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IU'S KELLEY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS SETS ITSELF APART
WITH ACCOUNTING COMPUTER CLASSROOM AND LAB
EDITORS: You or a reporter are invited to join several members of Ernst & Young at an official unveiling of the new teaching facility, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Friday (Oct. 23) at Business 200. For more information, contact George Vlahakis, IU Office of Communications and Marketing, at 812-855-3911 or gvlahaki@indiana.edu.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Students at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business now have a new set of tools to help them prepare for careers in information systems. With a grant from Ernst & Young LLP, its foundation, and IU graduates at the nation's fastest-growing professional services firm, the school has established the Ernst & Young Center for Technology and Knowledge Management.
At the core of the new Ernst & Young Center is a $600,000 state-of-the-art computer classroom and laboratory, which will be dedicated at a public event Friday (Oct. 23).
"Ernst & Young prides itself on its use of the latest business technologies and its vast intellectual capital," said Todd Blake of Ernst & Young's Management Consulting Group. "With the opening of this new center at Indiana University, students will have similar technologies and business knowledge available to them as they train and prepare for their careers."
The high-tech classroom contains 58 student workstations that will allow students to connect heir notebook computers to a server that utilizes the most advanced Pentium II processor and information systems software. This server also will enable students to access the campus computer network and the Internet.
In addition, the facility features three break-out rooms which can be used as hands-on learning labs where students will learn how to build computers and connect them to a local area network.
As they build information systems, students using the classroom will have access to some of the same tools available to Ernst & Young professionals, including the company's own Navigator Systems Series [SM] methodology. The center also is equipped to train students on programming languages such as Java, database management systems such as Oracle, and enterprise resource planning software such as SAP's R/3 package.
Jamie Pratt, IU chair and professor of accounting and information systems, said the new center and its technology reflect the changing nature of the learning environment in the Kelley School of Business. "In addition to helping IU students, the Ernst & Young Center will change the way instructors view their role. As faculty members make the transition from the chalkboard to a new technological setup, they'll be able to manage the learning process together with the students.
"Years ago, it was unidirectional. Now with the technology there is so much more interaction between the students and the faculty, among the students themselves, and between both groups and the outside world. It becomes more of a question of learning how to access and use this knowledge," he added. "In the real world, the problems and challenges the students will face change every day, and there is no single formula that can be used to solve those problems. It becomes more about knowing where your resources are and how you can marshal them in a way that addresses the problem at hand."
Ernst & Young LLP provides assurance and advisory business services, tax services and consulting for domestic and global clients. The firm, which is the U.S. member of a worldwide organization with 82,000 people in 131 countries, has offices in 87 U.S. cities. Its Web site is at http://www.ey.com
For more than three quarters of a century, IU's Kelley School of Business has been at the forefront of curriculum innovation. Its programs are consistently judged to be among the best in the nation. Its undergraduate programs were ranked fifth best by U.S. News & World Report, and its MBA program consistently ranks among Business Week's top 25 programs. Its graduates are recruited by leading national retailers as well as other top U.S. companies.
(George Vlahakis, IU Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0846, gvlahaki@indiana.edu or Todd Blake, Ernst & Young LLP, 212-773-5767, todd.blake@ey.com)