North Carolina State University Poole College of Management

The NC State Poole College of Management was created in 1992, but the history of economics, business and management education at North Carolina State University goes back to the early 1900s. A brief history follows.

The college’s leadership and faculty continually assess its programs to assure relevancy in today’s dynamic global marketplace, resulting in new initiatives, research areas and academic programs. The college’s Master of Accounting program was established in 1993, its MBA program in 2002, and its Master of Global Innovation Management in 2008, in collaboration with IAE Graduate School of Management in Aix-en-Provence, France. The college continues to grow its executive education programs, which in 2011 was named Business Collaboratories, and to offer new program delivery options and curricula.

The strength and relevancy of the college’s programs led to two naming gifts, with theJenkins Graduate School of Management being named in 2007, and the college as a whole being named the Lonnie C. Poole, Jr. College of Management in December 2010.

Establishing the College

NC State produced a steady stream of business graduates until the Great Depression, when budget restrictions resulted in NC State closing down its business school andUNC-Chapel Hill shutting the doors on its engineering school.

In the early 1970s, the university again began offering undergraduate degrees in business management and accounting through the Department of Economics and Business in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Master of Science in Management degree was launched in 1976.

In 1990, the university invited a visitation team to review the need for and desirability of establishing the College of Management. The team consisted of Dean Richard Lewis, Michigan State University; Professor Willard T. Carelton, the Karl Eller Professor of Finance, University of Arizona; Dean George Daly, University of Iowa; and Dean Richard Sorenson, Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

They recommended that the college be established and that its programs have a unique focus based on the strengths of NC State and a clear need for management programs in North Carolina.

Based on the on-campus review and the recommendations of the visitation committee, on March 6, 1992, the UNC Board of Governors authorized the establishment of a College of Management at NC State provided it met certain standards.

The college could be established with the understanding that it:

• Would provide a curriculum that would integrate the functional areas of business and have a core focus on the management of technology.
• Would develop a broad integrated curriculum in business management.
• Where feasible would develop relationships with the other colleges (especially the Colleges of Engineering, Textiles, and Natural Resources).