USF – St. Pete got the Top Small School in the Country award for the year 2005 from a group called Beyond Grey Pinstripes, which surveys and ranks business schools throughout the world every two years.
Here is the link to the PDF on the Beyond Grey Pinstripes website.
If the link fails, you can view my archived copy here.
Here is more information copied from http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/schools/index.cfm?cid=592
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
College of BusinessIn the school’s own words…
University of South Florida St. Petersburg College of Business Program of Distinction in Social Responsibility and Corporate Reporting
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg became a fiscally and academically autonomous institution within the USF System on July 1, 2003. At that strategic juncture, eleven new administrators arrived on campus to begin the process of creating distinct missions, visions, values, and goals and pursuing their chosen paths. The dean of the College of Business (COB) was selected from among the available candidates, in part, because of his scholarly research in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Collaboration among the executive team of COB, the faculty, the students, and the local business community, resulted in the following mission statement:
The mission of the College of Business at USF St. Petersburg is to educate, develop, and promote effective and socially responsible managers, professionals, and other leaders through discipline-specific and multi-disciplinary learning, research, and service in an increasingly global environment.
USF St. Petersburg’s Program of Distinction in Social Responsibility and Corporate Reporting (SRCR) developed concurrently, and its charge continues to clarify over time. The first order was to hire an executive director, and the individual chosen was a former managing partner who had considerable experience in fraud prevention and extensive business contacts with the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. While the primary focus is on management ethics and forensic accounting, the multidisciplinary nature of CSR has broadened attention to issues of globalization, environmental stewardship, and social policy. The vision for this program includes the development of a variety of courses and seminars for undergraduate and MBA students as well as the practitioner community. To this end, unique concentrations in forensic accounting, taxation, CSR, and managing knowledge resources have been added to our graduate curricula, along with an annual conference, a speaker series, and a variety of seminars.
COB also publicly articulated its social responsibility to external stakeholders, such as the residents of the adjacent Midtown community, through recognition of “our special obligation to support the management and leadership initiatives of lower-income neighborhoods.” Additionally, this vision includes the needs of internal stakeholders through development of “learning opportunities that help faculty, staff, and students understand the responsibilities of individuals and organizations to the larger society,” operationalized through the creation of “a social responsibility component to our degree programs that reveals ways in which our students can better serve their firms and communities.” To meet these objectives, our students and faculty also have established semester-long consulting projects with Midtown firms, tax preparation services for local residents, and a for-credit independent study option to survey indigenous business opportunities and threats.
Our progress during the first eighteen months has been exhilarating. We hope to deepen our commitment through funding of professorships and term appointments in key CSR areas, reengineering of our graduate curricula to reflect the triple bottom line, and increasing our ability to serve Midtown via a diversity initiative.
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