What does it mean to be an AACSB accredited business school?

The fundamental purpose of AACSB accreditation is to “encourage business schools to hold themselves accountable for improving business practice through a commitment to strategic management, learner success, and impactful thought leadership.” AACSB accredits the best business schools in the world and achieves this purpose by defining a set of guiding principles and standards, coordinating peer review and consultation, and recognizing high-quality business schools that meet the standards and actively engage in the process. An AACSB-accredited school need to follow the core values and guiding principles below:

• The school must encourage and support ethical behavior by students, faculty, administrators, and professional staff. [ETHICAL BEHAVIOR]
• The school maintains a collegiate environment in which students, faculty, administrators, professional staff, and practitioners interact and collaborate in support of learning, scholarship, and community engagement. [COLLEGIATE ENVIRONMENT]
• The school must demonstrate a commitment to address, engage, and respond to current and emerging corporate social responsibility issues (e.g., diversity, sustainable development, environmental sustainability, and globalization of economic activity across cultures) through its policies, procedures, curricula, research, and/or outreach activities. [COMMITMENT TO CORPORATE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY]

The AACSB Accreditation follows a rigorous process that involves every stakeholder of an institution: faculty, staff, students, administrators, business community partners, and many more. After years of joint accreditation with UW Seattle’s Foster School of Business and UW Bothell’s School of Business, the Milgard School of Business earned its independent accreditation for the first time in 2015. Following this initial accreditation, the School is then reviewed by a team of peer schools (who are also AACSB Accredited) every five years. The five-year review process ensures that we are continually finding ways to innovate, engage students, faculty and community in knowledge exploration and dissemination, and make an impact on the community and the world.

As AACSB’s mission is to foster engagement, accelerate innovation, and amplify impact [ZC1] in business education, the accreditation report is typically organized around the three pillars of accreditation, namely, “engagement, innovation, and impact.” Some highlights of the continuous improvements from our 2020 AACSB Accreditation Report include the following:

• A New Strategic Plan. During the 2017-2019 academic years, the Milgard School of Business (MSB) engaged in extensive strategic planning involving all stakeholders, adopted a new strategic plan including mission, vision, and strategic goals in January 2018, and started implementing the plan.
• New Academic Offerings. Master of Science in Business Analytics was launched in autumn 2017. Three new undergraduate business minors were introduced between 2017 and 2020. Global studies have been offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels since academic year 2017-2018.
• New Academic/Professional Centers and Initiatives. The Milgard Success Center was established in 2017 and acts as an on-campus placement center for the MSB students. The Center for Business Analytics enhances programs on analytics and serves as a bridge between students and business organizations. The Milgard Women’s Initiative was launched in 2018-2019 followed by the launch of the Sports Enterprise Management program and Students Assisting Businesses in 2019-2020.
• A Diverse and Inclusive Culture. The MSB has embraced diversity and inclusion in our recruiting and retention efforts. As of the 2019-2020 academic year, 56.3% (57.5%) of our undergraduate (graduate) students are non-Caucasian. Currently more than half of the leaders at MSB are females. Faculty’s annual self-assessments now address efforts on diversity and inclusion. A new faculty position as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer was finalized and appointed in September 2020.
• Fund Raising. The MSB has taken a thoughtful and entrepreneurial approach to fund-raising to prepare for financial contingencies. For example, the Milgard Hall is in the design phase after $10 million in donations were secured and signals the catalyzing of the next phase of growth of the MSB.