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Business School aims to increase graduating class

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The Rutgers Business School expects to graduate more students starting in fall 2013 in conjunction with the opening of a business school building on Livingston campus.

“We had more than 400 seniors graduate this year, but we expect that number to more than double in a few years,” said Glenn Shafer, dean of the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick.

The building will be a counterpart of the business school building on the Newark campus, according to a University press release.

Shafer said the Board of Governor’s approved to increase the school’s enrollment to 3,200 students over the past years.

“We have already expanded enrollment, but the expansive wave has not hit the senior class yet,” he said.

The school plans to enroll 3,000 undergraduate students total — an amount that includes incoming first-year students, current students and transfer students — up from the current 1,900, because of the rising number of applications, according to the release.

Many more part-time MBA students have also become full-time students, said Daniel Stoll, a Rutgers Business School spokesman.

“Because of the economy, there are a lot of students who were part-time students but lost their job and are now full-time students,” he said.

Martin Markowitz, senior associate dean of the Rutgers Business School, said the school’s four-year program for entering undergraduates, which began in 2008, would continue to draw in more applicants.

Prior to this program, the school only accepted incoming juniors who applied from the School of Arts and Sciences, he said.

“A four-year program gives us a better opportunity to attract more students,” he said. “Many people will now come to the University because the school is close to the New York suburban setting and the tuition is a lot better than the other schools out there.”

The building will house the five undergraduate departments of the business school and provide classrooms and research laboratories, Markowitz said.

“The business school will have a central location, with faculty, administration and classrooms in the building,” he said.

The New Brunswick half of the business school is currently housed in the Janice H. Levin building on Livingston campus, but is insufficient for the needs of the school, Markowitz said.

“We have virtually no classrooms in the building, and many students have to go to other campuses for classes,” he said.

The school plans to use familiar facilities of the Livingston campus in classes, including newly formed classrooms in the vacated Tillett Dining Hall space and the construction of a residence hall, Shafer said.

“We will have classes in Tillett and hope to use the new movie theatres that are a part of the housing expansion,” he said. “The theatres can be readjusted to be classrooms when they are not being used.”

The building would help provide a stronger foundation for the business school in New Brunswick, Shafer said.

“We’ve moved into a new building in the Newark campus two years ago and experienced a rise in morale in both students and faculty,” he said.

To accommodate the larger number of students, the business school is also increasing the number of departments within the school, Markowitz said.

“We created a supply chain management major, which started this year, and a business analytics and information technology major that we will start next year,” he said.

Many people think the business school only offers an MBA program in the Newark campus and not in New Brunswick, Shafer said.

“We’ve graduated hundreds of MBA students in New Brunswick,” he said. “In fact, last year there were more MBA graduates from New Brunswick than Newark.”

Stoll said the New Brunswick campus is not strictly a part-time MBA program, but just an untraditional one.

“What we currently have in New Brunswick is a flex MBA program, in which a student can take up to 15 credits and is not limited to just between six to 12 credits,” he said.

Markowitz said the new building would be a proud addition to the University’s New Brunswick campus.

“[The building] provides us with the symbol and stature of a business school,” he said.



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