Rohrer College of Business gala celebrates 50th anniversary

For one sparkling evening, Business Hall transformed into a resplendent banquet hall.

One of several events during 2022-23 recognizing the 50^th anniversary of the Rohrer College of Business’s founding, the RCB welcomed some 400 alumni, current and returning faculty and assorted friends of the college to a gala event April 28, a capstone to the yearlong celebration.

“We are all family,” said Linda Rohrer, a former Rowan University Board of Trustees chair whose family’s foundation, in the name of her late father, William, has given more than $17 million to support the RCB. “My father would be humbled to be here tonight. This is all about the students, and making their dreams come true.”

The college, which began as a small Department of Administrative Studies in Bunce Hall, now offers numerous majors and minors, as well as a popular MBA program and various certificates of undergraduate study, in Business Hall, a gleaming building on Rowan’s Glassboro campus that opened in 2017.

Dean Sue Lehrman said the event paid tribute not just to the college and all that it’s become over 50 years but to generations of students who found academic inspiration and launched careers there.

“The most exciting thing is the number of alumni who came back to be part of this tonight,” Lehrman said. “Yes, some graduated a year ago, and we’re thrilled to have them, but some graduated decades ago and for them to come back to celebrate with us says so much about this college and what it means to people.”

Rowan President Ali Houshmand said the college, which doubled enrollment since Business Hall opened, was representative of the university itself, which has more than doubled in size to 22,000 in-person and online students in just over ten years.

“Tonight, we celebrate this amazing school and the Rohrer family,” Houshmand said. “The University is really on the rise, just as this college is.”

Dr. Philip Tumminia, a longtime Rowan administrator who, more than anyone, helped cultivate a transformative $100 million gift to the institution from the late Henry Rowan, said the College of Business, as much as any at the University, represented Mr. Rowan’s vision.

“We wanted to transform Glassboro State College into a high quality, residential program,” Tumminia said. “When I see this college and this university, and the way it has transformed under Dr. Houshmand’s leadership, I know we were successful.”

Just days from graduating, marketing and management major Bryan Emery said a first job awaits him with international cosmetics giant L'Oréal and that wouldn’t have been likely had he not attended Rowan for his undergraduate education.

“I think it was all the Rohrer College of Business, from the support I got in class to the support I got out of class,” Emery said. “To land at a major company like that, right out of college, my freshman self would not have believed it.”