University at Buffalo School of Management

lence in business education and has been earned by less than 5 percent of the world's 16,000 business programs. The school has been continuously accredited by AACSB International since 1930. Accreditation mainte- nance review is conducted every five years and includes all of the school's undergraduate, master's and doctoral business and accounting programs. "It takes a great deal of commitment and deter- mination to earn and maintain AACSB accreditation," said Robert D. Reid, executive vice president and chief accreditation officer of AACSB International. "Business schools must not only meet specific standards of excel- lence, but their deans, faculty and professional staff must make a commitment to ongoing continuous improve- ment to ensure that the institution will continue to de- liver the highest quality of education to students." In their report to the AACSB accreditation board, the peer review team lauded the School of Management for its clear, strategic direction, strong faculty, highly ranked MBA programs and curricular innovations, as well as an exceptionally talented professional staff and strong international footprint. They also commended the school for providing significant opportunities for students to engage with the profession and the community, and for new and en- hanced undergraduate student support services, particu- larly the new Undergraduate Learning and Community Center. The school will undergo its next accreditation review in 2020-21. x U.S. News and Bloomberg Businessweek again rank School of Management U.S. News and World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek have again ranked the School of Management as a best business school. In March, the School of Management was ranked No. 81 out of 470 MBA programs surveyed. The MBA ranking is part of U.S. News and World Report's list of "America's Best Graduate Schools." The ranking is based on three major areas: quality assessment, placement success and student selectivity. In addition, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the School of Management in April as one of the nation's "Top Undergraduate Busi- ness Programs." The UB School of Management vaulted 37 spots to No. 85. Five sources contributed to the undergraduate rank- ing: a student survey (30 percent), a recruiter survey (20 percent), median starting salaries for graduates (10 per- cent), the number of graduates admitted to 35 top MBA programs (10 percent), and an academic quality measure (30 percent). x Self-navigating boat startup sails into first place in UB entrepreneurship competition Thiru Vikram, Emilie Reynolds and Alexander Zhitelzeyf, all UB engineering students, took first place in this year's Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entre- preneurship Competition (Panasci TEC) for a robotics startup that makes and sells self-piloting technology and automation tools to ship operators. They will receive $25,000 in startup capital, plus in-kind services valued at more than $27,000 for their company, Buffalo Automation Group. The system uses data from onboard sensors and other marine navigation aids to recognize navigational hazards and automatically steer around them. The group plans to aggressively expand in the Great Lakes market. Making boats smarter means fewer collisions and low- er insurance costs, according to Vikram, the company's CEO. The winning team has taken advantage of the rap- idly expanding entrepreneurship ecosystem at UB and in the Buffalo Niagara region. They've tapped into resources at the School of Management's Center for Photo: Nancy J. Parisi Autumn 2016 Buffalo Business 3 2016 Panasci winners (from left) Vikram, Reynolds and Zhitelzeyf.

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