The Good 5 Cent Cigar

Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Madelin Ortiz Ballentine Hall, home of the University of Rhode Island's College of Business, is bustling with students and faculty in the late afternoon. The Princeton Review recently named the college as having one of the 296 best business MBA programs in the world.

11/20/08 - For the second year in a row, the Princeton Review named the University of Rhode Island's graduate business school one of 296 best in the world.

Every year, the Princeton Review attempts to survey business schools with Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation. Last year, 290 schools were named, but this year six more were added to the list. The extra schools include Bellarmine University, Brandeis University, California State University-Northridge, Delaware State University, Fayetteville State University and William Paterson University.

In order for schools to be considered, they have to meet the Princeton Review's criteria of academic excellence and must allow students to participate in the surveys. Students are then given the choice of conducting the survey on the Princeton Review Web site or by paper.

Each survey is divided into five separate sections: students, academics, careers, about yourself and quality of life. Feedback about the programs is collected and the prospective schools are considered.

Schools are then grouped together, unranked, because the Princeton Review states that every business school has individual qualities that make them the best.

According to the Princeton Review, URI has a strong reputation worldwide. The MBA business school program offered at URI is a full-time, yearlong intensive program with a four-day period of courses, said Mark Higgins, the dean of the College of Business and Administration.

"Students in the program are given hands-on opportunities," he said. They are put into teams have the opportunity to work with social business plans for non-profit organizations, Higgins said.

The business program, housed in Ballentine Hall, provides students with cutting-edge technology in classrooms. Such technology includes wireless Internet access, projectors, computers and audiovisual equipment. The building offers two computer labs with 40 computers each, a seminar room and two conference rooms.

The smaller classroom sizes provide good student-to-teacher interaction, Higgins said. The classrooms consist of 25 to 30 students each, and the student-to-faculty ratio is four-to-one. There are currently 55 faculty members and all of them are full-time.

"We recruit faculty from the best programs in the country," Higgins said.

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