Points of Progress

• For the fourth consecutive year, The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report have recognized the college in their rankings. Based on MBA student comments and other data, the Princeton Review named the college to its 2009 list of "Best 296 Business Schools." U.S. News & World Report named the college one of "America's Best Graduate Schools" in its 2010 rankings.

• Entrepreneurship MBA students recorded unprecedented success in 2009 business plan competitions. Five student teams participated in 21 competitions and earned a total of more than $100,000 in prize money. For the first time ever, two UofL MBA teams earned bids to the Moot Corp Global Business Plan Competition, where both advanced to the finals, earning second-and third- runner-up awards. Only once before in the 26-year history of Moot Corp--the international "Super Bowl" of business plan competitions--has one school placed two teams among the top four finishers.

• In 2009, the student-run CardShirt Company increased its five-year total for scholarships awarded to $27,000.  Operated by students in the college’s sales program, the Cardshirt Company designs and markets long and short-sleeve t-shirts designed to build community and tradition among UofL students.  Its profits fund the scholarships.

• Two substantial gifts by David and Betty Jones dramatically increased study abroad opportunities for students.  Prior to the gifts, a total of nine students traveled internationally in 2007 and the spring of 2008.  Since then, more than 95 students have participated in the program.

• At the 2009 Awards Day, more then $313,000 in scholarships and academic performance honors were awarded to 112 students. The awards were provided by 85 individuals, organizations and corporations.

• Prof. James Fiet, the college’s Brown-Forman chair in entrepreneurship, was named the fifth most-prolific researcher in the United States in a new study ranking top entrepreneurship researchers and their affiliations. Fiet also was named eighth most prolific in the world.  The study by researchers from Howard University and Morgan State University covered the period from 1995 through 2006.

• MBA student Will Scott was accepted to pursue a master's degree in Modern Chinese Studies at Oxford University in England. Only 15 individuals throughout the world are accepted into the program annually. The studies will prepare him for positions in diplomacy or business relations with China. Scott, who played four years on the UofL basketball team, posted a cumulative 3.9 GPA and earned a bachelor's degree in marketing with a minor in Chinese.  

• In 2009, for the third consecutive year, the College of Business sales program was named one of the Top University Sales Programs in the United States by the University Sales Education Foundation. UofL joined such schools as DePaul, Indiana, Illinois State, Ball State, Michigan State, Florida State and Bradley in the list of elite programs.

• In its spring 2009 issue, CEO, a leading international journal for business executives, named the College of Business MBA program to its list of the Top 25 North American/Global programs.

• The college announced plans to introduce an innovative new MBA program in fall 2010. The “Full-Time MBA” will be the college’s first-ever full-time program. Designed for recent graduates and students with little or no career experience, the evening program includes a significant internship during the day.

• Entrepreneurship PhD candidate Pankaj Patel won the 2009 UofL John M. Houchens Prize for Outstanding Dissertation. In addition, a paper he co-authored won two awards at the Southern Management Association Conference, including Best Doctoral Student Paper and Best Paper Overall.  He also won best paper awards from the United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and Small Business Administration (SBA).

• For the second year in a row, in 2009 a College of Business student was named a Fulbright Scholar.  Brian Hoffman, the college’s 2008 Outstanding Graduate, earned the most-recent honor. 

• Thanks to a matching gift from an anonymous donor, in 2009 the college installed a Bloomberg Terminal, a research and market tracking system used by money managers and other finance, economic, political and media professionals.  Besides providing students and faculty with an exceptional research tool, the terminal makes students more competitive in pursuing career opportunities.  Read more.

• During the 2008-09 school year, our award-winning faculty expanded experiences for students by inviting more than 35 CEOs, CFOs, COOs and other business leaders into their classrooms. 

• In the spring of 2009, the college re-launched the Family Business Center with an aggressive business plan designed to make it the region’s leading resource for family-owned and operated businesses.

• For the first time ever, in 2009 the college qualified two teams of MBA students for the Global Moot Corp Business Plan Competition. To earn their invitations, Tetra One Source was named winner of the Kennesaw State Georgia Bowl and necoPlastics won the Nebraska 2009 New Ventures World Competition.

• School of Accountancy Director Bill Stout earned the 2009 Kentucky Society of CPAs Outstanding Society Service Award, a rare honor bestowed for professional dedication and exceptional contributions to the organization’s reputation and goals.

• At the second annual Idea State U competition, graduate and undergraduate teams from the college won more than $50,000 in prizes. The PackStream team won the graduate business plan division and Fenix Group took first in the concept division.  Green Energy Louisville won the undergrad elevator pitch competition and took second place in the concept division.

• The college was selected to host the Midwest Regional of the Walmart Better Living Business Plan Challenge, a competition for teams of MBA students with sustainable (green) business concepts/plans.  The college’s necoPlastics team won the competition with a unique plan for recycling mixed plastics with fly ash to create a material suitable for manufacturing a variety of items.

• In February 2009, the second annual Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge Business Plan Competition attracted a record number of applicants and awarded more than $30,000 in prizes, including first prize and $15,000 to the Purus Technologies team from the University of Manitoba.

• With a generous alumni gift from Corbin-based entrepreneurs Marion and Terry Forcht, in January 2009 the college created the Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship, a comprehensive suite of programs and experiences for students who want to create new companies or provide innovative direction at existing ones.

• In the fall of 2008, the college expanded its study abroad opportunities with new scholarships and the addition of four exchange agreements with leading business universities in China.  The new relationships pushed the number of international programs available to students to 15 including institutions in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Moscow, Prague, Taiwan and Hungary.

• For the second year in a row, in 2008 the University Sales Education Foundation (www.saleseducationfoundation.org) named the College of Business sales program one of the Top University Sales Programs in the U.S.  Only 25 other schools made the list.

• The Partum Group, a medical technology company founded by entrepreneurship MBA students, won the NASDAQ Stock Market Challenge at the 2008 Global Moot Corp Business Plan Competition.  The company also won the Outstanding Product award in its Moot Corp division, which included the team that won the overall competition.  In total, The Partum Group collected more than $90,000 in awards, prizes and honors during the 2007-08 school year.

• At Kentucky's first-ever Idea State U. Business Plan Competition, teams from the College of Business collected four of the eight awards possible, including the top two awards for business plans. In all, the college's two graduate teams, two undergraduate teams and their advisors received more than $60,000 of the $100,000 in available awards. The competition was hosted by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development and was open to all public universities in the state. 

• In April 2008, the AACSB--the gold standard in business education excellence--renewed the college's dual accreditation for another six years, making UofL the only business college in the Louisville area with separate accreditations in both business and accountancy programs. 

• In its inaugural international listing of the top 1000 business schools in 151 countries, France-based EDUNIVERSAL named the College of Business one of the most important business schools in the world for 2008.

• In its 2008 survey, Business Week named the college one of the top undergraduate business programs in the U.S. The magazine ranked the college #11 among public universities in the south, #16 among all universities in the south and #49 among all public universities in the U.S. Out of 1200 programs nationwide, the college ranked in the top 7 percent.

• For the second consecutive year, in February 2008 the UofL Cyber Defense team won the Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. The team is comprised of students from the college's Computer Information Systems department and the Speed School of Engineering.

• In February 2008, at the college's inaugural Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge Business Plan Competition, judges awarded first place and $15,000 to HeartSounds, Inc., a team of MBA students from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Partum Group, an IMBA team from UofL, tied for second place in the Fast Pitch competition. 

• We're ranked #1 among regional business colleges by EntrePoint  in number of business plans accepted into competitions froom 2002 to 2007. 

• The College of Business ranked in the top 7% of all business programs in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report for 2006, 2007 and 2008.

• The college received a $1 million grant from BB&T to create a professorship in free enterprise and to develop an economics course and lecture series focusing on philosophies of novelist Ayn Rand. The lecture series will feature an appearance by BB&T CEO John Allison in September 2009.   Professor of Economics Stephen F. Gohmann, PhD, will be named BB&T Distinguished Professor in Free Enterprise.

• Our graduate program was honored by Fortune Small Business magazine as one of "America’s Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs" in its July 2007 issue, joining programs at MIT, Harvard, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, Wake Forest, Stanford, Cornell, Indiana University and 16 other schools.

• Our undergraduate entrepreneurship program was ranked #19 in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report for 2007, and # 17 for 2008.

• Our graduate entrepreneurship program was ranked #10 in the U.S by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine for 2007.

• We were named to The Princeton Review's Best Business Schools list for 2007.
• In 2007, our European MBA received accreditation from the Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA), the gold standard for European academic accreditation.
• Our Panama MBA program is rated among the top 20 in Latin America and one of the top two MBA programs in Central America by Latin Trade magazine, the largest business magazine in Latin America.
• RJS, LLC, a U of L IMBA business plan competition team, earned the runner-up award in the Murphree Venture Partners Challenge at the 2007 Moot Corp Global Business Plan Competition, and finished 11th out of 35 teams from the finest MBA programs in the world.
• In 2007, for the second time in three years, our Capstone Finance Team won the $50,000 Sterne-Agee Student Investment Fund Competition.  The competition includes schools from the Southeastern US, including Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.   (They posted a 26.91% return on their $50,000 investment, and got to keep 50% of the profits for use in scholarships.)
• Brown-Forman Professor of Marketing Raymond “Buddy” LaForge won the 2007 USCA Distinguished Sales Educator Award.  The USCA is the University Sales Center Alliance, a national organization of universities with sales center entities.
• In 2007, the College was invited to host a regional competition for the Moot Corp Global Business Plan Competition, often called the “Super Bowl” of business plan competitions.  The new Cardinal Challenge will be held in Louisville February 22-23, 2008.
• In the first-ever annual report on the Top University Sales Education Programs, the U of L College of Business joined Ball State, DePaul University, Ohio University, Indiana University and 22 other high-performing schools in being named one of the nation's top programs for 2007 by the University Sales Education Foundation (USEF). The list appeared in the industry's leading trade journal, Selling Power Magazine, in June 2007.  
• In 2003, the  U of L College of Business was recognized as a Top Tier Entrepreneurial College by Entrepreneur Magazine, ranking 13th in the U.S.
• In 2005, management Prof. Bruce Kemelgor was the SBI's "Homer L. Saunders Mentor Award" winner.