General Information -- Ch8: 2001-2002 UVa Undergraduate Record

The McIntire School of Commerce offers a professional program that includes the study of the fundamental disciplines underlying the management of organizations. The curriculum of the McIntire School is based on the premise that students may receive a broad-based liberal arts education and a professional education in four years. After two years of study in the liberal arts, students enter the McIntire School to study academic disciplines critical to the practice of business. While at McIntire, students may continue to broaden their education by taking courses outside the school. The foundations of the program include basic courses in accounting and control, computer uses, economics, finance, management, marketing, international business, business information systems, production, and quantitative methods. Advanced courses in each area are provided to form a total program that is both integrative and comprehensive.

The principal thrusts of the school are twofold: a program designed to educate generalists in the arts and sciences of professional management, and a professional accounting program aiming toward certification or further study in the school's graduate accounting program. Problem solving, decision making, and interpersonal skills are attributes of McIntire graduates. Scholarship and professionalism are emphasized in all of the school's programs.

The McIntire School prepares students for an array of future opportunities, including graduate and professional school. Part of that preparation is the emphasis on group projects and the case method of instruction in which students analyze complex business situations. The success of the McIntire program is evidenced by the thousands of alumni who enjoy prominent positions throughout the world, as well as the national ranking and reputation the school has achieved.

Upon graduation McIntire students are able to:

* interrelate the functional activities and specialties that organizations require to meet their objectives;

* learn at an accelerated pace in new environments;

* manage their own development and education as they progress to positions of greater responsibility and challenge;

* perform effectively in a variety of organizations--public or private, large or small.

History

The University of Virginia was one of the first institutions in the United States to introduce the subject matter of economics into its curriculum. Since the University's first session in 1825, courses of study in this field have been available.

It was not until 1906 that the School of Economics was established as a separate unit within the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1920, a division of business administration was created in the James Wilson School of Economics. In 1921, a donation from alumnus, Paul Goodloe McIntire, made it possible to establish the McIntire School of Commerce and Business Administration. For the next 31 years the McIntire School operated as a distinct division of the College of Arts and Sciences, but its work was closely integrated with the James Wilson School of Economics. In 1952, the University's Board of Visitors approved the establishment of the McIntire School as a professional school to be administered as a separate unit of the University, distinct from the College of Arts and Sciences.

The School Today

The McIntire School is a separate division of the University in the same sense as are the Schools of Architecture, Graduate Business Administration, Education, Engineering, Law, and Medicine. The McIntire School confers the Bachelor of Science in commerce and offers Master of Science degrees in accounting and management information systems. The bachelor's degree is conferred after a four-year program of studies in which the first two years are spent in an accredited college or university in courses approved by the McIntire School. In the 1998-99 session, the undergraduate student body numbered 645 and the faculty 60.

The school is located in Monroe Hall on the Central Grounds of the University. This building contains classrooms, seminar rooms, and administrative and faculty offices. Computer facilities located in the building include a computer laboratory, capital markets room and trading room complex, multimedia classrooms, and terminals linked to other University computing facilities. In addition to the facilities in Monroe Hall, the University's extensive libraries and computing systems are available to students of the McIntire School.

Address

The McIntire School of Commerce

P.O. Box 400173

University of Virginia

Charlottesville, VA 22904-4173

(434) 924-3865

www.commerce.virginia.edu

Accreditation

The McIntire School was elected to membership in the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in 1925. In 1981, the school became accredited to offer programs at the graduate level as well as the undergraduate level. Accreditation is offered only to those schools that meet the strict academic standards and program requirements prescribed by the AACSB. In 1982, the school became one of the initial 13 schools in the nation to have both its undergraduate and graduate accounting programs accredited under new AACSB standards for the separate accreditation of accounting programs. All McIntire programs received accreditation by the AACSB in 1994.