Welcome to the Graduate School of Business!

“Preparing and Enabling Great Leaders”
Entrepreneurial Leadership, International Commerce & Communications

Welcome from the Dean
As the Graduate School of Business at the University of Charleston prepares to welcome its inaugural class this fall there is great anticipation in the air. You who seek to follow this new and exciting path to a career of excellence in the world of business will encounter a masters program like no other in the country.

You will enter, on the first day of your new journey, a newly built business center that will have at its heart an economic engine fueled by West Virginia business men and women who are committed to growing wealth in the Mountain State. This economic engine will be comprised of intellect, investment capital, a commitment to make a difference and a graduate school of business populated by young men and women who will be immersed in a steady stream of entrepreneurial activities.

Your school is on the second of six floors of a building Triana Energy has renovated for its rapidly growing Charleston headquarters. University of Charleston President Edwin Welch and Triana CEO Henry Harmon are the visionaries who created the concept of your new graduate program. Harmon, a member of the UC Board of Trustees, has graciously given the physical space and provided the build out of your state-of-the-art location.

As you progress through your three year graduate program you will have an up-close and personal relationship not only with Triana’s corporate executives, but venture capitalists and seasoned business people from various sectors who also will be located within the financial center.

Within this vibrant mixing bowl of business people and entrepreneurial activity you will achieve a Master of Business Administration and Leadership. Your MBAL journey will be fast paced and fast tracked; you will enter the three-year program at the conclusion of your sophomore year. You will immediately be paired with an executive mentor and exposed to significant internships that will position you, upon graduation, to be networked with businesses and organizations that will have personal knowledge of the skills and intellect you have displayed in your classroom and real-work experience.

Your path to personal success and fortune will embrace international commerce as you work with overseas businesses that have located in the Charleston Region. Your program of study will embrace globalization with a summer semester internship abroad between your second and third year of study.

I look forward to August and your arrival at your new downtown campus. The world we will all experience together will be filled with great opportunity to learn, work and plan for a future filled with exciting new ventures. And, yes, we will have fun and we will consider ourselves among the chosen few to enter a new world where there are committed educators and capitalists waiting to nurture and expand to great new heights your life and career.

Welcome aboard! UC is on the move!

Charles Ryan
Dean of the Graduate School of Business