Department of Business Management
Foundational business management major. Focused minors. Real world experience. Engagement with the entire College.
Department of Business Management views business as the active liberal art, with ethics and social responsibility central to corporate success. Our graduates make positive impacts in the worlds they enter as leaders in traditional business venues such as the worlds of finance, accounting, and marketing, and in other organizational contexts such as the worlds of government, law, and non-profit organizations - reflecting Washington College values of critical thinking, effective communication, and moral courage. The diversity of our talented faculty of teacher-scholars and practitioners echo the global nature of business.
Learning in the classroom is only the beginning. Rigorous classes ready you to participate in a wide range of real-world experiences and settings, including an award-winning student-managed investment fund program with a $1M+ portfolio, internships, our summer study abroad program, student-designed experiential projects, faculty-student research, and more. And there’s funding available to help you achieve your goals.
Our major can be combined with any other major or minor offered at Washington College. In fact, at Washington College, Business Management majors can not only aspire to Sigma Beta Delta, the International Business Honor Society, they can also aspire to Phi Beta Kappa, the pre-eminent honor society for students pursuing a liberal education.
Business Management at Washington College - transforming students into leaders to create better worlds.
Caddie Putnam Rankin
Associate Professor of Business Management; Chair, Department of Business Management- 410-778-8301
- cputnamrankin2@washcoll.edu
- Daly Hall 205
Pathways for the Major & Minors
The Business Management Major
Perhaps you want to go into marketing, or become a consultant, or earn a CPA and become an accountant. Perhaps you have the entrepreneurial drive to start your own business. Perhaps your passion is people and you want to go into human resources. Maybe you live and breathe investments or know that you want to use business to make a difference for underserved populations.
No matter why you want a career in business, you first need to understand what makes the complex systems that comprise for-profit and not-for-profit organizations work. The business management major is designed to do just that.
You’ll learn hard skills – accounting, finance, statistics – and people-oriented skills – marketing, organizational behavior. You’ll learn how today’s industries have been digitally transformed and why social responsibility is becoming the strategic norm. You’ll learn how to infuse ethics into organizational decision-making to achieve corporate excellence.
The major stands alone in providing essential skills; it also provides the foundation for our minors.
The Business Management Minor
A little business sense is helpful regardless of the career path chosen, and the Business Management Minor can help any major build basic business skills. The minor consists of three required courses (BUS 111 Principles of Marketing; BUS 112 Introduction to Financial Accounting; BUS 302 Organizational Behavior) and two electives drawn from a 200-level or higher BUS-prefix courses.
Keep in mind that ECN 112 Principles of Microeconomics is a prerequisite for BUS 111 Principles of Marketing.
Departmental Minors
We offer minors in Accounting, Entrepreneurship, Finance, International Business, and Marketing, designed to help you delve more deeply into the area of business that sparks your passion. Each minor requires a minimum of four upper-level courses beyond the Business Management major.
Can you take one of these minors without majoring in Business Management? Absolutely, we’ll just ask you to complete four additional courses to fill in essential background knowledge.
Interdisciplinary Majors and Minors
The interdisciplinary majors in International Studies and Communication & Media Studies draw on courses offered by the Business Management department. In addition, we partner with other departments in offering interdisciplinary minors in Data Analytics, Information Systems, and Arts Management & Entrepreneurship (see pages describing these minors for more information). We also contribute courses to the International Economics minor offered by the Economics Department. Ask us how combining these programs or other majors/minors with the Business Management major can provide you with a significant career boost.
Student Opportunities
Organizations like Enactus, our student chapter of the American Marketing Association, and the Brown Advisory Student-Managed Investment Fund Program give students in Business Management the chance to hone their skills outside the classroom.
Honor Societies and Awards
Academic excellence, business savvy, leadership potential—there are many ways to stand out and win recognition for excellent work in Business Management.
Business Management In the News
Business Management Etiquette Dinner
November 2, 2023We hosted our first etiquette dinner for Business Management Juniors and other esteemed guests. Business and dining etiquette can be critical in both the job search process and working with clients in the business world. The event was designed to teach Business students some of the finer points of good business and table manners. Mastering these skills will help the students make positive impressions when interviewing or attending business meetings.
Dr. Edyta Rudawska Invited Speaker at Global Conference
November 10, 2022Dr. Edyta Rudawska was an invited speaker at eWMS 2022, a 48-hour live non-stop global forum founded by Dr. Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, focused on using marketing to create a better world.
Brown Advisory Student-Managed Investment Fund Program is Experiential Learning at its Best
May 31, 2022Washington College’s campus is pretty typical of most, with backpack-clad students in hoodies, sweats, and other casual apparel making their way to and from classes, meals, meetings and practices. Except, that is, on Wednesday mornings at 8 AM. That’s when about 20 students dressed in business attire arrive at Daly Hall and spend 90 minutes evaluating and making investment decisions on over $1 million in equities.
$1 Million For Business Excellence
September 20, 2019Thanks to a $1 million grant, WC’s Department of Business Management will create the Warehime Fund for Student Excellence in Business, allowing new opportunities for student research, entrepreneurship, professional networking, and other initiatives.