Lehman College announced on Dec. 14 that it will launch its School of Business on July 1. While the college has offered courses and undergraduate degrees in business, this is the first time Lehman is dedicating a school for business since its founding in 1931.

This decision is largely credited to the college’s increasing student body over the years. Among over 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Lehman, 1,802 of them are declared majors at the college’s Department of Business and Economics, according to enrollment statistics from fall 2020.

Expected to add another 4,000 students this spring, the old business department was no longer adequate and a new business school was needed.

“Our enrollment just kept going up, and we felt like it was the right time to move,” Dene Hurley, the chair of the Department of Economics and Business at Lehman, told The Ticker.

To streamline progress, the business school will launch three new departments: the Department of Accounting; the Department of Management and Business Innovation and the Department of Economics, Finance and Information Systems. The departments will help their students acquire a diverse and specialized range of skills so they can succeed in the business world when they graduate.

Adding onto the business degree programs it already offers, the college will offer new programs, such as theatre analytics, entrepreneurship and real estate.

Additionally, the current business majors being offered will be updated to seven different potential degrees, including bachelor degrees in arts, arts in economics, arts in economics and mathematics, business administration and science, plus master degrees science in accounting and science in business.

Seven different concentrations will also be offered in accounting, business economics, business law, finance, human resource management, international business and marketing.

The business school will be staffed by 23 full-time faculty transferred from the School of Natural and Social Sciences, which is where the Economics and Business Department is currently housed.

The decision to open a business school was made by the CUNY Board of Trustees on Dec. 13, which hoped to help Lehman graduates excel in an ever-growing, competitive business environment, especially within the realms of entrepreneurship, small business development and experiential learning.

“The Lehman School of Business will build on our current collaborations with industry partners and small businesses in the Bronx to provide even more experiential learning programs and opportunities for our students,” Hurley said in a press release.

The new school will be the first business school to open at a public college in the Bronx. Hopefully, it will help revitalize the often neglected boroughs business community, with a fresh generation of expertly trained and mentored Bronx-based graduates.

Lehman Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Student Success Peter O. Nwosu said this move helps build on the school’s reputation in the business world, and it “will serve as a major pipeline for preparing diverse talent from underrepresented populations for local, regional, national, and international workforce needs,” according to a press release.