers and enhanced job-search coaching and training. This new building will also provide resources specifically for business students, such as academic advising, professional student organizations and offices for our centers of excellence.
Enhancing the Student Experience
Student success drives our emphasis on active, meaningful learning. We go beyond case studies and campus walls to bring theory to life, expanding students’ minds. By building smaller communities within the larger university and offering programs that motivate students, we spark their entrepreneurial spirit and transform their university experience. They become unstoppable.
Bulls Business Community. Building a small community strictly for aspiring business leaders, this residential living-learning program—located in USF’s newest residence hall—provides avenues for innovative learning and programs not typically found in the classroom.
Corporate Mentors. Mentoring students is one of the most powerful ways to impact their success. By pairing students—especially those who are the first in their families to attend college—with executives who provide guidance and friendship, students gain access and experience they might otherwise not enjoy.
Communication Across the Curriculum. Developing excellent communication skills in students is as important as teaching them business curriculum. Working in concert with faculty, as well as providing optional resources and programs, this initiative helps students learn to communicate in context within the business classroom.
Study Abroad. Exploring the global business environment through study abroad programs in countries such as China, Panama, Germany and Argentina, students see international operations first-hand and discover how to work across continents. The College of Business also offers a USF business degree program in Singapore while providing opportunities for stateside students to learn from USF faculty while in Singapore.
Case Competitions. Challenging teams to address real-time corporate issues, students in these immersion-style competitions research a firm, dig through financial data, craft strategies, create a business case and present solutions to corporate leaders.
Creating Centers of Excellence
A business education is more than a diploma—it is a career path. Creating interdisciplinary centers of excellence where students are challenged to think of multiple ways to solve problems, where solutions are sparked by open exchanges of ideas, helps transform students from graduates into business thinkers.
Center for Entrepreneurship. A nationally ranked program blending business, engineering and health education provides the training to identify new opportunities, accelerate the commercialization of new technologies and create successful new business ventures.
Financial Services Education Center. An invitation-only center for the best finance and accounting scholars, this center provides advanced curriculum, experiential learning and hands-on financial services training.
Real Estate & Sustainability Center. This new center will emphasize sustainability as it draws on faculty expertise in business, engineering, architecture, environmental science and urban/regional planning.
Investing in New Opportunities
Gifts will benefit the college in two ways: unrestricted gifts keep the college operating day to day and, perhaps more importantly, provide flexible working capital—seed funding, in essence—allowing the college to invest in new programs and educational opportunities.
