A new dean, a new institute and multiple impactful student experiences headlined the previous year in Marquette Business. As we prepare for another year of conducting business with purpose, we also reflect on the highlights of the past 12 months. The faculty and staff of the college look forward to seeing all of the students again in 2025!
JANUARY: Former insurance executive, state commissioner joins Marquette Business as executive-in-residence
The College of Business Administration added Mark Afable as an executive-in-residence for insurance.
Afable, an instructor of practice in finance, has had a multi-decade career in insurance, culminating in his tenure as the state of Wisconsin’s commissioner of insurance from 2019 through 2021. He was also chief legal officer at American Family Insurance, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Madison.
FEBRUARY: Student-Made Marquette creators apply material from class to side hustles
Launched Feb. 1, 2023, Student Made Marquette hosts more than a dozen student creators who sell everything from handbags to laptop stickers. Several of them are business students, who put the lessons they learned in their studies into action.
MARCH: Marquette Business launches certified professional banking program
The College of Business Administration started a new Certified Professional Banking Program with a vision to further professionalize the banking industry and grow the pipeline of bankers.
The new program began with a pilot in late 2024 and offers a common body of knowledge to all bankers, including a curriculum that emphasizes accounting, finance, economics and evolving technology.
APRIL: Board of Graduate Studies approves new specializations for MBA, Master’s in Management programs
The Marquette University Board of Graduate Studies has approved three new specializations for the College of Business Administration’s highly-ranked MBA program, a new specialization for the Master in Management program, and updated the Leadership Certificate to offer a core and elective structure.
Starting in the 2024-25 academic year, MBA students will be able to specialize in leadership, business and managerial analytics and supply chain management. This will bring the total number of specializations in the MBA program to nine. Students in the Master in Management program will have the option to add a leadership specialization.
Perry and Sheila Vieth, founding members of Marquette University’s President’s Advisory Council, have made a major gift to launch a new collaborative institute — the Vieth Institute for Real Estate Leadership.
The multi-million-dollar gift established one of the nation’s only interdisciplinary real estate institutes, harnessing the combined strengths and track record of tradition and innovation within three colleges — business, engineering and law.
JUNE: Operations and supply chain management ranked in top 10 by Gartner Inc.
Marquette’s operations and supply chain management programs were ranked among the nation’s top 10 by Gartner Inc., a leading technological and consulting research firm. The Master of Supply Chain Management program was ranked 7th-best in the country, up from No. 17 in the last version of the Gartner rankings in 2022. The undergraduate program ranked 10th in the country, up from No. 19 in 2022.
JULY: Graduate School of Management earns spot on Princeton Review list of best business schools
The Marquette Graduate School of Management has been named to The Princeton Review’s 2024 list of the country’s best business schools.
The list includes 244 graduate-level business programs, which were selected using a combination of institutional and student survey data on career outcomes, selectivity of admissions and academic rigor, among other factors. This year’s survey data was taken from administrators at 409 business schools and more than 32,000 students enrolled in these schools’ MBA programs.
Andrew DeGuire was named Keyes Dean of Business Administration in December 2023 an began in his new role at the start of July; his first semester began a month later. A 1993 alumnus and former vice president of corporate strategy at Northwestern Mutual, DeGuire succeeds Interim Dean Tim Hanley.
SEPTEMBER: Former audit partner at Grant Thornton joins college as executive-in-residence
The College of Business Administration added Gregg Rusk as its latest executive-in-residence in accounting.
Rusk spent 35 years working at public accounting firm Grant Thornton, with 23 of them as a partner. During that time, Rusk advised more than 50 public companies and their boards on audit, internal controls and accounting issues. He assisted clients with initial public offerings that raised over $2.5 billion, public and private debt offerings totaling $10 billion, along with over 75 mergers and acquisitions.
OCTOBER: Intentional change: Unique business course brings Jesuit values to incarcerated students
The Educational Preparedness Program enrolls incarcerated students to learn alongside Marquette Business undergraduates. Instructor of Practice Dr. Manoj Babu teaches a management course in the program. His students learn alongside inmates at the Racine Correctional Institution every week during spring semester.
NOVEMBER: On The Rise: How Marquette’s B-School Is Making A Name For Itself, In The Midwest & Beyond
We were grateful to have Poets&Quants, a leading business higher ed publication visit campus this fall to see all the exciting new developments in our college.
“There’s something special about a Marquette grad, both undergraduate and graduate, because they’ve got excellent technical skills but they also learn the good traits of leadership that make them both leaders who do the right thing and who do it in a very human way,” Dean Andrew DeGuire told Poets&Quants.
DECEMBER: Business classes partner with charity to bring clean water to towns in Guatemala
Students in Associate Professor of Practice Dr. Alex Milovic’s marketing classes do service learning work for Global Partners: Running Waters, a Milwaukee-based charity that raises money to deliver potable water to communities in Guatemala. To date, GPRW has completed over 150 water projects that have improved life for more than 300,000 people.
