Lehman College announced today that it will transition one of its largest departments, Economics and Business, into a School of Business on July 1, making it the only business school at any public college in the Bronx or Westchester County. CUNY’s Board of Trustees approved the measure at a Dec. 13 public meeting.
“The new school, whose niche will include entrepreneurship, small business development, and experiential learning, builds on Lehman’s already strong reputation within the business community and will serve as a major pipeline for preparing diverse talent from underrepresented populations for local, regional, national, and international workforce needs,” said Lehman College Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Student Success Peter O. Nwosu. “Establishing a School of Business signals to students, prospective students, and employers that we are committed to producing skilled graduates who have real-world experience, a global perspective, and a capacity for creative problem-solving in an industry that continues to evolve.”
The Department of Economics and Business is one of the largest departments at Lehman College, with a total of 1,802 declared majors, both graduate and undergrad, among a student body of more than 14,000 students, according to fall 2020 enrollment numbers.
The school will launch with three new departments—Accounting; Management and Business Innovation; and Economics, Finance, and Information Systems—and offer seven different degrees: a bachelor of business administration; a bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and master of science in accounting; a bachelor of arts in economics; a bachelor of arts in economics and mathematics; and a master of science in business. Students will choose from seven concentrations, including accounting, finance, marketing, human resource management, business law, international business, and business economics. They’ll receive instruction from 23 full-time faculty transferred from the School of Natural and Social Science, which is where the current Economics and Business department currently exists.
“The Lehman School of Business will build on our current collaborations with industry partners and small businesses in the Bronx to provide even more experiential learning programs and opportunities for our students,” said Dene Hurley, chair of the Department of Economics and Business. “These partnerships have already started to create pathways for our students to pursue internship and employment opportunities—both critical to the success of our graduates.”
Plans for the School of Business were 10 years in the making, with a visioning committee established for such a purpose in 2014, and a program review conducted by Willie Hopkins, founding dean of the Murray Koppelman School of Business at Brooklyn College, in 2020.
“Establishing a School of Business at Lehman College fulfills an important objective of our strategic plan and brings to the College many of the benefits of fundraising, along with broad leadership in city, state, federal, and international initiatives,” said Lehman College President Fernando Delgado. “The Bronx and our students are the biggest benefactors of this endeavor, since many of our students are from here and many of them stay in the city after graduation. Congratulations to everyone on campus who worked so hard to bring our new School of Business to fruition.”