Meehan School of Business to launch honors program

By Annie Renz 

Twenty-five incoming Skyhawks will be the first members of the new Business Honors Program at Stonehill College this fall.  

The Leo J. Meehan School of Business announced on March 24 the new program, formed out of student interest in business-focused offerings within the Moreau Honors Program.  

The long-running Moreau Honors Program has provided academically motivated students with small, interdisciplinary courses in the arts and sciences.  

The Business Honors Program will continue that sense of academic pursuit in a business-oriented setting, the college said. 

Makenna Smith, a junior finance major who is in the Moreau Honors Program, said she wished the Moreau Program offered more business-based honors classes and is excited there will be a program dedicated to business studies.  

“For honors courses I took an English, first year writing, and microeconomics. Of the three I can strongly say only the microeconomics course pushed me in an academic sense,” said Smith.  

Suzanne Edinger, an associate professor of Management, will lead the Business Honors Program.  

“The idea has been around since last academic year. [Dean of Meehan] John Dugan proposed the idea to the faculty,” she said. “One of the driving factors is student interest in something like this, making sure that our high achieving students really have an outlet that’s directly related to the career that they think they want to pursue.” 

The Business Honors Program courses will be taught in a cohort style. Students enrolled in the program will take four honors section classes with the Meehan School plus an abroad preparation seminar. 

Edinger said the BHP will include a cohort-based study abroad program, which she says will help differentiate it from both Stonehill’s Moreau Program as well as other business honors programs at other schools. 

BHP students will study abroad at the Kemmy Business School in Limerick, Ireland their sophomore spring semester.  

“We have an agreement with them. It’s all in place and ready to go,” said Edinger. “Our students will go there and live in dorms with other students at the school.” 

The Kemmy Business School is AACSB-accredited, just like Stonehill. Edinger said this will make it easy for BHP students to transfer their business classes to Stonehill.

“Students having some international experience will give them a better understanding of how to lead people or how to work with people who might be quite different from themselves,” said Edinger. “We’re hoping that with this focus on leadership, using a study abroad program and ethical leadership course as well as programming that we’ll offer as part of the Business Honors Program, we’ll graduate a set of students who are really interested in going out and driving ethical leadership and understanding of people who are different from themselves in the organizations they work for.” 

The college said students enrolled in the Business Honors Program are expected to lead amongst their peers within the Meehan School by designing programs for fellow students, developing lasting relationships with alumni, and encouraging collaboration between students and campus partners.  

Edinger said not only will the BHP encourage students to become more involved in the Meehan School and campus at large, but the program will also see more external involvement. She hopes the program will boost more externship work as well as bring in more speakers to foster stronger connections with local organizations.  

The BHP can raise the profile of Meehan and Stonehill as a whole. Edinger said she would love for the program eventually to drive additional admissions by reaching students who wouldn’t have applied to Stonehill otherwise.  

Junior Finance Major Mike Soliman said high-achieving students will thrive under this new program because of its specialized, career-focused academic path.  

“I see it strengthening the Meehan School by attracting more ambitious students, raising its academic reputation, and creating a clearer point of differentiation,” he said. “It will also help Stonehill overall by improving student competitiveness with other schools.” 

Makenna Smith said the Moreau Honors Program was not a deciding factor for her choosing Stonehill. She does believe, though, that the addition of the Business Honors Program could bring in students who might choose a school like Providence or Bentley. 

Katie Farr, a junior accounting major and member of the Moreau Honors Advisory Council, said the addition of a business-focused honors program is “necessary and practical” because of the increase in incoming business students.  

“I think adding a business honors program opens doors for students to excel within their major at the highest level,” she said. “Those individuals who are at the top of their class in the business school deserve important recognition.” 

In the College’s announcement, John Duggan, dean of the Meehan School, said the addition of a Business Honors Program is “an innovative next step” to making Meehan a premier learning destination for aspiring business students.  

At the end of March, 11 incoming Skyhawks put down their deposits as the first Stonehill Business Honors Program students. The goal is 25 students.