Atkinson Graduate School of Management
Encyclopedia
The George H. Atkinson Graduate School of Management (Atkinson) is the Masters in Business Administration (MBA) program at Willamette University
in Salem, Oregon
, United States
. It is one of only two MBA programs in the world accredited for both Business Administration (AACSB International) and Public Administration
(NASPAA). Atkinson was established by Willamette in 1974 and has an enrollment of approximately 307 students.
. Stephen Archer served as the school's first dean. The school was first named as the Willamette University School of Administration before being renamed as the George H. Atkinson Graduate School of Management. Atkinson was a businessman in the construction industry and a trustee of Willamette before he died in 1978. He served as president of the board of trustees and made the largest single donation in school history up to that time in 1969 when his foundation gave $3.4 million to the university.
In 1978, the Center for Business-Government Studies was added to the school after Willamette received a grant from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The program was designed to better the relationships between the government and businesses. In 1988, the school was recognized by U.S. News & World Report
and the fifth best business school in the Midwest and West region. It was the highest ranked of any school in the Pacific Northwest
. Enrollment was 130 students with 10 full-time professors. At that time the program was led by Dean David L. Puryear with a tuition of just over $8,000 per year.
In 1990, the school hired G. Dale Weight to serve as dean, the same year he was removed as chief executive officer of the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan
after the thrift was seized by the government during the Savings and loan crisis
. Weight remained dean until 1998. At that time Atkinson GSM had 184 students and 11 full-time faculty members. Tuition was $14,900 per year then and incoming students scored an average of 550 on the Graduate Management Admission Test
. From 1998 to 2002, Atkinson was led by Dean Bryan Johnston. Johnston had been the interim president at Willamette and a member of the Oregon House of Representatives
.
Atkinson opened a center to the north in Portland's
Pearl District
in August 2005 to provide a two-year MBA program in the Oregon's most populous city. In February 2007, the Jeld-Wen Foundation
made a $2.5 million dollar donation to endow a free-enterprise professorship at the school, the largest donation ever for the graduate program. Dean Jim Goodrich, who joined Atkinson in 2003, retired from the school in June 2007, with Debra Ringold serving as interim dean. Previously the JELD-WEN Professor in Free Enterprise, Ringold was named as the permanent dean in January 2008. In 2007, the Center for Business Education ranked the school 58th in their Beyond Grey Pinstripes rankings for emphasizing social and environmental awareness in the business world. The school was admitted to the Graduate Management Admission Council
in June 2009. As of 2009, the program had approximately 230 students, and was the largest full-time MBA program in Oregon.
The Atkinson Graduate School of Management was ranked among Forbes magazine's "Best Business Schools" list in 2009.
, general management, human resources
, information systems, marketing
, organizational analysis, public management
, international management, and quantitative analysis/management science. Students in their first year in a program are required to enroll in an entrepreneurship course called PACE that includes strategies that are used to develop a business plan. The graduate programs also require courses in business ethics, including the Oregon Ethics in Business Awards evaluation program. Located across the street from the Oregon State Capitol
, unlike similar management schools, Atkinson has been able to maintain some of its focus on public management programs.
The school also offers a four-year joint MBA-JD
degree in association with the Willamette University College of Law
. Willamette's MBA for Professionals program in Portland and Salem focuses management skill development, broad based strategic thinking and cross-functional knowledge. Classrooms are located in the Brewery Block II
building in the Pearl District
and on the Salem
campus.
Atkinson offers two study abroad programs, Copenhagen Business School in Denmark
and Bordeaux Business School in France
. In addition to student programs, AGSM also offers an Executive Development Center (EDC) designed to educate businesses and organizations as consultants to those groups. The school’s PACE program allows students to start real businesses that are then closed or sold at the end of the program.
since 1938. It was the first school in the world to be accredited by both the NASPAA and AACSB. Atkinson was selected as one of the top 91 programs for preparing MBA's for social and environmental stewardship by "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" and ranked 28th for the specialty of "Public Affairs, Public Finance and Budgeting" by U.S. News & World Reports. As of 2009, U.S. News & World Report
ranks the school's public affairs program as the 90th best in the United States. Willamette's MBA program is also listed as one of Forbes best business schools.
campus in Salem. The building is named after Seeley G. Mudd
, a physician, educator, and philanthropist who has many buildings across the country named in his honor. The Mudd building was completed in 1975. This structure was designed by architect Phil Settecase. In 2000, the school installed a wireless network
in the building. Law classes are held in the neighboring Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center. Collins was built in 1967 and expanded in 1992.
The Willamette University Portland Center was established in 2005 and houses the MBA for Professionals program. It is located in Portland's Pearl District in Brewery Block 2. The Portland Center is also utilized for events through Willamette's Executive Development Center.
(GMAT) score of 610. Select students are eligible for induction into Beta Gamma Sigma
, the honor society for business students. The average age of students in the full-time (Early Career MBA and MBA for Career Change) is 25 . Over 30% of students in Willamette's full-time MBA programs come from outside the U.S. The average age of students in the MBA for Professionals program is 34 .
Willamette University
Willamette University is an American private institution of higher learning located in Salem, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest university in the Western United States. Willamette is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges, and is made up of an undergraduate College of Liberal Arts and...
in Salem, Oregon
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is one of only two MBA programs in the world accredited for both Business Administration (AACSB International) and Public Administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
(NASPAA). Atkinson was established by Willamette in 1974 and has an enrollment of approximately 307 students.
History
Atkinson Graduate School was founded at Willamette University in 1974 and moved into the new Seeley G. Mudd Building in 1975. The first year had 52 students and five professors, and the program is older than the management program at Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. Stephen Archer served as the school's first dean. The school was first named as the Willamette University School of Administration before being renamed as the George H. Atkinson Graduate School of Management. Atkinson was a businessman in the construction industry and a trustee of Willamette before he died in 1978. He served as president of the board of trustees and made the largest single donation in school history up to that time in 1969 when his foundation gave $3.4 million to the university.
In 1978, the Center for Business-Government Studies was added to the school after Willamette received a grant from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The program was designed to better the relationships between the government and businesses. In 1988, the school was recognized by U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
and the fifth best business school in the Midwest and West region. It was the highest ranked of any school in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
. Enrollment was 130 students with 10 full-time professors. At that time the program was led by Dean David L. Puryear with a tuition of just over $8,000 per year.
In 1990, the school hired G. Dale Weight to serve as dean, the same year he was removed as chief executive officer of the Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan
Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan
Benj. Franklin Savings and Loan was a thrift based in Portland, Oregon, which was seized by the United States Government in 1990. In 1996 the United States Supreme Court found that this and similar seizures were based on an unconstitutional provision of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery,...
after the thrift was seized by the government during the Savings and loan crisis
Savings and Loan crisis
The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of about 747 out of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States...
. Weight remained dean until 1998. At that time Atkinson GSM had 184 students and 11 full-time faculty members. Tuition was $14,900 per year then and incoming students scored an average of 550 on the Graduate Management Admission Test
Graduate Management Admission Test
The Graduate Management Admission Test is a computer-adaptive standardized test in mathematics and the English language for measuring aptitude to succeed academically in graduate business studies. Business schools use the test as a criterion for admission into graduate business administration...
. From 1998 to 2002, Atkinson was led by Dean Bryan Johnston. Johnston had been the interim president at Willamette and a member of the Oregon House of Representatives
Oregon House of Representatives
The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of 57,000. The House meets at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem....
.
Atkinson opened a center to the north in Portland's
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
Pearl District
Pearl District, Portland, Oregon
The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significant urban renewal since the late 1990s, including the...
in August 2005 to provide a two-year MBA program in the Oregon's most populous city. In February 2007, the Jeld-Wen Foundation
JELD-WEN
Jeld-Wen is a corporation with over 150 divisions and 20,000 employees worldwide. The business manufactures building products, including windows, interior and exterior doors, and garage doors. Jeld-Wen owns several distribution facilities and operates several resort properties...
made a $2.5 million dollar donation to endow a free-enterprise professorship at the school, the largest donation ever for the graduate program. Dean Jim Goodrich, who joined Atkinson in 2003, retired from the school in June 2007, with Debra Ringold serving as interim dean. Previously the JELD-WEN Professor in Free Enterprise, Ringold was named as the permanent dean in January 2008. In 2007, the Center for Business Education ranked the school 58th in their Beyond Grey Pinstripes rankings for emphasizing social and environmental awareness in the business world. The school was admitted to the Graduate Management Admission Council
Graduate Management Admission Council
The Graduate Management Admission Council is an international non-profit association of business schools that provides products and services to academic institutions and prospective graduate business students. The organization owns the Graduate Management Admission Test , a standardized exam that...
in June 2009. As of 2009, the program had approximately 230 students, and was the largest full-time MBA program in Oregon.
The Atkinson Graduate School of Management was ranked among Forbes magazine's "Best Business Schools" list in 2009.
Academics
Atkinson offers several different graduate programs. The school offers full-time, part-time, and evening enrollment. MBA programs include the MBA for Professionals, Accelerated, Early Career MBA and MBA for Career Change. In the Early Career and MBA for Career Change, students can choose areas of interests including accounting, financeFinance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
, general management, human resources
Human resources
Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
, information systems, marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
, organizational analysis, public management
Public management
Public management is a term that considers that government and non-profit administration resembles private-sector management in some important ways. As such, there are management tools appropriate in public and in private domains, tools that maximize efficiency and effectiveness...
, international management, and quantitative analysis/management science. Students in their first year in a program are required to enroll in an entrepreneurship course called PACE that includes strategies that are used to develop a business plan. The graduate programs also require courses in business ethics, including the Oregon Ethics in Business Awards evaluation program. Located across the street from the Oregon State Capitol
Oregon State Capitol
The Oregon State Capitol is the building housing the state legislature and the offices of the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located in the state capital, Salem. The current building, constructed from 1936 to 1938, and expanded in 1977, is the third...
, unlike similar management schools, Atkinson has been able to maintain some of its focus on public management programs.
The school also offers a four-year joint MBA-JD
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
degree in association with the Willamette University College of Law
Willamette University College of Law
Willamette University College of Law is a private law school located in Salem, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1842, Willamette University is the oldest university in the Western United States...
. Willamette's MBA for Professionals program in Portland and Salem focuses management skill development, broad based strategic thinking and cross-functional knowledge. Classrooms are located in the Brewery Block II
Weinhard Brewery Complex
The Henry Weinhard Brewery complex, also the Cellar Building and Brewhouse and Henry Weinhard's City Brewery, is a former brewery in Portland, Oregon. Since 2000, it and the neighboring A.B. Smith Automotive Building have been on the National Register of Historic Places...
building in the Pearl District
Pearl District, Portland, Oregon
The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significant urban renewal since the late 1990s, including the...
and on the Salem
Salem, Oregon
Salem is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river forms the boundary between Marion and Polk counties, and the city neighborhood...
campus.
Atkinson offers two study abroad programs, Copenhagen Business School in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and Bordeaux Business School in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In addition to student programs, AGSM also offers an Executive Development Center (EDC) designed to educate businesses and organizations as consultants to those groups. The school’s PACE program allows students to start real businesses that are then closed or sold at the end of the program.
Rankings and accreditation
AGSM is accredited by the AACSB in business, by NASPAA for government and not for profit administration, and the law school has been accredited by the American Bar AssociationAmerican Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
since 1938. It was the first school in the world to be accredited by both the NASPAA and AACSB. Atkinson was selected as one of the top 91 programs for preparing MBA's for social and environmental stewardship by "Beyond Grey Pinstripes" and ranked 28th for the specialty of "Public Affairs, Public Finance and Budgeting" by U.S. News & World Reports. As of 2009, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
ranks the school's public affairs program as the 90th best in the United States. Willamette's MBA program is also listed as one of Forbes best business schools.
Facilities
The school is housed in the Seeley G. Mudd Building on the west end of the Willamette UniversityWillamette University
Willamette University is an American private institution of higher learning located in Salem, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest university in the Western United States. Willamette is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges, and is made up of an undergraduate College of Liberal Arts and...
campus in Salem. The building is named after Seeley G. Mudd
Seeley G. Mudd
Seeley Greenleaf Mudd, M.D. was an American physician, professor, and philanthropist.Mudd was born in Denver, Colorado in 1895, and was the son of noted mining engineer Seeley W. Mudd and brother of Harvey S. Mudd, also a miner, businessman, and philanthropist. He was eight when his family moved...
, a physician, educator, and philanthropist who has many buildings across the country named in his honor. The Mudd building was completed in 1975. This structure was designed by architect Phil Settecase. In 2000, the school installed a wireless network
Wireless network
Wireless network refers to any type of computer network that is not connected by cables of any kind. It is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and enterprise installations avoid the costly process of introducing cables into a building, or as a connection between various equipment...
in the building. Law classes are held in the neighboring Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center. Collins was built in 1967 and expanded in 1992.
The Willamette University Portland Center was established in 2005 and houses the MBA for Professionals program. It is located in Portland's Pearl District in Brewery Block 2. The Portland Center is also utilized for events through Willamette's Executive Development Center.
Students
Atkinson has an enrollment of 307 students in all programs. Students have an average entering GPA of 3.30 and Graduate Management Admission TestGraduate Management Admission Test
The Graduate Management Admission Test is a computer-adaptive standardized test in mathematics and the English language for measuring aptitude to succeed academically in graduate business studies. Business schools use the test as a criterion for admission into graduate business administration...
(GMAT) score of 610. Select students are eligible for induction into Beta Gamma Sigma
Beta Gamma Sigma
Beta Gamma Sigma or ΒΓΣ is an honor society for business students and scholars. Founded in 1913 at the University of Wisconsin, it has over 650,000 members, selected from over 500 chapters in AACSB-accredited business schools...
, the honor society for business students. The average age of students in the full-time (Early Career MBA and MBA for Career Change) is 25 . Over 30% of students in Willamette's full-time MBA programs come from outside the U.S. The average age of students in the MBA for Professionals program is 34 .
Notable alumni
- Jason AtkinsonJason AtkinsonJason Atkinson is an American politician in the US state of Oregon. A native of California, the Republican grew up in the Southern Oregon city of Medford. He is a senator in the Oregon Legislative Assembly. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Governor of Oregon in 2006, but...
, Oregon politician - Sandy BaruahSandy BaruahSandy K. Baruah is an American politician from the state of Oregon and is currently the president and chief executive officer of the .-Biography:...
, U.S. Commerce Department official
External links
- Rivals team on new executive education program, Portland Business Journal