At Lipscomb, you will find a college of business that is built upon a distinctive foundation: a commitment to the development of future business leaders who embrace the virtues and values of Jesus.

You will be immersed in an environment of challenging and rigorous academic programs, with an emphasis on the convergence of business and technology, and with a caring community of professors who invest themselves into the lives and futures of each student. Plus, in a world filled with ethical failings at all levels of business, you will be asked to think about some of the tougher ethical issues involving business governance.

Fully accredited by both the leading global business accreditation AACSB and also ACBSP for both Business and Accounting, Lipscomb University’s College of Business is recognized throughout the region and the nation as an outstanding source of highly skilled and trustworthy business leaders.

The college has earned a top position nationally as a leader in faith-based business education. While we’re proud of that, as a college that is built differently we’re even more proud as we see our graduates leave us to change the world ... in corporate life, in entrepreneurship, in innovative social enterprises that are improving lives globally. Sometimes these grads make great business headlines, sometimes they’re the behind-the-scenes workers that all businesses depend upon and upon whom great businesses are built.

But they’re all part of the legacy of a college of business that has been built not just to propel the success of its graduates but also to celebrate the success of faithful adherence to eternal principles.

Housed in Lipscomb’s College of Business, the Pfeffer Graduate School of Business moved up in the rankings this year. In the Best Business School category, the Pfeffer School is one of only three in Tennessee to be ranked. Lipscomb’s part time MBA was one of only six in the state to make this year’s ranking. 

The Pfeffer School is AACSB accredited, making it part of an elite group of business schools internationally with less than six percent - only 926 institutions across 60 countries - earning this prestigious accreditation. It offers master’s degree programs in accounting, business administration and health administration and graduate certificates in accounting, data analytics and entrepreneurship. Learn more here. 

The Lipscomb University College of Business Master of Health Administration (MHA) program has achieved initial accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME), making it the first and only program in Nashville to receive this prestigious recognition.

“Being located in one of the nation’s leading healthcare cities, Lipscomb’s MHA program has close connections to many industry leaders in Nashville, which provides outstanding learning and professional opportunities for our students,” said Lesley Tomaszewski, director of Lipscomb’s MHA program. “Our advisory board of industry experts is engaged and dynamic, and our students are developing skills they can apply immediately on the job. Receiving CAHME accreditation is an affirmation of not only the quality of our program but its effectiveness, and we are thrilled about the tremendous impact this will have on our students.” 

Learn more here.

Lipscomb University has been named one of the top Christian universities in the nation according to a newly released 2024 Niche Ranking.

In addition to being ranked one of the top Christian colleges in the country, Lipscomb also received a number of other top rankings in a variety of categories in the 2024 report including: #1 Best Colleges for Business in Tennessee.

This ranking continues the exciting start to the fall semester at Lipscomb. This fall Lipscomb continued to break enrollment records with its largest class of first-time freshmen in school history with over 700 new first-time freshman students joining the Bison Herd. In addition the university is celebrating its best freshman-to-sophomore retention rate ever recorded at Lipscomb

Read more about all of Lipscomb’s rankings in the 2024 Niche Best Colleges rankings here. 

For the first time, a Lipscomb University student has been selected to participate in the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Jimmie Smith Student Leadership Experience program. 

Senior Alexa Tyree, an accounting major from Akron, Ohio, is one of only five students from around the world selected to participate in this highly selective program. Participants are selected each year from applicants from IMA Higher Education Endorsement Program member schools. Only 62 colleges in the U.S. are currently endorsed by the IMA, and 40 colleges are endorsed internationally. Globally, IMA supports the accounting profession through research, the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) program, continuing education, networking and advocacy of the highest ethical business practices. Read more here.

College of Business alumnus Luke Benda (BBA ’17) was honored in October with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s NEXT Award for 2023 Emerging Entrepreneur. Together with Braden Davidson (BS ’16, MM ’17), he founded a tech start-up called Healing Innovations Inc, which also won the Nashville Technology Council’s Tech Startup of the Year Award in 2021.

When a friend was involved in a car accident, Benda and Davidson saw firsthand the challenges that patients face as they recover. Motivated to develop solutions to enhance the recovery process, they co-founded Healing Innovations to focus on the development and commercialization of technology that positively impacts the lives of people recovering from neurological injuries.

Read more here.

Lipscomb University’s College of Business has once again been ranked among the top 50 undergraduate programs in the nation by Poets&Quants for Undergrads in its annual Best Undergrad Business Schools 2024 rankings. This is the eighth consecutive year for Lipscomb’s College of Business to be ranked among the top nationally. 

Today the organization unveiled its 2024 Best Undergraduate Business Schools ranking, which is considered the most comprehensive assessment of undergraduate business programs. Lipscomb was ranked No. 43 in the nation, is the only undergraduate business program in Nashville included in the ranking and is ranked No. 2 in Tennessee. Lipscomb is one of only two universities in Tennessee, out of 46 four-year business programs in the state, included in the entire ranking. Lipscomb also ranked No. 1 in Tennessee and No. 47 in the country in the career outcomes category and nationally placed No. 31 in the academic experience category and No. 52 in the admissions experience category in the report.

Learn more here.

Visionary business leader Sue Nokes, who is known for successfully transforming Fortune 100 companies to achieve breakthrough results, was recognized for her generosity to the College of Business at a reception on campus, Sept. 19.

The newly created Sue Nokes Leadership Development Program will serve as the primary funding source for the college’s experiential Aspire program. The goal of Aspire is to develop and support students who, through their character and coached skills, will make exceptional contributions to virtuous leadership in business.

Nokes is a member of the Lipscomb University Board of Trustees and a generous donor and mentor to students in the College of Business. She has had a long career as a top executive and change agent in Fortune 100 companies including T-Mobile, Walmart, and AT&T. Read more here.

In August, Kelsey Swerdfeger (A ’22) was presented the TSCPA John Glenn Award which honors the successful candidate who achieved the highest score in Tennessee on the Uniform CPA Exam and successfully passed all four parts of the exam on the first attempt.

Swerdfeger passed the Uniform CPA Exam in 2022. She currently works as an audit associate for Blankenship CPA Group and is based out of its Brentwood office.

Perry Moore (’81), Director of the Master of Accountancy program, director of assessment and the Charles E. Frasier Professor of Accountancy, was presented with the TSCPA’s 2023 TSCPApex Special Recognition Award.

Moore has been recognized for his extensive work on Tennessee state-specific ethics, which has made a significant impact on CPAs and the accounting profession in the state. Moore revised the state-specific ethics course the past two years and has traveled extensively across the state making numerous ethics presentations. He has also served TSCPA for many years in a variety of volunteer roles and has contributed his talents and expertise to the Tennessee CPA Journal.  Read more here.

This past spring, Lipscomb’s College of Business (COB) laid a foundation for the university to build on its ties in Ghana, Africa, bringing potential academic, economic and development benefits to Ghana as well as academic and experiential benefits to Lipscomb students.

Andy Borchers, professor of management, spent the spring 2023 semester on sabbatical teaching at Heritage Christian College in Accra, Ghana, and Jeff Cohu, associate professor of management and executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CEI), led a first-time mission trip for Lipscomb students in May to work with Heritage students on developing micro-businesses.

While Lipscomb has sent students to an orphanage called Village of Hope in Ghana for the past 14 years, COB officials hope these two efforts will be the beginning of expanding Lipscomb student opportunities in Ghana beyond that one mission effort.

Learn more here.

Specifically, the mission of the college is to encourage the adoption of five targeted values and virtues of Jesus. To the extent that the mission is accomplished in a student or others, that person will become more Purposeful, Bold, Credible, Creative, and a higher level Servant. The college mission is inspired by the following:

"And David shepherded them with integrity of the heart; with skillful hands he led them.” (Psalm 78:72)

• A purposeful leader is determined and disciplined, striving to achieve an organization’s most important and meaningful objectives, while being a good steward of the resources with which he or she has been entrusted.  (Luke 14:28; Matthew 25:14)

• A bold leader is strong and courageous, seeking to be influential and willing to challenge the limits of conventional thought.  (Deuteronomy 31:6; 1 Corinthians 16:13; 2 Timothy 1:7)

• A credible leader is truthful and trustworthy, displaying both competence and confidence. (Matthew 6:21; 1 Corinthians 13:6; Luke 16:10-12)

• A creative leader is imaginative and adaptive, embracing change and creating opportunities from that change. (John 8:1-11; Luke 10)

• A servant leader is humble, compassionate, and approachable, encouraging others to be their best through the personal example they set. (Philippians 2:3-11; Matthew 5)