Isenberg School of Management

The Isenberg School of Management is the business school and also the second largest school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the flagship campus for the University of Massachusetts system. The Isenberg School is accredited by the AACSB International and ACPHA.

The school offers seven undergraduate majors along with MS, MBA and Ph.D. programs. As of the 2014-2015 academic year, there were approximately 3500 undergraduate students and 1300 graduate students enrolled in the Isenberg School of Management. As of 2025, Isenberg School has more than 48,000 alumni worldwide across 80 countries.

History

Business courses were first offered at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in the early years of the 20th century, expanding rapidly during the 1930s and 1940s in response to student demand. The college's board of trustees established the School of Business Administration in 1947, and within seven years, it was conferring graduate degrees, including doctorates after 1967.

In 1964, the school moved to its current building in the heart of the UMass Amherst campus. In 1983, the School of Business Administration changed its name to School of Management. In 1998 the Isenberg School of Management was named after Eugene Isenberg, the chairman and CEO of Nabors Industries, which at the time was a world leader in gas and petroleum drilling.

McCormack Department of Sport Management

In 2010, the department of sports studies was renamed as the McCormack Department of Sport Management after Mark McCormack, founder and CEO of IMG. The McCormack family gifted $1.5 million to endow educational initiatives including the Executive-in-Residence program and an international travel and exchange program.

Marriott Center for Hospitality Management

In 2007, 200 seat Marriott dining $6.3 million facility named in honor of J. Willard Marriott and Alice Marriott was opened at University Campus Center. The facility has two state-of-the-art commercial production and demonstration kitchen-classrooms for Hospitality & Tourism Management students.

Modern expansion

File:The architecturally innovative Isenberg School of Management Building at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, by Carol M. Highsmith, 2019, from the Library of Congress - master-pnp-highsm-57800-57807a.tif

The expanded building around the north and northeast ends of the business school built by Bjarke Ingels Group.

The business school completed and opened a 70,000-square-foot expansion in 2019. The project was estimated at $62 million and added classrooms, labs, and student-facing spaces.

Programs

File:Robert Merton 2023 at Isenberg School - University of Massachusetts Amherst.png

Nobel laureate Robert C. Merton at the Isenberg School for 2023 CISDM Conference.

In 2015, the business school became a signatory and participates in Principles for Responsible Management Education.

Undergraduate program

Isenberg awards Bachelor of Business Administration in five majors and Bachelor of Science in two majors. The finance undergraduate degree is affiliated with CFA Institute. The acceptance rate to BBA program was 5% to 10% for internal students. From fall 2022, the school stopped internal transfers who were not directly accepted into the program.

MBA and masters program

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Students at the Isenberg School.

Isenberg offers full-time, part-time and online programs for its AACSB-accredited MBA degree. The school has the second largest MBA degree program in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by total enrolled students.

Isenberg offers Dual MBA/MS degrees in six disciplines: Public Policy and Administration, Sport Management, Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Isenberg also awards M.S. degrees in Accounting and Sport Management.

Rankings

Undergraduate level

In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked undergraduate program 47th in the United States. and 29th among public universities.

Graduate level

At the MBA level, in 2020 and 2023 U.S. News & World Report ranked Isenberg 53rd overall, and ranked its online MBA program 28th. Financial Times has ranked its online MBA program at 3rd worldwide and 1st in the United States for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. In 2023, Financial Times has ranked its online MBA program at 5th worldwide and 2nd in the United States.

Individual departments

In 2019, Public Accounting Report’s Annual Professors Survey has ranked the college under top 30 for undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. accounting programs.

In 2022, the McCormack Department of Sport Management has been ranked #1 graduate-level global sports management program for the fourth time in the world by SportBusiness International. In 2014, Forbes called the sports management department "a world-wide leader in its field".

The school's Hospitality & Tourism Management Department was ranked #25 in the world in 2023 by CEOWORLD magazine.

Publications

The Journal of Alternative Investments is housed and managed by the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets (CISDM).

Centers

• Berthiaume Center for EntrepreneurshipTemplate:Efn
• Business Communication Center
• Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets - CISDM-Morningstar Hedge Fund Database tracks more than 7,000 hedge funds, commodity trading advisors, and funds of funds. The business school is the co-founder of Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.
• Massachusetts Small Business Development Center
• McCormack Center for Sport Research & Education
• Virtual Center for Supernetworks

Student life

The Isenberg School has 42 independent undergraduate student organizations. The Isenberg Undergraduate Student Advisory Council (IUSAC) serves as a voice for undergraduate students in the business school and also works to strengthen the connection between students and the school administration and fosters leadership development among students.

The school has an MBA Oath Ceremony, where graduating MBA students voluntarily pledge to "create value responsibly and ethically". The first year undergraduate students take Isenberg Pledge.

Notable alumni

Business

• Anshu Jain (1985), former Global co-CEO of Deutsche Bank
• Marc Forgione, owner of restaurant Marc Forgione in New York City
• John F. Smith, Jr. (1960), former CEO and chairman of General Motors Corporation
• Vivek Paul, Former President and Vice Chairman of Wipro Limited
• James Pallotta (1979), President of A.S. Roma and Chairman and Managing Director of Raptor Group
• Jeff Taylor 2001, founder of Monster.com
• John Legere, CEO and President of T-Mobile US
• Earl W. Stafford, founder of the Stafford Foundation

Government

• Hina Rabbani Khar (2001), 30th Foreign Minister of Pakistan
• V. Anantha Nageswaran, 18th Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India
• Rudolf Rodríguez, former Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia

Academics

• Susan Fournier, Dean of Questrom School of Business
• David Fubini (1976), Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School
• Müjde Yüksel, Associate Professor at Suffolk University
• Dennis Hanno, President of Wheaton College

Sports and athletics

• Serena Williams, tennis player
• James Marcou, Assistant coach of Harvard Crimson men's ice hockey
• Jay Monahan, 4th Commissioner of the PGA Tour
• Li Li Leung (2003), President and CEO of USA Gymnastics
• Tony Barbee (1993), collegiate basketball coach at Auburn University
• Ben Cherington (1997), Former executive Vice President and General Manager of the Boston Red Sox
• Dave Jauss, baseball coach
• Neal Huntington (1992), General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates
• Dave Littlefield (1984), Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates
• Mike Tannenbaum (1991), former general manager of the New York Jets
• Adam Breneman, NFL player and commentator

Medicine

• J. Michael Millis, Professor of Surgery and Vice Chair of Global Surgery at University of Chicago.

Armed forces and police

• Robert I. Miller, 24th Surgeon General of the United States Air Force
• Samantha Sepulveda - Long Island police officer
• Lee E. Payne, Major General in the US Air Force

Arts and entertainment

• Julie Robenhymer, former Miss New Jersey

Honorary alumni

• Wayne Chang (Hon. D.B.), Co-founder of Crashlytics

Notable faculty

Tenured faculty, endowed professors and chairs

• Javier Reyes, Professor of Finance and Chancellor
• Nefertiti Walker, Associate Professor
• Thomas Schneeweis, retired Michael and Cheryl Philipp Professor of Finance
• Sheila Bair, retired Visiting Professor of Finance, Chair Board of directors of Fannie Mae
• Hossein Kazemi, Michael and Cheryl Philipp Professor of Finance
• Anna Nagurney, John F. Smith Memorial Professor of Operations Management
• Linda Smircich, Professor of Management

Executive-in-Residence

• David Stern, 4th Commissioner of the National Basketball Association
• Val Ackerman, 1st President of the Women's National Basketball Association
• Stacey Allaster, Former CEO of Women's Tennis Association
• Anita DeFrantz, member of the International Olympic Committee
• Sean McManus, Former President of CBS Sports
• George Bodenheimer, Former President of ESPN.
• DeMaurice Smith, Former executive director of the National Football League Players Association
• Bernie Mullin, Former CEO of Atlanta Spirits
• Jon Spoelstra, author, sports marketer
• Harry Edwards, sociologist
• Sonny Vaccaro, innovator

See also

• List of United States graduate business school rankings
• List of business schools in the United States
• List of AACSB-accredited schools (accounting)

External links

• BIG's copper-and-glass-clad "Isenberg School Expansion falls into place", The Architect's Newspaper, 2019