BusinessWeek Ranks Operations Management and Corporate Strategy in Top 15 Nationally

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Two specialty programs offered by The University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration are ranked in the top 15 nationally by BusinessWeek magazine.

The operations management program comes in at No. 12, followed by the corporate strategy program at No. 14.

The magazine ranked 96 universities in 11 undergraduate business specialties, and Culverhouse was in the top 50 in seven of the 11 areas.

“Rankings make for interesting discussions, particularly if they are based on input from students and corporate recruiters,” said Dr. J. Barry Mason, dean of the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce. “We work hard to make sure our students are happy with the education they receive, that they are afforded ample opportunity post-graduation, and that our curriculum meets the needs of the business community. And, we have to keep in mind that these rankings of 96 business school programs are based on about 23,000 total students and 244 recruiters.”

Louis Lavelle, an associate editor with BusinessWeek, wrote on the magazine’s ranking Web page that to identify the top undergraduate business programs, BusinessWeek uses a methodology that includes nine measures of student satisfaction, post-graduation outcomes and academic quality.

“This year,” Lavelle wrote, “we started with 127 programs that were eligible for ranking, including virtually all of the 123 schools we ranked in 2007 plus eight new schools that met our eligibility requirements. In November, with the help of Cambria Consulting in Boston, we asked more than 80,000 graduating seniors at those 127 schools to complete a 50-question survey on everything from the quality of teaching to recreational facilities. Overall, 22,905 students responded to the survey, a response rate of 28 percent.”

In addition to surveying students, BusinessWeek polled 618 corporate recruiters for companies that hire thousands of business majors each year. “We asked them to tell us which programs turn out the best graduates, and which schools have the most innovative curricula and most effective career services. In the end, 244 recruiters responded, a response rate of about 39 percent,” Lavelle said.

The magazine also asked each institution to supply the median starting salary for their most recent graduating class. In addition, the magazine used earlier surveys to determine which schools send the most grads to the 35 top MBA programs identified by BusinessWeek.

From the schools themselves, BusinessWeek obtained average SAT scores, the ratio of full-time faculty to students, and average class size. The student survey supplied the percentage of business majors with internships and the hours students spend every week on school work.

Of the 127 programs eligible for ranking, 12 were eliminated for low response rates in the student survey. Another 13 were dropped for low response rates in the recruiter survey. An additional six schools were eliminated due to low response rates on both surveys.

For the 96 schools remaining, the student survey counted for 30 percent of the final ranking, with the recruiter survey contributing 20 percent. Starting salaries and the MBA measure counted for 10 percent each. The academic quality measure contributed the remaining 30 percent.

In the operations management specialty, the SEC university nearest UA was Tennessee at 24. In the corporate strategy specialty, the nearest SEC school was Arkansas, which placed 19th.

The UA micro economic specialty came in at number 26 and the macro economics program at 30. Florida was at No. 3 in the micro economics rankings and at No. 4 in the macro economics. Arkansas was 23 in macro.

Arkansas (13) and Florida (17) both were ahead of Culverhouse (28) in marketing.

UA’s ethics ranking was 30th. The next SEC school to be ranked was Arkansas, at 51.

Another top 50 ranking for Alabama came in the quantitative methods ranking, where Culverhouse placed 34th, the only SEC school in the top 50.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919, and, in 1929, it became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News, and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th and the undergraduate program 14th by Public Accounting Report.

The University of Alabama, a student-centered research university, is in the midst of planned, steady enrollment growth with a goal of reaching 28,000 students by 2010. This growth, which is positively impacting the campus and the state's economy, is in keeping with UA's vision to be the university of choice for the best and brightest students. UA, the state's flagship university, is an academic community united in its commitment to enhancing the quality of life for all Alabamians.