Turner Business

CSU has partnered with Follett Higher Education to launch Cougar Outfitters, the university’s newly transformed on-campus retail and course materials destination. Operated by Follett, North America’s largest campus retailer, Cougar Outfitters represents a significant upgrade to both the in-person and online campus bookstore experience.  Most notably, the name “Cougar Outfitters”—chosen with input from student leaders—signals a shift from the traditional bookstore concept to a one-stop shop for every Cougar. Although its Main Campus location in the Davidson Student Center remains the same, the reimagined bookstore will elevate student success by offering affordable course materials and updated technology services, while also promoting campus spirit through a broader range of products and events.  “We are excited to launch this new chapter at Columbus State University,” said Kim Scranage, the university’s chief student officer. "Cougar Outfitters, through our partnership with Fo...

According to a new report by the Ledger-Enquirer 's Jordyn-Paul Slater, StartUP Columbus is now accepting applications for its LaunchCon Pitch Competition happening on November 13, 2026. The competition is a live business pitch event designed to give emerging entrepreneurs access to capital, exposure, and support as they work to grow their businesses. In conjunction with report, Executive Director Ben MacMinn stated that StartUP Columbus will again be partnering with the Turner College in hosting the event, during which the top-placed competitor will be awarded $40,000. MacMinn added that an added benefit of the competition is that the contestants will be pitching to a crowd of investors and peer entrepreneurs. Links to the LaunchCon application is available via StartUP Columbus' website.

With the Turner College opting to delay the search to replace former Dean Deborah Kidder , Acting Dean Tesa Leonce and Acting Associate Dean John Finley begin the 2026-2027 academic year with the titles "Interim Dean" and "Interim Associate Dean," respectively. CSU currently has a number of high-level position searches going, and the search for the new Turner College dean should join the group next month. Kidder, who was removed as Turner College dean late in fall semester 2025, is now the business school dean at Kutztown University. Last week CSU President Stuart Rayfield reported to the CSU community that the administration  continues to closely monitor enrollment and retention efforts, and that she is cautiously optimistic about the fall based on all the early indicators the central administration monitors daily. "As the new fiscal year begins, our budgets serve as an important reminder of how these efforts are tied to our bottom line," Rayfield explai...

A new study by Turner College MISM professor Insung Hwang and Lehigh University's Andreea Kiss, Naomi Rothman and Willy Das  investigates the effects of entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence on a form of adaptive action referred to as venture idea revision. Building on the affect-as-information perspective, Hwang and his co-authors propose that entrepreneurial subjective ambivalence will increase venture idea revision by increasing information search behaviors. The results of a longitudinal, repeated-measures field study based on 175 entrepreneurs in a top incubator program demonstrate that when entrepreneurs experience higher subjective ambivalence (compared to lower ambivalence) in response to mentor feedback about their new ventures, they engage in higher levels of venture idea revision. Hwang et al. theorize and find that this increase in venture idea revision arises because subjective ambivalence is positively associated with more intense and broader information search behav...

TSYS School alum Kaylee Dodson is building a career protecting what matters most in today’s digital world: data. As an information governance analyst at Aflac, she plays a key role in safeguarding sensitive information and helping her organization stay secure in an increasingly complex cyber landscape. Her path to this role was not traditional, but it was shaped by determination, mentorship, and the opportunities she found at CSU.  When Dodson enrolled at CSU, she initially planned to study finance until she found a direction that felt right. That changed when she was introduced to the university’s Cybersecurity Nexus Program. With no prior background in technology, stepping into cybersecurity required a steep learning curve that she called “a complete culture shock, and my brain kind of melted at first.”  Her path between high school in her native Fayetteville, Georgia, and college wasn’t a straight one. She took a break from school after starting her college studies to work...

We continue our look at enrollment issues in the Turner College's graduate business programs by looking back to a Turner Business post from 11-August of 2025 . That post examined SCH production by Turner College faculty across all fall 2025 course sections in the MBA and MSOL programs. As that post noted, all sections from fall 2025 generated 1,233 SCH. The table below provides the same information for fall 2026, but in a slightly different way. The fall 2025 numbers are included for comparison, while some revenue figures are added to the analysis. The shaded entries denote staffing adjustments. As the table above indicates, SCH production in all but one of the MBA and MSOL program course sections for the fall 2026 is down, and in some cases quite dramatically so. While total SCH production for fall 2025 was 1,233, the same set of courses are generating only 801 SCH this coming fall (i.e., fall 2026). Last fall, tuition and fees from these courses came to $557,316. So far, this fa...