The new Center for Business Studies at Kentucky Wesleyan College, which opened in August 2002, is located on the fourth floor of the Barnard-Jones Administration Building.

The remodeling of this 6,917 square foot space for the Center for Business Studies was funded through a partial amount of the $2.4 million matching gift made by an anonymous donor to the Changing Lives campaign. According to Jim Welch, chair of the department of business and associate dean of the college, KWC has a five-year strategic plan that is now being implemented by the department of business to prepare students for professional careers in business and/or graduate studies.

"Our goal is to increase the number of students within the department to over 200 by offering new majors in computer information systems and marketing," said Welch. "In addition, new specializations in e-commerce and accounting information systems will be introduced."

The overall five-year plan includes renovating the needed space, equipping the Center with the necessary fixtures and furnishings to run a first-rate business department, endowing a chair (the first endowed chair in the history of KWC), fund full- and part-time faculty positions, developing media materials that will communicate the Center’s mission and message to potential students and to business and community leaders, keeping computer hardware and software current, increasing library holdings and maintaining faculty continued education. In the future, the Center will offer consulting services to the surrounding business community and develop a support system for graduates.

The Center for Business Studies includes two computer labs, classrooms, a seminar/conference room and faculty office space. Welch noted that the new Center for Business Studies is designed to create the feeling of physically being in a business environment – the feeling of being in corporate America.

"In addition to creating the physical business environment, the business department has at its heart the desire to involve students in curricula that stress analysis and communication, while emphasizing theory and practice, and are shaped by the needs of the business community and taught within a liberal arts context," said Welch. The business department faculty will serve both the student and community by providing an education that is technically competent, ethically based and socially aware. Their close interaction with students will facilitate this teaching approach.