Facilities & Research Activities

The Leeds School of Business houses resources for the specific needs of business students. The facilities include: the Burridge Center for Securities Analysis and Valuation, the Business Research Division, Career Connections, the Center for Education on Social Responsibility, the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, MAD Greens, the MBA Business Center, the Office of Diversity Affairs, the Real Estate Center, the Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, smart classrooms, student lounges, Trep Café, Undergraduate Student Services, William M. White Business Library and Information Commons, and other amenities.

The William M. White Business Library (ucblibraries.colorado.edu/business) and Information Commons provides students with a wealth of information pertaining to the business world. Students have access to the business and other libraries via the university libraries online catalog. Many databases are accessible through the wireless network and off campus. These databases, both CD- and web-based, contain a myriad of full-text magazines and journals; business periodical indexes; corporate annual, 10-K, and proxy reports of all the public companies in the United States; short profiles of both American and international companies; demographic and business statistics; industry and market information; and investment reports written by Wall Street analysts. Over 50 computers provide access to the databases and the Internet, and technology-outfitted team rooms are available for group study. Knowledgeable librarians are always available to help navigate the search for information. The Information Commons is open 24 hours, seven days per week and contains 30 of the 50 computers with a full suite of software. These are accessible to students, faculty, and staff of the university. In addition, Leeds has 25 technology equipped team rooms. These rooms support group study and project work. They are available for reservation at leeds.colorado.edu/teamrooms.

The White Business Library is part of the University of Colorado library system, which includes more than two million volumes, more than five million microforms, and more than 24,000 periodicals and serials. The system is also a full depository for United States government, international, and state documents.

All classrooms in the Leeds School of Business are equipped up to campus “smart” classroom technology standards. Technologies in a typical Leeds classroom include: a desktop computer loaded with Microsoft Office Suite applications, video projection system, ceiling speakers for audio, DVD/VCR, iClicker base station, campus cable, and both wired and wireless Internet connections. All classrooms have the flexibility to support a personal laptop with connectivity in place to integrate with the video projection and sound system.

Business Research Division

Established in 1915, the Business Research Division is one of the earliest organized state service-oriented bureaus in the country. 

The Business Research Division conducts business, economic, and market research that contributes to the efficient use of Colorado’s resources and increases interest in and awareness of the Leeds School of Business. It also is the umbrella organization for the Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (RMTAAC). Through its annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook Forum, held in December, the division has established a base of knowledge that adds value to its work in other areas. In addition to providing businesses, government and nonprofits with information to help them make better-informed business and policy decisions, the division specializes in economic and fiscal analysis, market research, and custom research projects. It also prepares a Colorado leading economic indicator series, the Leeds Business Confidence Index. Research results are distributed through presentations and reports; a quarterly newsletter, the Colorado Business Review; and the division’s website.

Funding for center activities comes from the Leeds School of Business, the university, state agencies, the federal government, state and local business firms, and from the sale of research products and services.

RMTAAC is one of 11 centers across the nation funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce to manage the Trade Adjustment Act for Firms (TAAF) Program, which helps import-impacted U.S. firms develop and implement business recovery strategies to strengthen their competitiveness in the global marketplace. The TAAF Program is a cost-sharing federal grant program that pays a portion of professional consultant expenses or industry-specific expert services for projects that improve a firm’s competitiveness, thereby increasing sales and creating U.S. jobs. Benefits of the program include up to $75,000 in grant funds and 50/50 cost sharing for strategic projects.

Academic Centers

In addition to the Business Research Division, the school has five centers linking academic programs and the business community—the endowed Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, the Center for Real Estate, the Burridge Center for Securities and Valuation, the Center for Education on Social Responsibility (CESR), and the Center for Business Integration.

The Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship

As part of the Leeds School of Business, the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship's mission is to inspire and empower students, community, alumni, faculty and staff through entrepreneurship education and partnership with the community. The Deming Center does this in part by educating, engaging and partnering, and focusing on student experience.

Cutting-edge Curriculum. Our progressive curriculum and interdisciplinary programs include:

• courses in entrepreneurial finance, marketing, and business planning
• interdisciplinary programs in engineering, business, law, and environmental studies
• undergraduate business minor with a Certificate of Entrepreneurship for students across campus
• undergraduate Certificate of Entrepreneurship for Leeds students
• MBA concentration in entrepreneurship
• world renowned PhD program in entrepreneurship

The Deming Center supports the entrepreneurial curriculum and advances the Leeds School’s leadership agenda through our collaborative initiatives across campus and in the business community in these key areas:

• Education. Our entrepreneurship students have access to a world class entrepreneurship faculty. The faculty are involved in collecting, curating and making available the latest research and thinking on entrepreneurship in the world. These faculty are inspiring and directing new research and thought leadership in entrepreneurship and constantly working with thought leaders to develop and stay ahead of the latest trends and tools for entrepreneurship education.
• Real World Experience. Our entrepreneurship students are challenged to turn accepted thinking on its head—in the classroom, in real-world industry projects, and by the business innovators serving as student mentors and advisors. The center helps connect students with projects, advisors, and internships that challenge them to use their new skills creatively.
• Student Experience. Staff and faculty at Deming are focused on delivering an outstanding student experience. Deming promotes the development of entrepreneurial thinkers and doers. Entrepreneurial thinkers and doers are optimistic, resilient, resourceful, persistent, calculated risk-takers, efficient, creative problem solvers, and effective workers. These are teachable skills any student is capable of learning.
• The Community. Boulder is consistently named one of the best places in the country to launch a startup. The center connects students to industry leaders via the Deming Network—an active group of world-class entrepreneurs and innovators who are accessible and hands-on. CU-Boulder is also a top research university. Across campus, the Deming Center helps students access opportunities in technology transfer and the engineering, law, biofrontiers, and environmental science programs

Real Estate Center

The Real Estate Center, founded in 1995, is supported by an industry council with the goal of advancing academic excellence in real estate education and scholarship. The center oversees the school’s real estate teaching programs and advises the faculty in designing an integrated curriculum at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Course work is drawn from the law school, the colleges of architecture and engineering, construction management, and others.

The center creates real-world experiences for students by providing project course work and being a resource for securing internships, mentors, and jobs. It also provides support for faculty teaching and research activities in real estate and, through the Real Estate Foundation, assists the university with its real estate portfolio. 

Burridge Center for Securities Analysis and Valuation

The Burridge Center for Securities Analysis and Valuation is dedicated to encouraging and supporting the creation and dissemination of new knowledge about the world financial markets with an emphasis on the U.S. financial markets by:

• facilitating the exchange of ideas and knowledge between professional investment managers, finance scholars, policy makers, and the investing public;
• identifying critical research issues in the theory and practice of security analysis and valuation; and 
• encouraging and supporting rigorous qualitative and quantitative research on topics relevant and useful to money managers, valuation experts, and finance academics.

Center for Education on Social Responsibility (CESR)

Ethics are discovered, not taught. Even routine decisions can have tremendous and often unseen potential to do harm or good—to colleagues, society, even the whole planet. Often, the most consequential decisions and actions seem routine at the time they’re made—just another day at the office.

That’s why CESR has redefined ethics and social responsibility education. They make it personal. They don’t simply offer a class to teach rules handed down from philosophers or case studies about CEOs who lost their way.

CESR delivers an ongoing values development and self-discovery experience. It’s infused in all subject areas. It’s internalized by students through an ongoing process of action learning and unconventional classroom techniques. This applied approach is built into core curricula throughout the business school, highly unusual in academia.

Self-discovered values are more resilient than those that come from books. Once students discover their values, CESR illustrates how to protect and apply them. That requires critical thinking, every day. It requires constantly asking the right questions—stepping out of routine actions to anticipate consequences for colleagues, customers, organizations and society, and to create opportunities to do good.

Asking those questions is a constantly engaged risk management skill that’s highly valuable to business. Equally important, it’s a constantly-engaged mechanism for setting sights higher than compliance. And that often spurs creativity and innovation that creates social value as well as competitive advantage and financial returns for business.

CESR’s goal is to help students become outstanding business leaders of tomorrow by preparing them to meet the ethical challenges posed by a highly competitive, globally-connected business world. Accordingly, CESR oversees the infusion of values and social responsibility discussions throughout the undergraduate and graduate curricula at the Leeds School of Business. As part of the central mission at Leeds, CESR creates pedagogies that are national models and plays a leadership role carrying out the school’s commitment to developing leaders of conscience. Although CESR’s primary focus is on excellence in curriculum development and delivery, the center also undertakes a broad spectrum of initiatives including a certificate program, student organizations, conferences, and other extracurricular offerings. CESR also provides funding and support for faculty research.

Courses. CESR is directly responsible for course development, staffing, and coordination of the required courses: Introduction to Business (freshman level) and Business Applications of Social Responsibility (junior level). CESR offers leading edge electives such as CESR 4000 Leadership Challenges: Exercises in Moral Courage, CESR 4005 Business Solutions for the Developing World: Learning through Service and CESR/ACCT 4827 Integrated Reporting for Socially Responsible Strategies.

Certificate and Portfolio. Undergraduates wishing to focus on CESR-related topics may earn the Certificate in Socially Responsible Enterprise (SRE). At the MBA level, CESR is responsible for the required Socially Responsible Enterprise course, and electives such as MBAX 6845 Social Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets and MBAX 6825 Topics in Sustainable Business, two of the four options for MBAs to acquire the sustainability portfolio.

CESR Co-Curricular Activities:

• CESR Stampede at Leeds: A Week of Driving Values in Business. This weeklong event showcases the values-driven and innovative curriculum developed by the CESR that is shaping tomorrow's business leaders. Through class visits, expert panels and lectures, student competitions and showcases, attendees will explore their own values and network with like-minded professionals about applying positive values in a business setting. Stampede Week also includes the fourth annual Conscious Capitalism Conference, a CESR flagship event.
• Conscious Capitalism Conference. An annual conference hosted by CESR featuring innovative executives and entrepreneurs who have used the traditional tools of capitalism to serve social needs. 
• Student Center for Social Entrepreneurship (SCSE). CESR provides faculty sponsorship for SCSE, the student branch of Social Entrepreneurship for Equitable Development (SCSE@CU), an interdisciplinary, inter-generational campus group that is involved in researching, teaching, and generating student involvement in the areas of social entrepreneurship and sustainable community development.
• Net Impact Club. CESR is home to a graduate chapter of Net Impact, an international non-profit organization whose mission is to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.
• New Venture Challenge Social Impact Track. CESR developed and is hope to the social impact track of the CU New Venture Challenge, a campus-wide initiative connecting students and faculty with teammates in a broad range of disciplines and with mentors from the business community. The goal is to provide knowledge and experience making entrepreneurship accessible to anyone on the CU-Boulder campus with the enthusiasm and creativity required to start a new business.

Career Opportunities

Leeds School of Business graduates are prepared for positions in the following fields:

• Accounting—public, private, nonprofit, and governmental
• Banking and other financial institutions
• Consulting
• Corporate financial management
• Entrepreneurship and small business management
• Financial analysis
• Human resources management
• Information systems
• International business
• Investment management
• Management consulting and organization management
• Marketing and sales management
• Nonprofit management
• Operations management
• Real estate
• Retailing
• Taxation
• Technology management
• Transportation
• Venture capital

Other graduates hold positions in fields as diverse as business journalism, public relations, city planning, chamber of commerce and trade association management, college administration, and government. The entrepreneurial area of application prepares students to start their own business ventures to take positions in emerging growth companies and the venture capital industry.

Professional Mentorship Program

The Professional Mentorship Program (PMP) is a unique program that offers one-on-one professional mentoring to current undergraduate students. The program’s mission is to enhance business education at the Leeds School by offering hands-on learning, professional skills development, leadership opportunities, and a sense of connection and community among current students, Leeds alumni, and corporate partners. PMP mentors prepare and inspire our students to become the next generation of strong business leaders.

This two-year program matches students with executives or high-level business professionals who align by industry, geographic location, or functional area. To ensure a quality experience for both students and mentors, the PMP provides workshops, training, and additional support for participants throughout the program.

Program Benefits

Through this program, students gain an additional level of advising and career counseling from a business professional. Through the mentoring relationships, students can explore choice of majors, potential for graduate school, work-life balance, and effective networking and job search strategies.

Other potential benefits of being involved in the PMP include:

• Advice and assistance on academic questions, career options, life beyond college, and more
• Access to the PMP network and networking opportunities and the opportunity to start building the student's own professional network
• Opportunities to practice and strengthen professional communication and presentation skills
• Help in defining personal and professional goals, and the strategies to achieve them
• Unique internship and job opportunities
• Development of a life-long friend and connection in the business world

Contact Information

Website: leedsmentoring.colorado.edu/about
E-mail: leedspmp@colorado.edu
Office: Koelbel S220C
Phone: 303-492-5881

Study Abroad

Study abroad programs are available for students interested in international business or in cultural experiences abroad. The college-sponsored London Seminar in International Finance and Business is a five-week-long program held each summer in the financial district of London and is open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

Student Organizations

Listed below are undergraduate organizations that promote professional interests and provide recognition of scholastic attainment:

• Alpha Kappa Psi
• ABC—Athletic Business Club
• Art of Fashion Club
• Beta Alpha Psi
• Business and Film Club
• Business of Sports Club
• Collegiate DECA
• Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization
• Collegiate Social Impact Initiatives
• CU Energy Club
• CU Finance Club
• CU American Marketing Association
• CU Investment Club
• CU Society for Human Resources Management
• Dart Project
• Delta Sigma Pi
• CU GBLA Business Leaders Alliance
• Graduate Finance Club
• Graduate Real Estate
• International Business Club
• Leeds Ambassadors
• Leeds Association of Info Systems
• Leeds Council (Undergraduate Student Government)
• Multicultural Business Student Alliance
• MBA National Association of Women
• Music Industry Club
• Net Impact
• Real Estate Club
• Peer-2-Peer Mentors
• Women in Business Club

Leeds School of Business Student Government

Leeds Council is the governing body of the Leeds School of Business that strives to serve, support, and represent the student body. The council also works to make Leeds a better business school through social, academic, and professional programming. The council is made up of five primary committees and an executive board that control a significant portion of the Leeds student fees.

Two members of Leeds Council also serve as representatives on University of Colorado Student Government (CUSG) to voice the interests of business students at the main campus.

Graduation Recognition Ceremony

Every December and May, the Office of the Dean and the Leeds Business Student Government sponsor a recognition ceremony honoring the graduating class, in addition to the university-wide commencement. Graduates and their families are invited to attend.