![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/bld_200_1.jpg\" "\\"business")
On July 1, 1981, the Division of Business and Economics became the School of Business. With the help of several long-tenured professors, we take a brief (and unapologetically incomplete) look at what\u2019s changed and what\u2019s stayed the same in the school these past 30 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo heralding of trumpets or fanfare\u201d accompanied the change, joked Professor Thomas Patrick<\/strong>. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t work here, you wouldn\u2019t have known it was changed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was virtually a non-event,\u201d concurred Professor Lew Hofmann \u201977.<\/strong><\/p>\n What the change did, Professor Thomas Breslin<\/strong> explained, was level the playing field for attracting students and faculty.<\/p>\n \u201cDivision<\/em> is sort of an amorphous term. Nobody knows what it means,\u201d said Breslin. \u201cMost colleges had what\u2019s called a school of business, and we wanted that same product design that our competition had.\u201d<\/p>\n Although it had become a school, it would be a school without a proper home for the next 19 years. \u201cWe were nomads back then,\u201d said Breslin.<\/p>\n In 1981, faculty offices were in Green Hall; the following year they moved to Bliss, a former dormitory that still looked and felt like one. Both Hofmann and Patrick recall that a former colleague, Professor Emeritus Neil Gaston \u201960<\/strong>, had for an office the same room he\u2019d lived in as an undergraduate student. There were still showers on some floors, which Hofmann said he\u2019d often use after midday racquetball games in the Student Recreation Center. \u201cIt was more convenient,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Back then, Earl H. Dean Field still stood across the parking lot from Bliss Hall. \u201cI vividly recall coming out of Bliss one afternoon to get into my car and found a javelin sticking out of my car\u2019s hood,\u201d Hofmann said. The College was kind enough to cover the cost of repairs, he noted.<\/p>\n In the 1990s the school\u2019s offices moved to the old Nursing Building. Whether that was an improvement over Bliss depended partly on where your office was located, recalled Professor Al Quinton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the offices on the ground floor had no windows and didn\u2019t get any natural light,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the 1980s and 1990s, business classes were held all over campus. \u201cI have taught classes in every building on campus, including the Student Center, Packer Hall, Armstrong Hall, the old library, and even one of the racquetball courts in the Student Recreational Center,\u201d said Hofmann.<\/p>\n Then in 2000, the School of Business moved to its current location. The Business Building offered, among other things, classrooms that are \u201cequipped for the age of electronics,\u201d said Breslin, who was dean at the time of the move.<\/p>\n Computers have always been a part of the business administration curriculum. Undergraduate Bulletins<\/em> from the early 1970s indicate that business students could take classes in Data Processing, Fortran IV, RPG, and COBOL. \u201cApplications will be used by the student on the<\/em><\/strong> on-campus computer,\u201d the bulletins note (emphasis added).<\/p>\n Hofmann said that in the early 1980, he and a colleague opened the school\u2019s (and the College\u2019s) first computer lab, in the basement of Bliss Hall. \u201cI believe it was the first microcomputer lab in the country, or the world for that matter. Once the word got out about our lab, we had people from other colleges and universities contacting us about it,\u201d said Hofmann. \u201cIn the subsequent 25-plus years, technology has gone from a facilitator of learning to playing an integral role,\u201d Hofmann added.<\/p>\n These days, business students use computer simulations in class to \u201cmimic real-world\u201d business scenarios and get immediate feedback on the their decision making, said Quinton. The School of Business also has a Financial Learning Center, where a Bloomberg terminal gives students access to the same market data and news available to professionals.<\/p>\n