Twenty years ago when Jerry Rinehart came from a job at the College of Liberal Arts to the Carlson School, “Business was just beginning to be not the worst major on campus.”

Today, demand to enroll in Carlson’s Undergraduate Studies is so high that the program will be housed in a new building by 2008. And rather than the popular but mundane major that it was in the 1970s, Rinehart said, a business degree from the University of Minnesota became one of the most competitive and prestigious degrees. The Carlson School undergraduate program now ranks with the College of Biological Sciences as the most difficult University school to get into, and it is ranked in the top ten of public business schools in the country.

“Now they’re the most capable students at the University,” Rinehart said of Carlson undergrads.

After driving this transformation, Assistant Dean and Director of Undergraduate Studies Jerry Rinehart will be taking a new position as the University’s new associate vice provost and chief student affairs officer. He begins this position August 11.

Click here to learn more about Jerry's tenure, see photos of the past, and read staff member tributes.