Patrick Shannon, Dean
Welcome to the College of Business and Economics!
It is an exciting time to be a part of the College of Business and Economics (COBE). Whether you are looking for a place to advance your career, further your organization through our business help units, or connect with your alma mater you have come to the right place! We value your interaction with the college and look forward to exceeding your expectations. If you are ever in the area, please stop in and say hello. It’s the amazing support of our friends, alumni, students, faculty and staff that make this college such a special place. Keep reading below to find out some key information and highlights about COBE.
Go Broncos!
Patrick Shannon
Dean, College of Business & Economics
COBE Points of Pride
The College moved into the new Micron Business and Economics building in July of 2012. This new four-story, 119,000 square foot facility is filled with cutting edge classroom designs, meeting spaces and technology to enable students, faculty and community members to work collaboratively. This building is already transforming teaching and learning at Boise State and will serve as a model for other business schools around the country. Learn more at http://cobe.boisestate.edu/newhome/.
Our mission is to provide a high quality learning environment with a faculty and staff dedicated to delivering innovative academic programs, conducting meaningful research, and supporting regional economic development. Using our mission as our guidepost we continue to strive and excel.
New examples include:
1) New high quality learning environment:
- Two learning spaces in the building – including a real-time learning lab – will encourage students to develop new educational initiatives and establish a center of expertise on enterprise workflows.
- A new financial trading room houses nine individually licensed Bloomberg terminals, allowing students to use the data, research, analytics and news that industry professionals employ.
- A state-of-the-art, 250 seat lecture hall serves as a magnet for attracting educational opportunities to COBE for lectures and speeches by distinguished leaders from academia, business and government.
- An Imagination Lab that provides an open, flexible arrangement and team breakout rooms with names like The Anti-Complacency Room, Reverse Thinking Room and the Aha Room to spark new ways of thinking and doing.
2) Innovative academic programs include:
- A new course for freshman called Business for the New Generation to help students see the big picture in business and how different disciplines fit together. Utilizing Bloomberg Business Week, live case studies, real-time technology and guest lecturers, this course helps freshman choose majors and picture their future professional careers in order to make informed choices during their academic careers.
- Innovative MBA programs designed to address the different needs of business graduate students. Boise State now offers 3 different MBA programs: Career Start for recent graduates from any discipline, Professional MBA for professionals with 2+years of business experience and an EMBA for seasoned executives.
- An Entrepreneurship program that brings students from business, engineering, sciences and the arts together in teams to transform ideas into a viable business.
3) Meaningful Research:
- World class faculty gravitate to Boise State University’s College of Business and Economics to work in the heart of Idaho’s business community. The College’s entrepreneurial environment and close ties with our region’s business center provide a vibrant laboratory to teach, research, consult and make an impact.
- The August 15, 2012 issue of US News and World Report cited the work of Professors Jim Wanek and Dusty Bodie. The professors utilized avatar-based software from Vertical Learning Curve (VLC) for an online MBA human resource management and organizational behavior course. The software creates a virtual company environment with the student taking the role of a new intern for a simulated immersion experience.
Learn more about our faculty at http://cobe.boisestate.edu/faculty-research/.
4) Economic Development:
Now more than ever, we are taking a leadership role in helping create and drive economic value in our region. One of the great benefits of the new Micron Business and Economics Building is the ability to bring several existing centers together in one location to advance partnerships between COBE faculty, local business interests and communities.
- The COBE Business Research and Economic Development Center exists to coordinate our funded research and community engagement efforts. This center serves as a one-stop shop for accessing the many resources available across the College of Business and Economics that we make available to help private and public center organizations. As part of the launch in 2008 of this center, we announced the Spring Economic Turnaround Initiative in which COBE pledged to help 200 organizations through student projects, internships, faculty consulting, and our outreach centers. We ended up helping over 600 organizations and are helping more on a continuous basis.
- Our Small Business Development Center, TechHelp and the TECenter are heavily involved in helping Idaho’s economic development by offering advice and consultation to hundreds of small businesses and start-ups.
- The Idaho Council on Economic Education delivered their famous International Economic Summit to 350 high school students in China and over 5,000 Idaho students. Another 75,000 high school students use the ICEE economic summit materials through an arrangement with the U.S. Federal Reserve system.