Business and Public Administration, College of

The College of Business and Public Administration of the University of Maryland at College Park was first established as the School of Commerce in 1921. Leslie W. Baker, a certified public accountant, proposed opening the school at an alumni dinner in Baltimore during the school year 1920-21 in honor of President Woods, when he found that the University of Maryland did not offer accounting and business courses. Stimulated by Maynard A. Clemens, a director at the Baltimore Y.M. C. A. and later director of the school, and supported by President Woods, Baker's idea came to fruition on September 28, 1921. The new school had a vigorous start with a total of 394 students enrolled in the first year and an additional 42 registered in the summer school of 1922. Growth continued through the 1920s, stimulated by the rapid expansion of business following World War I. Standards needed to be established, a broad curricula of courses designed, and a sound organization formed to meet the needs of the developing American society. In the spring of 1923, the school expanded to become the College of Commerce and Business Administration. This reorientation of emphasis is evident in the college's mission statement, published in the 1924-25 catalog: "The chief aim of the College of Commerce and Business Administration was to produce thinkers rather than routine workers, executives rather than subordinates. The studies combined the highly specialized and technical, such as accounting, mathematics, statistics, insurance, law and economics with the liberal, such as English, history, foreign languates, psychology, sociology and government." These ambitious goals were to be implemented by a college faculty which numbered 46 during that academic year.

The following school year was relatively unstable. The appointment of Herbert M. Diamond as dean of the proposed new School of Business Administration by Frederick E. Lee, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, led to the resignation of Maynard A. Clemens and a number of the faculty who then organized the University of Baltimore. In the spring of 1926, a number of factors, among them the lack of quality facilities, resulted in the closure of the School of Business Administration as a separate unit in the university organization. Students enrolled in the program transferred to the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore or the Baltimore Y.M. C. A. school. In the following years, the business administration curriculum was re-established in the College of Arts and Sciences, as part of the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and contineud to change and expand. In the fall of 1938, this department became the College of Commerce and W. Mackenzie Stevens was named as dean.

1942 marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the College. Dr. J. Freeman Pyle became dean, overseeing an almost entirely new faculty. The name of the College was changed, by action of the Board of Regents, to the College of Business and Public Adminstration in the folowing year. However, enrollment in the college was greatly reduced during World War II, as many students, as well as faculty entered the armed forces. In response to wartime needs, the college faculty began the Army Specialized Training Program for students in the language-area curriculujm, which prepared them to assist in policing, intelligence service, and administration of occupied territories. The philosophy of the reorganized college was to stress the principles, practices, and procedures of administration, resulting in significant changes in curricula and courses.

Following the war, enrollment grew rapidly and played an important part of the postwar history of the Colege. Civilian enrollment increased from a low of 130 in 1943-44 to 2234 during 1948-49. The teaching faculty also increased in number from 18 to 76. This significant growth led to the reorganization of the college into various departments. Also, a special emphasis was given to research in the college through the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, established in 1945, and the Bureau of Governmental Research, established in 1947. The objectives of the two bureaus were to perform research functions for Maryland state government and business officials as well as to train students in the techniques of business and economic research.

The first degree of Master of Business Administration was awarded in 1947, followed several years later by the first Ph.D. During the 1950s, graduate enrollment increased more rapidly than undergraduate enrollment in the four departments in the college which offered graduate work; by 1959 total graduate enrollment reached 221, almost double the number of graduate students enrolled only eight years earlier.

During the mid 1950s, the college established its faculty organization which consisted of the Faculty Council, of which the Dean was Chairman and other members elected from each of the departments and the bureaus in the college, and the College Faculty Assembly, comprised of all full-time members of the college faculty.

The decade of the 1960s was relatively stable for the college. Some new courses were added or combined to enhance the curricula of the collge, bu the college's organization saw little change. Donald W. O'Connell succeeded J. Freeman Pyle as dean in 1964. By 1968, the college consisted of six instructional departments 1) Department of Business Administration; 2) Department of Economics; 3) Department of Geography; 4) Department of Government and Politics; 5) Department of Journalism; and 6) Department of Information Systems Management.

On May 8, 1972, there was a campus reorganization, which signalled the end of the College of Business and Public Administration. The college changed its name to the College of Business and Management as part of a new Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences, while the Department of Journalism was transferred to the Division of Arts and Humanities. This tranformation consitituted recognition of the large size and scope of the college's academic programs and reflected the enhanced status of the college within the business and professional communities. At the present time, several of the programs that began in this college exist as independent schools/colleges, including The Robert H. Smith School of Business, http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu, the School of Public Policy, http://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/index.html, and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, http://www.journalism.umd.edu/ .