School of Accounting School of Business Administration Graduate School of Business Administration

The University of Southern California first offered an undergraduate degree in business in 1920, through what was then known as the College of Commerce and Business Administration, and added its first master's degree program in 1922. The goal then was "to provide an adequate background as well as specific and practical training for the future executive." To fulfill this goal, the school offered courses in accounting, general business, secretarial work, foreign trade, real estate, insurance, banking and finance, and domestic and foreign public service. Courses also were offered in the then new and innovative areas of factory management, railway transportation, advertising and, by the end of the 1920s, commercial aviation.

Numerous and dramatic changes in the school have been made in the last six decades. In 1960, the Graduate School of Business Administration was formally established and the undergraduate division was renamed the School of Business. By 1979, the School of Accounting was created in recognition of the changes and new demands of that profession. Today, the school awards two bachelor's degrees, the Ph.D. degree, and six master level and nine dual degrees.

The school's goal, however, is still much the same: to provide students with a sound business education to help them meet the changing needs of business in the increasingly complex and challenging business environment of the future.

Administration

Randolph W. Westerfield, Ph.D., Dean

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