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 2017, the Isenberg School has nearly 44,000 alumni in 72 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

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

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

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.

Donor programs

In 2014, alumni Douglas and Diana Berthiaume donated $10 million to the university to establish Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship and further in 2023, they donated $20 million to support and expand faculty research and endow new faculty positions and professorships.

Notable alumni

Business

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

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

Honorary alumni

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

Notable faculty

Executive-in-Residence

• David Stern, 4th Commissioner of the National Basketball Association
• Anita DeFrantz, member of the International Olympic Committee

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

See also

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