Students majoring in business subjects will now be a part of Eastern's new College of Business. The move is part of a rebranding this past spring that includes the departments of business administration, economics and finance, accounting, and business information systems.

“This helps us create an identity as a unified entity,” said Niti Pandey, dean of education and professional studies.

“The branding initiative will help us pursue business accreditation more effectively,” she said. It will also enable the college to attract and retain students, she noted.

Many of Eastern’s business school competitors in the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges across the nation and in Connecticut are accredited, noted Emiliano Villanueva, professor and department chair of business administration. Prospective students and their parents are aware of business school accreditation and expect it, he added.

The new name also reflects “a longstanding desire of all emeriti and current business faculty to become a college or school of business,” he said.

The new College of Business has nearly 700 students and has the second most popular major at Eastern, business administration. Pandey said the long-term goal is to double enrollment. The college also offers an online master’s degree in management.

Bringing the business departments together as a college will enhance mission alignment and the college’s ability to document its progress toward the University’s goals, learner success, leadership in the business field and other accreditation standards, said Pandey.

“We’re doing a lot of good things, but we haven’t documented and promoted them,” she said.

Eastern’s College of Business is particularly strong in educating students who are employable and have the background of a liberal arts core curriculum, she said. The college’s three-credit internship program stands out for being required rather than optional, she added. The requirement applies to all the degree programs in the College and sends students to intern at companies such as Aetna, ESPN, CVS, Hartford Healthcare, nonprofits and government and sports organizations.

Communication, Film and Theatre

In another recent realignment of departments, the theatre and performance media and communication departments merged to form a new Communication, Film and Theatre Department in the School of Education and Professional Studies. Three faculty who teach advertising and digital marketing will now be part of the marketing concentration within the business administration degree in the College of Business. The changes are designed to streamline offerings and reduce redundancy and curriculum overlap, said Pandey, and reflect a re-thinking of ways that disciplines can collaborate.