Basic Facts & Figures

The College of Business Administration (CBA) is one of seven colleges of California State University, Long Beach. As one of the largest campuses of the California State University system, Cal State Long Beach is a comprehensive, four-year institution that was established as the Los Angeles-Orange County State College in 1949 to serve the areas of Orange County and southeastern Los Angeles County. The name was changed to Long Beach State College in 1959, and, after two more name changes, to California State University, Long Beach in 1972.

Business studies at Cal State Long Beach began in 1949 with 24 business students and four faculty members, accounting for one-seventh of the campus population. Business Administration was part of the Social Science Division from its inception until 1957, when the division was renamed the Division of Business and Social Sciences. In 1958, the two academic areas split and Business Administration became a division in its own right, with Dr. S. Austen Reep as founding dean. By the mid-1960s, the business school had close to 3,800 business students, 29 full-time faculty members, and 13 part-time lecturers. The Division of Business Administration was upgraded to the School of Business Administration in 1967, and in 1992, the name was changed to the College of Business Administration.

In 1972, the CBA gained its initial accreditation from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business that is now called Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB). Today, the CBA is home to nearly 3,500 undergraduate business majors and approximately 250 graduate students. The CBA is served by approximately 100 full-time and part-time faculty members.

Programs & Offerings

We offer one undergraduate degree — Bachelor of Science in Business Administration— with eight options: Accountancy, Finance, Management Information Systems, Human Resource Management, Management, Marketing, Operations Management, and an interdisciplinary option in International Business.
We offer five undergraduate minors — Finance, Human Resource Management, Management Information Systems, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship. Marketing, HRM, and Entrepreneurship account for the majority of our minors. Students from three colleges—Liberal Arts, Health & Human Services, and the Arts—comprise approximately 85% of our minors.
We offer one graduate degree—Master of Business Administration—with department-based specializations: Finance, Information Systems, Management, Human Resource Management, and Marketing. We also offer an interdisciplinary specialization in Health Care Management in collaboration with the College of Health & Human Services.
In addition to our state-supported Evening MBA program, we also offer MBA programs in collaboration with the College of Continuing and Professional Education (CCPE) which serve the educational needs of our business and professional communities. These include the Saturday MBA Program, and the Accelerated One-Year MBA (AMBA) Program.
We offer the MBA/MFA in Theatre Management joint degree program that began in fall 2007 in collaboration with the College of the Arts. This distinctive program is one of very few similar programs across the country, like that at Yale University.

Faculty

Faculty Composition. In spring 2011, the College of Business Administration had a total complement of 98.3 full-time-equivalent (FTE) faculty and 32 FTE staff. The faculty includes 66 tenured and tenure-track faculty and 12 full-time lecturers with the remaining faculty members being lecturers with part-time appointments. In the past 6 years, 35 new tenure-track faculty members have been hired.
Intellectual Contributions. From 2006 to 2011, CBA faculty collectively published 135 academic journal publications. Many of those publications are in the most elite business journals. In 2010-2011, CBA faculty published, or had accepted for publication, 24 academic journal articles that include papers by:

Accountancy Professor Rod Smith, C. Henderson, K. Kobelsky, and V. Richardson, "The Relevance of Information Technology Expenditures," that has been accepted for publication in Journal of Information Systems.
Legal Studies Professor Kathleen Lacey, Emeritus Professor Barbara George, and Clyde Stoltenberg, “The Past Decade of Regulatory Change in the U. S. and EU Capital Market Regimes: An Evolution from National Interests Toward International Harmonization with Emerging G-20 Leadership,” that has been accepted for publication in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.
Finance Professor Yulong Ma and Y. Chen, "Revisiting the Risk-Taking Effect of Executive Stock Options on Firm Performance," that was published in the Journal of Business Research.
Management Professor Josh Arnold, K.M. O'Connor, and A. Maurizio, "The Prospect of Negotiating: Stress, Cognitive Appraisal, and Performance," that was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

In addition, CBA faculty participated in 26 presentations, including presentations to the most selective national disciplinary conferences: Academy of Management, Decision Science Institute, INFORMS, American Accounting Association and American Marketing Association.

CBA students also participate in research. Over recent years, Dr. Pamela Homer, Director of the CBA Honors programs, supervised 7 theses. Two of her students won awards at research competitions. Binh T. Tran won first place at the 24th annual CSULB student research competition and placed second at the annual CSU statewide student research competition for his original research paper, “Language Familiarity Effects on Bilingual Consumers’ Brand Attitudes.” Christopher John Lewis won the “Gloria Rummels Award for the Best Paper Using Quantitative Data” at the 33rd SSRIC Student Research Conference in the Social Sciences at CSU Sacramento. The title of Lewis’ paper is “Capitalization or Lock-In? An Empirical Study of the 2003 Capital Tax Gains Cut.”

Students

Headcount. In spring 2011, CBA had 3,500 undergraduate majors, including 812 lower-division pre-business students and 192 minors, and 259 MBA students for a total of 3,759. One out of every eight Cal State Long Beach students is pursuing some form of business education.
Average Unit Load. Most of our undergraduate students are full-time students. Our majors take a higher unit load than any other college on campus, with the exception of College of the Arts. CBA students averaged 12.5 units during spring 2011. About four-fifths of our undergraduate majors take 12 units or more. Our continuing students have a higher average unit load than our new students.
Demographics. Although most of the students are residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties, CBA attracts students from all over the state. The average age of business majors is 24 for undergraduates and 30 for MBA students. Women account for 52% of CBA’s undergraduate enrollment, compared to the university’s 60%. The CBA attracts a higher percentage of minority students relative to the university. Almost 27.0% of CBA students are Asian, while about 28.0% are Hispanic and 29.9% are Caucasian. The university has a total of 1,183 international students from 61 countries, of which 345 are in the CBA.
Student Life and Development. Business students are significant participants in student life and development. About one in four of our business majors are actively involved in one of twelve business student organizations. As a result, our student body council, the Associated Business Students Organizations Council (ABSOC), has been voted by its peers as the best college student government on campus during six of the past seven years.
Degrees Conferred. In 2010-11, the College produced nearly 1,200 B.S. graduates. Those graduates came from Management Information Systems, Finance, Marketing, Accountancy, Management & Human Resources, and International Business. During 2010-11, CBA produced 120 MBA graduates.
Graduation Performance. Overall, the national graduation rate is about 54%. CBA's graduation rate is 46%, and it continues to improve each year through our efforts on the University’s Highly Valued Degree Initiative. While somewhat below national averages for comparable universities, the CBA's freshman graduation rates are higher than CSU system averages. Graduation rates for transfer students are close to the CSU average.

Graduates

Alumni. The College of Business Administration has produced close to 43,500 graduates. Our image and value is enhanced when our graduates achieve local, regional and national prominence.
Prominent Alumni

Robert Pitts - BS 1970, MBA 1971 – now retired; the 2007 Distinguished Alumni was the Vice President for Administrative Services at Toyota Motors. He established Toyota Motor Credit Corporation in 1982 with three employees. When he left that group 11 years later, the corporation had over 2,000 associates, 30 offices and $10 billion in assets.
James H. Eaton - MBA 1987 – the 2006 Distinguished Alumni is the Founder and CEO of Kingdom Partner Solutions and formerly Founder, General Partner, and Director of Airdrome Holdings, LLC, a company he sold in 2008.
Wayne Murdy - BS 1968 – the 2005 Distinguished Alumni is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Newmont Mining Corporation which has assets of $12 billion and 13,500 employees worldwide.

Other distinguished alumni include Curtis Pringle, 1981 (Management) – Former Mayor of the city of Anaheim; Delbert W. Yocam, 1971 (MBA) – Chief Operating Officer of Apple Computer and CEO and Chairman of Borland International during the 1980s; he is currently a board member of Adobe Systems and an independent consultant; Cynthia Stamper Graff, 1975 (Finance) – the 2010 Distinguished Alumni is the President & Chief Executive Officer of Lindora Weight Control; she also is an author, volunteer, and philanthropist; and Darrel Reifschneider, 1955 (Management) – Founder & CEO of Lite Cylinder Company; he was recently named as the 2011 College of Business Administration Distinguished Alumni.