History

The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business can be traced back to 1917, when a board of private citizens organized the Richmond School of Social Economy for Social Workers and Public Health Nurses. By 1937 the School was called the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), was affiliated with the College of William and Mary, and had added business courses to its curriculum. The School added a graduate program in 1962. In 1968, RPI and the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) merged to create Virginia Commonwealth University.

AACSB International, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, has accredited the School since 1984. The accrediting board of engineering schools, ABET, gave accreditation to the School of Business’ Department of Information Systems, the first such designation ever given to a business school program and indicative of the technological focus of the School.

Today

The VCU School of Business has approximately 3,100 undergraduates: 1,400 freshmen and sophomores taking the Business Foundation program of study; and 1,700 juniors and seniors who have declared a major and matriculated into the School of Business. Some 500 graduate students are enrolled, with many of them taking coursework in the evenings while employed in Richmond area corporations.

The School has more than 21,000 alumni. More than 500 are chairmen, presidents or CEOs of the businesses they serve.

Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University is the largest university in Virginia and ranks among the top 100 universities in the country in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls nearly 32,000 students in 205 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences, business and humanities. Sixty-five of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 15 schools and one college.