We are developing seven strategic areas creating opportunities for our students, business partners and economic development in southeastern Michigan.  In many cases the areas are interdisciplinary in nature reflecting how business operates today.  Business today is integrated and cross-functional teams, many times involving people from a variety of countries and cultures which are responsible for company operations and projects.  Our interdisciplinary strategic areas include international business, supply chain management, integrated marketing communications, entrepreneurship, ethics, accounting and human resource management and organizational development complete the list.  The focus on these programs does not diminish the importance of our other disciplines such as marketing, computer information systems, management or finance.  We are committed to providing excellence in education throughout the College.

"Innovation" is critical to today’s business world and to our College of Business.  We offer academic programs which are innovative, such as our undergraduate major in international business.  We require a study abroad, foreign language proficiency and a second functional major such as finance, marketing or management.  This is to assure our students of entry level job opportunities.  We are one of the first business schools in the country to require a Global Ethics course to complete this major.  Also, students must complete three “Doing Business In___” modules.  To date we have offered "Doing Business in China, Japan, Germany, France, Mexico and India."  This major integrates innovation in courses, with applied studies in specific countries and certainly is global.

We offer the second online graduate Integrated Marketing Communications degree program in the country.  In fact, we are the only business school in the Midwest to offer either an online or on-ground program in IMC.  We offer the most comprehensive set of Supply Chain Management programs in the state.  This includes an undergraduate major and minor, graduate certificate and specialization in the MBA.  The capstone requirement in the undergraduate major is an international supply chain strategy course.  One of our core course requirements in our MBA curriculum is an innovation course. 

The College of Business has the first Ethos Statement for any business school in the country.  This is a faculty developed statement emphasizing the importance of ethics and values for the development of a professional business career.  This has led to our annual Ethos Week and Ethos Honors Society.  We are also the first to partner with Google to offer a course assisting non-profits to develop Google Adwords campaigns.

Our programs are “Applied” in nature stressing the importance of interacting with the business community.  Many of our faculty incorporate real world projects into the classroom to give students practical experience working with current business issues.  Many of these projects come from our business partners and clients of our Small Business and Technology Development Center network.  The College operates eight offices in the metro-Detroit area (Wayne, Oakland and Monroe counties) with our partners to provide no-cost services to entrepreneurs and small businesses.  Last year we provided services to over 900 clients.  We expect the number of projects to increase because we are partners to open a high-tech incubator in Ypsilanti this year with Ann Arbor SPARK, the regional economic development organization.

Our Entrepreneurship Center coordinates many of our economic development initiatives.  It also sponsors an annual student regional CEO Conference and launched the first annual business plan competition for high school, community college and university students.  We have active business advisory boards for every program in the College.  This assures the relevance of our curriculum and increases internship and full-time job placement opportunities for our students.  We have a Career Services suite in the business school building which in addition to internships and full-time jobs, offers on-site workshops for resume development, interviewing and job search skills and business etiquette.  We also offer an annual Career Fair in the College.

As you can see, many of our programs have a “Global” component.  Our faculty are also global, with almost 25 of our full-time faculty of international origin representing 15 countries.  Over 20% of our graduate and 4% of our undergraduate students are international.  We have agreements with partner universities in China, India, Korea, Pakistan, Germany, Spain, France and Yemen.  This diverse atmosphere allows our students have the opportunity to work with others from different cultures and countries for course projects and teams.  We also offer the first and only Masters of Human Resources and Organizational Development program in China.  We will have our third graduation in China this summer.

“Why Choose the COB?”, because the College of Business is “Innovative, Applied and Global!”  Be sure to explore our site for more information.