The Max M. Fisher College of Business is the business college of The Ohio State University, a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. Fisher's campus is located on the northern part of the university within a partially enclosed business campus adjacent to St. John Arena. At the time of its construction, the six-building, 370,000 square-foot (34,000 m2) complex was the largest multi-building construction project ever undertaken by the university and it remains one of the few fully integrated management education campuses in the nation.
Fisher College of Business offers educational programming to undergraduate, graduate, PhD and executive education students from around the world. The college is home to five academic departments: Accounting and Management Information Systems, Finance, Management and Human Resources, Marketing and Logistics, and Operations and Business Analytics.
History
The college was established in 1916 as the College of Commerce and Journalism before being renamed for Max M. Fisher, a 1930 Ohio State graduate who later became a successful business leader statesman and philanthropist. In the mid-1990s, Max Fisher led fundraising efforts to transform Ohio State’s business college into the campus it resembles today. In recognition of his efforts and his $20 million gift toward the project, the college was renamed in his honor in 1993.
Fisher College of Business is a founding member of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, also known as AACSB International. The accreditation organization, which dates back to 1916, “provides quality assurance, business education intelligence, and learning and development services to over 1,850 member organizations and more than 950 accredited business schools worldwide.”
Location & environment
The Max M. Fisher College of Business is located in Columbus, Ohio, the largest city in Ohio and the 14th- largest city in the United States with a population of more than two million, as of 2021. The major metropolitan region is home to headquarters of companies including Abercrombie & Fitch, Co., American Electric Power, Bath& Body Works, Battelle, Cardinal Health, Huntington, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Nationwide Insurance, Victoria’s Secret & Co., and The Wendy’s Company.
Campus
The Fisher College of Business campus consists of the following buildings and offices:
Fisher College of Business offers educational opportunities, degrees and certificates for undergraduate, graduate, PhD and executive education students that highlight core skills necessary to succeed in any organization or industry: principled leadership, global awareness, entrepreneurial thinking and commitment to social impact.
Undergraduate
With nearly 8,500 students, Fisher’s undergraduate program is the largest at the college. Undergraduate students pursue a bachelor’s degree in business administration and can choose to tailor their degrees via 13 specializations:
Accounting
Finance
Economics
General Business (Regional campus)
Human Resources
Information Systems
Insurance
International Business
Logistics Management
Marketing
Operations Management
Real Estate
Special Major
Undergraduate students can also pursue a business minor focused in six areas:
Business
Business Analytics
Entrepreneurship
Insurance
International Business
Real Estate
Fisher offers undergraduate students access to six honors programs:
Integrated Business and Engineering (IBE) Honors (offered jointly with the College of Engineering)
Accounting Honors Program
Finance Honors
Honors Cohort
Honors Contract
Research Distinction
Undergraduate students at Fisher are supported by the Undergraduate Leadership and Engagement Office (ULEO). Exclusive to Fisher students, ULEO offers programs and opportunities specifically designed to help Fisher students develop as future business leaders.
Graduate
More than 1,000 students make up the graduate and PhD programs at Fisher. The college offers seven graduate degree programs that are focused on key industries and areas of business:
Fisher’s PhD programs equip tomorrow’s academic thought leaders with the perspectives, expertise and skill to shape the business world through teaching and research. The college offers two PhD degrees: a PhD in Accounting and Management Information Systems, and a PhD in Business Administration, with specialization options in:
Finance
Human Resources
International Business
Logistics
Marketing
Organizational Behavior
Operations Management
Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Executive Education
For nearly 70 years, Executive Education offerings at The Ohio State University have provided organizations regionally, nationally and globally with customized, comprehensive learning experiences designed to shape their thinking and behaviors. Fisher offers two executive education degrees — the Executive MBA and the Master of Business Operational Excellence.
The Executive Education department also offers three certificates — a Graduate Certificate in IT Business Strategy, a Graduate Certificate in Business Leadership, and a Graduate Certificate in Analytics. Other programmatic offerings include custom programming and non-degree offerings for organizations, as well as short, topic-based programs that provide professionals with opportunities to augment their knowledge with deeper dives into areas of business demanded by the workforce, marketplace and individual organizations.
Student Support
Fisher students have access to three college-wide offices that support key areas of their educational experiences and post-graduate success:
Office of Career Management (OCM): Through events, career counseling and advising services, the office connects undergraduate and graduate students at Fisher with corporate recruiters for full-time positions and internships.
Office of Global Business (OGB): The office provides students with in-person and virtual global programming and events designed to build strategic international understanding and cross-cultural competencies.
Office of Diversity and Inclusion Student Services and Corporate and Community Outreach: The office provides students with counseling, scholarship opportunities, career support and tutoring services.
Undergraduate students at Fisher are supported by the Undergraduate Leadership and Engagement Office (ULEO). Exclusive to Fisher students, ULEO offers programs and opportunities specifically designed to help Fisher students develop as future business leaders.
Research
Fisher College of Business has more than 160 faculty members, nearly 100 of which are tenure-track. These faculty members are thought leaders in their respective fields, producers of hundreds of articles that have been published in the most influential journal outlets, founders and editors of top-ranked academic journals and advisors to the next generation of business scholars.
The Journal of Business Logistics was created at Fisher (then the College of Business) in 1978. The Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire, a tool still used today to measure and describe the behavior of leaders, was created at the college in 1962.
The American Accounting Association's Hall of Fame was established at Fisher in 1950 to honor those who in some way distinguished themselves in the field. An international board of accountants nominate and select new members annually to add to the 78 inducted members. Current Ohio State University faculty are prohibited from nomination.[7]
Faculty thought leadership from Fisher is available and accessible to the practitioner community via Forefront, the college’s research newsroom. Forefront houses translations of the latest and most impactful research, as well as media coverage of Fisher’s faculty, expertise and insights.
Research Centers of Excellence
Fisher is home to 10 research centers of excellence — partnerships with the business community that connect Ohio State faculty, students and the corporate community to spark intellectual innovations that fuel business growth.
Charles A. Dice Center for Financial Economics
Center for Innovation Strategies
Center for International Business Education and Research
Center for Operational Excellence
Fisher Leadership Initiative
Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship
National Center for the Middle Market
Nationwide Center for Advanced Customer Insights
Ohio State Center for Real Estate
The Risk Institute
Alumni
Fisher College of Business has more than 88,000 alumni living around the world, many of whom have built or led top companies or shaped government policy and industry regulations.
Max Fisher
Born in Salem, Ohio, Max M. Fisher enrolled at Ohio State in 1926 and graduated four years later with a bachelor’s degree in business. After graduation, Max moved to Detroit, Michigan, to join his family, where he worked for his father’s oil reclamation business. He eventually helped grow the business — Aurora Gasoline — into one of the largest gas station chains in the Midwest. The business was later bought out by Marathon Petroleum.
Max once described Ohio State as a place that provided him with opportunities to take risks, shape his own future and develop a base to make lasting and meaningful impacts on the world. In 1993, a $20 million gift from Max spearheaded the transformation of Ohio State’s business college into a highly competitive, top-ranked business school. In recognition of his generous commitment, the college was named The Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business.
Together with Marjorie, his wife of 52 years, and his family, Max cultivated a lifetime legacy of philanthropy that impacted countless causes and organizations, including Fisher College of Business, through the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Family Foundation.
Campus plan and architecture
Many quotations can be found etched into Fisher's campus.
The six-building campus is oriented around its largest building, the signature Fisher Hall, which is the same height as the main university library and on axis with it. This visually links the college to the larger Ohio State campus. The organization of undergraduate buildings, graduate study, and administration cluster around the Alutto Quad, a traditional campus green. The brick architecture reinterprets the Neo-Classical tradition found throughout Ohio State’s campus.
In 2022, construction on the newest addition to Fisher’s campus began. The Daley Family Pavilion and Daley Family Terrace will offer 13,000 square feet of permanent entertaining space adjacent to The Blackwell Inn, the Pfahl Conference Center and Fisher Hall. The structures are named to recognize the family of Clayton Daley, Jr. (MBA ’74), a business leader at The Procter & Gamble Company, member of the college’s Dean’s Advisory Council and a proud alumnus, as well as two other generations of Daleys to graduate from Fisher.
