School of Business Administration
Downtown College, home of the Schools of Law and Sociology, College of Commerce, and the Graduate School, circa 1920s
Credit: Loyola University Chicago Archives & Special Collections
A total of 85 made up the first class of the School of Business Administration under its first dean, Thomas J. Reedy, A.M., LL.B. and C.P.A. Subjects included accounting, business law, economics, English and European history. Later, courses were added in advanced accounting, cost accounting, advanced economics and advertising.
When the School was established there were less than 50 colleges of commerce throughout the U.S. Loyola recognized that business was the particular genius of America and that its young men and women ought to be formally prepared to manage a society, which was becoming increasingly more industrialized and more technology-oriented. The School of Business Administration was first situated in the Ashland Block Building at Clark and Randolph unil 1927 when it held classes at 28 North Franklin Street until its final move in 1946 to the university's downtown campus, Lewis Towers.
One of the early programs instituted at the school by Dean Henry T. Chamberlain was the highly regarded review course for the Certified Public Accountants examination conducted by the State of Illinois.