On the night before a 16-team event that offered a big prize and a bold experience, SouthState Bank executive Mark Thompson gave participants a pep talk – not about the competition but about their ambition.

Toward one end of the shiny third floor of the Rovetta Business Annex, she grabs your attention. Her face, and especially her smile, dominate an encased poster that tells you: "She lived with the future in mind." A few steps from there, a sign at an entranceway reminds you that Persis E. Rockwood lives on. "The Rockwood School of Marketing," said Mike Brady, director of the school and the Bob Sasser Professor of Marketing. "I can't read that – or say that – enough."

In a room full of women at the Florida State University College of Business, Bethany Schenk gestured to her PowerPoint presentation and got – better yet, stayed – fired up. "I love this line: 'I might only have one match, but I can make an explosion,'" she told students.

Florida State University feted the 2022 Jim Moran Scholars at a reception Thursday evening. A group that included FSU President Richard McCullough and past Jim Moran Scholars joined in the festivities honoring the 2022 scholars, Darrell Worrell and Stephanie Adebaworin. “They are among Florida State’s best and brightest, and we look forward to everything they will accomplish in the future,” McCullough said in a brief welcoming address. 

The Florida State University College of Business stood strong among the nation's best on U.S. News & World Report's 2023 rankings of online master's degrees and MBA specialties.

Dr. William T. Hold asked hundreds of students to raise a hand if they'd ever been told that they could be anything they wanted to be. Up went the hands. "That's probably one of the biggest lies you've ever been told – maybe the biggest lie you've ever been told – because regardless of how much I want to be a brain surgeon, an astronaut or the next Tom Brady, that's not going to happen," Hold said. "But the important part is that you can own your potential."

It's not entirely the how or the why. "It's the who," Jack Stephans says. Stephans is referring to his experience as a top student in the Florida State University College of Business, where he says he has excelled through the help of administrators, faculty members, fellow students and alumni, among others.

Securing their standing among the nation's best, Florida State University's College of Business' undergraduate programs in Insurance and Real Estate once again made the short list of top schools in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges 2023 Guidebook" released today. The Dr. William T. Hold/The National Alliance Program in Risk Management and Insurance ranks No. 3 among all schools, and the real estate program maintained its No. 5 ranking among public schools. The college also earned a No. 20 ranking among public schools in marketing, while accounting moved up three spots to No. 21.

A game-changing $10 million gift to the Florida State University College of Business will establish the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood School of Marketing in honor of the late trailblazing FSU professor emerita and will provide transformational support to marketing students and faculty members in the nationally ranked program.

Barry Diskin built a reputation as a demanding professor who inspired thanks from his students. Bill Hillison demonstrated a marathon work ethic that included a "weird" all-day office schedule. And the late Bob Marshall exuded a magnetism that made him a "wise counselor" to everyone. They became the newest inductees into the Charles A. Rovetta Faculty Hall of Fame during the recent 2022 College of Business Faculty and Staff Awards Dinner and Ceremony at the Turnbull Conference Center.