SID Craig school of business earns re-accreditation

The Sid Craig School of Business at California State University, Fresno earned a nine-year renewal of its accreditation, the school’s dean, Dr. Fred Evans, announced last week.

“Other than medical schools, accreditation of business schools is one of the toughest accreditations to earn,” Evans said. “This achievement underscores the quality of the business program Fresno State offers.”

Accreditation of the school’s baccalaureate and masters degree programs in business was reaffirmed in a March 5 memo to Evans by the International Association for Management Education, a national accrediting agency for bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs in business administration and accounting.

The accreditation review, conducted by a team of business school peers, cited five strengths in the Sid Craig School of Business:

• outreach activities carried out through the school’s various units such as the Small Business Development Center, the Institute for the Development of Entrepreneurial Action, the Family Business Center, and the Business Incubator;

• broad participation of the faculty in the CSB governance process;

• comprehensiveness of the school’s international activities which enhance teaching and faculty development;

• significant expansions in the number of students participating in the student internship program in the past two years; and,

• the Craig Scholars Program provided by the Craig Endowment.

The school and its programs have long been held in high esteem in academia, Evans said. Accreditation was first awarded in 1959 to Fresno State, which was only the third public institution in California to be nationally accredited by the agency, preceded by the UC campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles. The Craig School is the only business program in the Central Valley accredited by the LAME. Of the nation’s 1300 business programs, just 352 are accredited.

“Accreditation by AACSB is an excellent indicator of high quality,” said Evans. “Many business programs make achieving and maintaining accreditation as their primary goal. At the Craig School, we consider accreditation the minimum standard of quality, and most of our programs far exceed that standard.”