Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship

The Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship offers a Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree in business with four option areas: accounting, finance, management, and marketing. The college offers five minors: accounting, business administration, entrepreneurship and small business management, finance, and international business, as well as an 18-credit business certificate and 15-credit entrepreneurship certificate. The college offers a one-year Master of Professional Accountancy program (MPAc) and a one-year Master of Science in Innovation and Management (MSIM). The college is accredited through the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).^[5] As a part of Montana State University, the college operates on a semester system. The college is directly managed by a Dean (currently Brian Gillespie), who is advised by a National Board of Advisors composed of alumni and other business professionals.^[6]

When the Agricultural College of the State of Montana (now Montana State University) was established in 1893, the first college catalog announced a division of business that would include "book-keeping, commercial arithmetic, commercial correspondence, penmanship, commercial law, and business ethics, etc."^[7] The first class offered at the new college was a business course offered by Homer G. Phelps, who had been conducting business institutes in Bozeman and Livingston, Montana.^[8] Initially the business curriculum was supported by the college to ensure that women would enroll. Economics and agricultural economics would eventually provide a more theoretical approach to some of the business subjects, but in the beginning, typewriting, shorthand, business machine operation, and office management constituted the basic courses.^[8] The secretarial and business options maintained a strong attraction for years, but in time, Leona Barnes, Bernice Lamb, John Blankenhorn, Alfred Day, and Harvey Larson presided over the transition to a truly professional business curriculum. It wasn't until 1958–1959, when the department of commerce emerged to join with the new College of Professional Schools.^[8] While general business remained the most popular option, accounting attracted an increasing number of students. In 1975, the core areas of the school were realigned and emphasis was placed on accounting, finance, management, marketing, and international trade.^[9]

In 1981, the School of Business received accreditation. When data became available in the early 1980s, it was discovered that Harold Holen's accounting program had achieved top rankings nationwide in the percentage of students taking and passing the CPA exam.^[9]

In October 2011, the university announced what was then the largest private gift in the history of the Montana higher education system─$25 million from MSU alumnus Jake Jabs, president and CEO of American Furniture Warehouse.^[10] Eighteen and a half million dollars of the gift went toward the construction of a new building, Jabs Hall.^[11] The remainder of the gift funded new scholarships and academic programs. The School of Business was renamed the Jake Jabs College of Business & Entrepreneurship in 2013.