William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration

Simon Business School

Former names	School of Business Administration (1958-1962) College of Business Administration (1962-1970) Graduate School of Management (1970-1986) William E. Simon School of Business Administration (1986-2013)
Type	Private business school
Established	1958
Parent institution	University of Rochester
Endowment	US $96 million
Dean	Andrew Ainslie
Academic staff	72
Postgraduates	182 Full-Time M.B.A. 82 Part-Time M.B.A. 300 M.S. 45 Ph.D.
Location	Rochester, New York, USA
Campus	Urban
Affiliations	Consortium for Graduate Study in Management
Website	simon.rochester.edu

Simon Business School (formerly known as the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration) is the business school of the University of Rochester. It is located on the University's River Campus in Rochester, New York. It was renamed after William E. Simon (1927–2000), the 63rd United States Secretary of the Treasury, in 1986. The school's present dean is Andrew Ainslie.

Simon Business School offers full-time, part-time, and executive (based in either Rochester or Switzerland) Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) Programs, as well as Master of Science (M.S.) Programs. The school is home to substantial academic research enterprises and to a Ph.D. Program in several business disciplines.

The University of Rochester started as a small business program in 1958, and awarded its first M.B.A. degree in 1962, but the School’s impact in the business world can really be traced to a later decision by then University President W. Allen Wallis to create a first-class business school in Rochester. In 1964, he was recruited as dean. Dean Wallis believed in the power of economics to solve a host of problems.

William H. Meckling—who would remain dean for 19 years—was a noted economist best known for his analysis and leadership in support of an all-volunteer U.S. armed service. As dean, he committed the school to an economics-based approach to problem solving, recruited a leading faculty, required that all research at the school have an empirical orientation, initiated new finance and accounting journals that incorporated economics, eliminated traditional boundaries between functional departments, and transformed what had been a small, undergraduate and evening business school into a leading graduate business program.

As a result of work by Meckling and Michael C. Jensen—one of the faculty members he recruited—and other faculty members, the Simon became known for its contributions to the areas of finance, accounting, and organizational theory. The faculty’s contributions, in turn, helped shape the research agenda of a generation of business scholars around the world, influencing teaching in graduate business programs and changing how many companies and executives in the US and abroad conduct business.