Bloomberg BusinessWeek has ranked the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the top spot in the nation for financial management and corporate strategy. The rankings are part of the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2011 list of top undergraduate specialty business programs.

“For instance, in the recent ranking of undergraduate business programs, you would assume that Rensselaer Polytechnic's Lally School of Management & Technology, ranked No. 43, is a middle-of-the-pack business program. You wouldn't know that the school ranks No. 1 in both financial management and corporate strategy,” according to the Bloomberg BusinessWeek editors.

Additional top ten specialty rankings for the Lally School included: Calculus (4), Entrepreneurship (7), Operations Management (9), and Quantitative Methods (3).

“We are excited and humbled by this accomplishment,” said Iftekhar Hasan, acting dean of the Lally School and the Cary L. Wellington Professor of Finance. “The Lally School is uniquely positioned to educate leaders for the global, technology-driven marketplace of the 21st century. By focusing on Rensselaer’s overall technical orientation, and the active cooperation from other disciplines within the Institute, our students acquire the tools and skills to formulate effective strategies for decision-making in tomorrow's complex and dynamic business climate.”

According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, to identify the best undergraduate specialty business programs, senior business students from 139 participating schools were asked to assign letter grades indicating how well their business programs teach 14 specialty areas. The areas included: quantitative methods, operations management, ethics, sustainability, calculus, microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, financial management, marketing management, business law, and corporate strategy, as well as entrepreneurship and international business, which were added this year.

“Students who choose the Lally School do so because they are drawn to our innovative approach, working on the frontiers of business and technology,” Hasan said. “In fact, the content and structure of our curriculum is designed to educate individuals who are agile and creative problem-solvers prepared to tackle 21st century business challenges.

“Globalization of business has changed the playing field as well as the rules of engagement,” Hasan added. “Being able to manage technology within both transnational and national settings has become an increasingly critical skill as the process of innovation — technological discovery and application — has become truly global.”

The Lally School works closely with the Rensselaer Student Experience Offices, and also has created its own student services office, which houses the Lally undergraduate program administration and academic advisers. This “one-stop shopping” creates a natural gathering area where Lally School students can get more personalized attention to discuss advising matters: academic and career.

More than 352 undergraduate students are enrolled in the Lally School, one of the five distinct schools within Rensselaer. Students in the undergraduate program study accounting and finance, marketing, human behavior, information technology, innovation and entrepreneurship, mathematics, calculus and statistics, operations management, strategy and policy, and organizational analysis and development.

Students also are encouraged to take courses from other schools at Rensselaer in areas such as cognitive science, humanities and social sciences, architecture, and computer science. In addition, a quarter of Lally School students who qualify study overseas at some point during their undergraduate program, to broaden their global perspective.

“This recognition of specialty curriculum reinforces our dedication to exploiting Lally’s role within a research university,” said Frank Wright, clinical assistant professor and director of the undergraduate program. “The depth of the core curriculum prepares our students for a comprehensive understanding of the enterprise, market systems and their interrelationships. With the selection of a concentration in technological entrepreneurship, marketing, finance or management information systems, the students can refine their knowledge and skill sets to align with career aspirations.”

To view the 2011 Bloomberg  BusinessWeek “Best College Business Program by Specialty,” go to: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2011/bs2011054_031567.htm