Academic Departments

The six academic departments of the Smeal College of Business offer both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. The administrative support departments within the Smeal College of Business offer a wide variety of assistance to faculty, staff, and students.

The Penn State Smeal College of Business is home to six academic departments that span the critical areas of business. Our departments function as discipline-specific communities of scholars producing research with impact and delivering extraordinary educational experiences through the college’s various academic programs.

Research with Impact

The collective research activities of faculty across all departments at Smeal have placed the college among the top 25 business schools in the world. Individual departments have been recognized for excellence by a number of journals and associations. Highlights include:

  • The Marketing Department has been ranked in the top 20 for research productivity according to the American Marketing Association’s DocSIG Marketing Research rankings.
  • Gartner Inc. has consistently ranked Smeal as one of the best for supply chain education. 
  • Rankings from Texas A&M University and the University of Florida Management Research Productivity survey places the Management and Organization Department at No. 5 overall.

Extraordinary Education

The expertise of our faculty, coupled with the support of departmental staff, help to arm students with the critical knowledge, capabilities, and perspective that the marketplace demands. Each academic department supports programs at the undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and executive education levels. Highlights include:

  • Seven undergraduate majors in areas such as finance, marketing, risk management, and supply chain and information systems.
  • Portfolio of residential one-year master's degrees in areas such as accounting, business administration, business analytics, finance, supply chain and real estate analysis and development. 
  • MBA programs that include our residential one-year MBA and Penn State Online MBA.
  • Diverse portfolio of online specialty master's and graduate certificate programs.
  • Support for programs at the executive education level including our Executive DBA and portfolio of non-degree campus-based open-enrollment programs.