Gies College of Business is the

business school A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business administration or management. A business school may also be referred to as school of management, management school, school of business administration, o ...

of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kno ...

Champaign, Illinois Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...

. The college offers undergraduate program, masters programs, and a PhD program. The college and its Department of Accountancy are separately accredited by International. As of 2021, there are more than 70,000 Gies Business alumni worldwide, including several Fulbright scholars.

History

The university senate approved the College of Commerce and Business Administration on June 9, 1914 at the request of avid Kinley a university vice president who would later serve as president of the University of Illinois. The college was officially formed on April 27, 1915 through a vote of the University of Illinois

Board of Trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. The college began with three departments:

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

, Business Organization and Operation, and

Transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...

. Since 2015, Gies College of Business has partnered with Coursera to offer online MBA program and an online MSA program. The school started with 113 students in the beginning for the online programs and later grew to more than 3,200 degree-seeking students from 46 states in United States and more than 90 countries in the world. The selectivity and acceptance rate to the program initially was 20.9% and is currently at 53%. In 2019, the school announced that it was suspending its on-campus full-time MBA, part-time MBA, and executive MBA.

College naming gifts

In 2017, alumni Larry Gies and Beth Gies donated US$150 million to the school, which was renamed the Gies College of Business in their honor. In 2020, alumnus Don Edwards donated US$10 million and the business school also further received a pledge in 2020 for $2.5 million for construction of shared instructional facility.

Campus

Gies College of Business is located in

. The campus is located around the intersection of Gregory Street and Sixth Street. This is the current home of Gies College of Business. When the college was first formed, however, it occupied the Commerce Building, now the East half of the Administration Building on the Main Quad. The Commerce building, dedicated in 1913, was built at a cost of $100 thousand. The college currently occupies three buildings: Wohlers Hall, Business Instructional Facility (BIF), and the Irwin Doctoral Study Hall. This area is known as the Business Quad and is considered part of the South Campus. Wohlers Hall, formerly known as Commerce West, was built in 1963. Albert H. and Jane Wohlers provided a $6 million naming gift in 2000 for renovations. The Business Instructional Facility (commonly referred to as "BIF"), approved by the UI Board of Trustees on July 14, 2004, stands opposite of Wohlers Hall across Sixth Street.. The $62 million project, designed by architect Cesar Pelli, is LEED-certified because of its "green",

environmentally friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that clai ...

elements.

Academic departments

Gies College of Business houses three departments: Accountancy, Business Administration, and Finance.

Accountancy

The Department of Accountancy was founded in 1953. The University offered courses in accounting before the creation of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Business. The courses in the university were offered through the Department of Economics from 1902 to 1915. The college began the first PhD program in 1937 and has graduated more accountancy PhD candidates than any other accountancy department in the United States. After the formation of the college, the accountancy program was moved into the Department of Business Organization until the Department's reorganization in the 1950s. In 1919, H.T. Scovill helped establish the Beta Alpha Psi accounting honor society.

Business Administration

The Department of Business Administration was founded in 1968 through the mergers of the Department of Industrial Administration and Marketing and the Graduate School of Business Administration. This includes a iMBA program featured on Coursera.

Finance

In 1957, the UI Board of Trustees approved the Dean's proposal to create a Department of Finance. The MSF program began the following year.

Academies and centers

University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics

The University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics was established on October 25, 2016 by Deloitte Foundation thanks to a $5 million gift from the Deloitte Foundation and Deloitte's retired and current partners, principals, managing directors and employees.

Illinois MakerLab

The Illinois MakerLab is the world's first business school

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

lab located on the third floor of the Business Instructional Facility. After opening in Spring of 2013, the MakerLab has provided printing, custom designing and prototyping, educational, and other related services for both the Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois community. The lab is equipped with over 20 Ultimaker 3D printers and is run by undergraduate and graduate students. The lab was co-founded by Aric Rindfleisch and Vishal Sachdev.

Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership

The Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership is responsible for cross-campus and multidisciplinary programs for entrepreneurial students from all backgrounds including the award-winning iVenture Accelerator and Illinois Social Innovation. The Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership was established in 2004. In 2018, Bruce Barron (BS '77) and the REAM Foundation providing a naming gift to create the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. The REAM Foundation gift was made in honor of Steven Miller (BS '87), who joined Barron in co-founding Origin Ventures, a venture capital firm in Chicago.

Rankings

In 2019,

Public Accounting Report ''Public Accounting Report'' is a monthly eight-page newsletter that covers competitive intelligence and the business side of the public accounting profession. History and profile The publication was founded in 1978. The magazine is based in Chica ...

’s Annual Professors Survey has ranked the college under top 3 for undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. accounting programs.

Notable people

Alumni

Gies College of Business has many notable alumni. Alumni are denoted by their area of study: accountancy (ACCY), business administration (BADM), finance (FIN), or general/unassigned (GEN) or MBA.

Academia

Michael Mikhail Michael Mikhail is Dean Emeritus of the UIC College of Business Administration, College of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to assuming his role as dean in 2012, Mikhail was the KPMG Professor, and Director of ...

(MAS '88) - Dean, College of Business Administration at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

Robert J. Swieringa Robert Jay Swieringa (born 1942) was the ninth Dean and is a professor emeritus of the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He also served as an elected member to General Electric Company board of directors. Swieringa e ...

(ACCY '69) – Dean,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and former member of the

Financial Accounting Standards Board The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private standard-setting body whose primary purpose is to establish and improve Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) within the United States in the public's interest. The Securi ...

. *

Nicholas Dopuch Nicholas Dopuch (15 November 1929 – 4 February 2018) was an American accounting researcher and educator. He was a professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2006, Dopuch was named to the Accounting Hall of Fame ...

(ACCY '61) – Former Head of Accounting, Washington University in St. Louis. * A.C. Littleton (ACCY '12, '18, '31) – Professor and accounting historian University of Illinois,

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

The Accounting Review ''The Accounting Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Accounting Association (AAA) that covers accounting with a scope encompassing any accounting-related subject and any research methodology. ''The Acco ...

Accounting Hall of Fame The Accounting Hall of Fame is an award "recognizing accountants who are making or have made a significant contribution to the advancement of accounting" since the beginning of the 20th century. Inductees are from both accounting academia and pract ...

inductee *

Sybil C. Mobley Sybil Lenora Collins Mobley (October 14, 1925 – September 29, 2015) was Dean Emerita of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) School of Business and Industry. She led its business program and was the founding dean of its Bu ...

(ACCY '64) – Dean and Head of Accounting, Florida A&M. * Clyde Summers (ACCY '39), labor lawyer and law professor at the

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

and

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and olde ...

, subject of

In re Summers ''In re Summers'', 325 U.S. 561 (1945), is a 5-to-4 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the First and Fourteenth amendment freedoms of a conscientious objector were not infringed when a state bar association declined to admi ...

Business

* Thomas Siebel (MBA) -

Billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

and Founder of

Siebel Systems Siebel Systems, Inc. () was a software company principally engaged in the design, development, marketing, and support of customer relationship management (CRM) applications—notably Siebel CRM. The company was founded by Thomas Siebel and Pat ...

, C3.ai * Michael Krasny (FIN '75) -

and Founder of

CDW Corporation CDW Corporation, headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois, is a provider of technology products and services for business, government and education. The company has a secondary division known as ''CDW-G'', devoted solely to United States governm ...

* Sunil Benimadhu (MBA) - CEO of

Stock Exchange of Mauritius The Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM) (french: Bourse de Maurice); is an organization responsible for the operation of Economy of Mauritius, Mauritius's primary stock exchange located at Port Louis. The SEM operates two markets: the Official Marke ...

* Ravin Gandhi (FIN '1994) - Founder of Coatings and Chemicals Corporation * Jim Cantalupo (ACCY '66) – Former Chairman and CEO of

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

(1991–2004) * Richard H. Frank (BADM '64) – Former President, Walt Disney Studios * George Henry Lesch (GEN '31) – Chairman of the Board,

Colgate-Palmolive Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American multinational consumer products company headquartered on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company specializes in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health car ...

Company * Thomas Murphy (ACCY '38) – Former CEO and Chairman,

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

* John D. Zeglis (FIN '69) – Former President,

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

; Former Chairman and CEO of AT&T Wireless

Government and politics

* Kelly Loeffler -

United States Senator The United States Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives being the Lower house, lower chamber. Together they compose the national Bica ...

for Georgia *

Charles Bowsher Charles Arthur Bowsher (May 30, 1931September 30, 2022) was an American businessman and politician. He served as the 6th Comptroller General of the United States from 1981 to 1996. During that period, he led the Government Accountability Office ...

(ACCY '53) – Comptroller General of the United States,

Government Accountability Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...

* George Evan Howell (GEN '27),

U.S. Congressman The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

Samuel K. Skinner Samuel Knox Skinner (born June 10, 1938) is an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. Skinner served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation and White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. Prior to the Bush administration, ...

(ACCY, '60) –

Secretary of Transportation A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a wh ...

(1989–1991); White House Chief of Staff during the

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

Administration (1992)

Armed forces

* Alfred G. Harms, Jr. (MBA) - Retired Vice Admiral,

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

* Alex Fink (MBA) -

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

, Chief of Enterprise Marketing at

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Wilma L. Vaught Brigadier General Wilma L. Vaught, USAFR (Ret.) (born March 15, 1930) is an American retired military leader. She was the first woman to deploy with an Air Force bomber unit, and the first woman to reach the rank of brigadier general from the comp ...

(BADM '52) – Retired

Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

Sports

* Mike Small ('88) - Professional golfer and Head Coach for Illinois Fighting Illini men's golf *

Josh Whitman Josh Whitman (born August 5, 1978) is a university administrator, a lawyer, and a former American football player. He is currently the athletic director at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Whitman served as the athletic director ...

(FIN '01) – Athletic director at the University of Illinois, former

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

player

Faculty

* Heitor Almeida - Stanley C. and Joan J. Golder Chair in Corporate Finance *

Dan Bernhardt Mark Daniel Bernhardt (born June 11, 1958) is an American-Canadian economist, focusing in industrial organization, finance and political economy, currently the IBE Distinguished Professor of Economics at University of Illinois. Bernhardt is also a ...

- IBE Distinguished Professor * Jeffrey Brown - Josef and Margot Lakonishok Professor of Business * Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans - IBE Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Business Administration * Jack A. Goncalo - Professor of Business Administration * John Kindt - Professor Emeritus of Business Administration * Kent Monroe - John M. Jones Distinguished Professor of Marketing *

Aric Rindfleisch Aric Rindfleisch (born 28 October 1965), is an American marketing author and professor. He is the Executive Director of the Illinois MakerLab at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and John M. Jones Professor of Marketing. He was include ...

- John M. Jones Professor of Marketing *

Daniel Simons Daniel James Simons (born 1969) is an experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois. Simons is best know ...

- Professor of Business Administration * Theodore Sougiannis - KPMG Distinguished Professor of Accountancy * Scott Weisbenner - William G. Karnes Professor in Mergers and Acquisitions * Jagdish Sheth - Former Distinguished Professor of Marketing (1969 to 1983) *

Shahbaz Gill Muhammad Shahbaz Shabbir Gill (), commonly known as Shahbaz Gill ( ur, ), is a Pakistani academician, lecturer, politician, former provincial spokesperson to the Government of Punjab, Pakistan, and former Special Assistant to the Prime Minister ...

- Assistant Professor

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Illinois Urbana-Champaign Business, University of Business schools in Illinois

Business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

Educational institutions established in 1915 1915 establishments in Illinois