The risk management and insurance program at Florida State University's College of Business took the fourth spot among public institutions, moving up three places on U.S. News and World Report's undergraduate rankings of "Best Business Programs" released Friday.

The U.S. News list also ranked FSU's undergraduate real estate program at 11th and its department of management information systems as 14th among public institutions. The College of Business as a whole, meanwhile, secured 29th place among public undergraduate business schools.

"Florida State University's College of Business has excellent faculty and some of the top programs in the country," said Caryn L. Beck-Dudley, dean of the college. "We are very pleased that we continue to receive national recognition for the quality of our programs and of our faculty."

The honor tops off a list of recent success marks by the college, including:

• the management information systems department placing in the top 10 for research productivity, according to an article in Communications of the Association of Information Systems;



• the Dedman School of Hospitality faculty being the eighth most cited faculty, according to an article in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education.

The U.S. News individual program rankings are based on surveys of deans and senior faculty at undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

"We are pleased to be recognized by other institutions as being among the nation's premier programs," said Dean Gatzlaff, chairman of the risk management/insurance, real estate and business law department. He credits the increased prestige to the faculty's hard work, alumni support that enables the department to recruit exceptional faculty and the program's increased visibility at the national level.

As for management information systems, department Chairman David Paradice said the Communications of the Association of Information Systems ranking validates the faculty's long-standing contribution to the MIS field as scholars.

"This will help us attract high-quality doctoral students who are critical to continuing this productivity," Paradice said. Much of our research makes its way into the classroom, so I believe this recognition increases the value of our undergraduate and masters students' degrees for the companies that recruit our graduates."

"We're proud that we're also contributing to the college's quest for preeminence," he said.

For more information about the College of Business, please go to www.cob.fsu.edu.