Walton College Ranks 24th in U.S. News for Fourth Year

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – For the fourth year in a row, the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas has placed in a tie for 24^th among the nation’s top public undergraduate business schools, according to the U.S. News & World Report 2011 America’s Best Colleges.

The Walton College was also again placed at 42^nd among both public and private undergraduate business schools. In addition, the college’s supply chain management/logistics specialty was ranked in 10^th place among the public undergraduate schools offering that specialty and in 13^th place among both the public and private business schools.

“We are very pleased to continue to be recognized among the leading business schools in the nation,” said Walton College Dean Dan Worrell. “Since the 2005 rankings, the Walton College has stayed in the top 25 public undergraduate business schools, as well as in the top 45 public and private schools.”

In the U.S. News & World Report 2006 edition of America’s Best Colleges, the Walton College moved to 24^th place. In the 2007 ranking, the Walton College came in at 25^th place and returned to 24^th place in the 2008, 2009, and 2010 rankings.

“We attribute this ranking to the efforts of our outstanding faculty, students and staff,” added Worrell, “as well as to our academic colleagues, university administrators, alumni, donors, employers and advisory board members — who have all played a significant role in the Walton College’s success.

“These sustained high rankings help us recruit and retain top faculty — an area where there is tremendous competition among leading business schools. This national recognition also helps us attract talented students as well as increase the value of alumni degrees. A favorable ranking opens doors for our students because employers frequently use rankings to decide where they will recruit new employees,” he said

The U.S. News rankings are determined through a survey, which each year asks business school deans and senior faculty to rate the approximately 457 U.S. public and private undergraduate business programs accredited by the AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

The Walton College is tied for 24^th place among public undergraduate schools along with the nine other business schools. The college also tied for 42^rd place among all public and private business colleges with Boston University, Rensselaer Polytech Institute and Tulane University. In the Southeastern Conference, the Walton College trails only the University of Florida and the University of Georgia.

In the supply chain management/logistics specialty rankings among the Southeastern Conference schools, only the University of Tennessee is ranked higher at 9^th place among both public and private schools, and the University of Texas is one above the Walton College at 12^th place.

Tom Jensen, the Wal-Mart Lecturer in Retailing and chair of the Walton College department of marketing and logistics, said, “It is a great honor and recognition for our faculty, who have developed the supply chain programs and taught the students, and to our students who have performed in the classroom and on the job. We are especially pleased that the public universities ranked in the top 10, for example, Michigan State University, Ohio State University and University of Tennessee, have recruited our doctoral students to be faculty and teach supply chain management/logistics at their institutions.”

The Supply Chain Management Research Center is housed in the Walton College. The center connects faculty and students with the transportation and logistics people in some of the nation’s largest corporations. Its board of directors comprises key logistics executives from 29 national and international companies. This support enables the college to greatly enhance the quality of its undergraduate and graduate programs in transportation and logistics. These relationships have also created research opportunities for business faculty that in turn benefit the member companies. The center has sponsored an international graduate case competition for the past six years, which enables Walton College faculty and students to connect and compete with logistics academics from around the world. In addition, it sponsors a nationwide doctoral dissertation proposal award, which is selected by academic reviewers from more than 12 universities.

The top five public business schools in this 2011U.S. News ranking are University of California-Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of North Carolina and University of Texas.

The Walton College received $50 million from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation in 1998. Since that time, the college has created new graduate and undergraduate programs, established multiple centers, greatly enhanced its technology and built a new state-of-the-art graduate school building. The 77,000-square-foot Willard J. Walker Hall, constructed with a lead gift of $8 million from the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation, opened in 2007. The college has also added research facilities in the J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. Center for Academic Excellence.