Accession UAA-2014-022 - UAA-2014-022

The Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta is a leading institution in business education and research. It started in 1916 as the Department of Accountancy at the University of Alberta. In 1924 the first Bachelor of Commerce degrees were granted, and the School of Commerce was formally established in 1928. After making significant changes to its curriculum, the School became a full-fledged Faculty of the University of Alberta in 1960. It was the first business school in Canada to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), achieving accreditation in 1968. In 1984 it was renamed the Faculty of Business, and moved into a new building on campus.

The name was formally changed to Alberta School of Business in 2010, following the completion of a two and a half year “Preservation of the Name” campaign. The campaign raised more than $21 million for the name to be the Alberta School of Business, rather than raising money through selling the naming rights to a donor. The goal was to preserve the school’s connection to the community, and make a degree from the school more recognizable in a global marketplace.

There are four departments in the Alberta School of Business (as of 2022): Accounting and Business Analytics; Finance; Marketing, Business Economics and Law; and Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management. The School offers a Bachelor of Commerce undergraduate degree, as well as master’s programs and PhD business degrees. They also have partnerships with Xi’an Jiaotong University to offer a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Master of Financial Management (MFM) in China. Executive and professional programs are offered for the public sector, not-for-profit, and corporations.

There are also several centres and institutes at the Alberta School of Business (as of 2022): Alberta Business Family Institute, Canadian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Centre for Applied Business Research in Energy and the Environment, Centre for Cities and Communities, Centre for Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, Centre for Excellence in Operations, and eHub Entrepreneurship Centre.