By Cynthia Hubert

June 10, 2021

Sacramento State’s business college has a new, more modern name that better reflects its identity.

The former College of Business Administration is now simply the College of Business, or COB.

The new name aligns with most other business colleges in the CSU system and across the country, and reflects the broader, more scientific disciplines the college encompasses.

In decades past, “business administration” usually referred to organizational tasks including bookkeeping, office support, and filing, said Dean William P. Cordeiro.

“The name is kind of archaic now,” he said. “Business has become a more rigorous discipline and its own entity,” one that includes academic research and analysis that appears in scholarly journals.

Though its name has changed, the college’s broader mission will remain the same. “We will continue to educate leaders of the future,” Cordeiro said.

The college offers a broad professional education in Business, with a choice of 10 concentrations within the major.

In addition to undergraduate studies, the college also offers a general MBA, an MBA for executives, an accelerated online MBA, an MS in Accountancy and, starting this fall, an MS in Business Analytics.

The new graduate degree will prepare students for careers in data analysis. “We’ve started accepting applications, and we think it will be quite popular,” Cordeiro said. A new MS in Finance also is in the pipeline, possibly for the spring, he added.

One of the college’s featured programs is the Center for Small Business, in which juniors, seniors, and graduate students work with faculty advisors to provide Sacramento-area companies and nonprofits free technical help in areas such as financial planning and market research. The work aligns with Sac State’s mission to be an “anchor university” with deep roots that enrich communities within the region.

The University is in the process of altering its signs, banners, and other materials to reflect the college’s new name, Cordeiro said.

“It may seem like a small thing, but it’s actually pretty exciting,” he said. “The new name is more modern, and more accurately reflects what we do.”