On a recent visit to Athens, poet and poetry Terry College undergraduate program reimagines business education through AI integration, global co-major hands-on client projects, and career engine established to directly connect students and employers
At the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, leaders talk about innovation the same way most business schools talk about strategy. As something that needs to show up everywhere, not just on one signature course or a flashy new center.
This means integrating analytics across undergraduate curricula, expanding student access to AI training, and redesigning assessment for a world where generative tools are always within reach. It also means building the everyday infrastructure that helps undergraduates turn opportunities into internships, offers, and confidence.
“We intend to integrate analytics into all curricula,” said Dr. Henry Munneke, associate dean for undergraduate programs. poet and poetry During a recent visit to Terry’s campus in Athens. “We will make AI courses accessible to people at all levels.”
A curriculum built with an eye on what’s next
Anika Bhattacharyya: “The reason you can’t make meaningful connections on telly is because you literally haven’t left your dorm.”
Muneke is equally focused on a second, more difficult goal: maintaining critical thinking.
“When you think about higher education, it’s critical thinking,” he says. “If you’re not thinking critically, you need to understand how big of a problem it is.”
For Annika Bhattacharyya, a Suwanee, Georgia, native majoring in accounting and economics who plans to graduate in May 2026, the balance of rigor and access was one of the reasons she was drawn to Terry in the first place.
Bhattacharyya, who was accepted into the high school’s pipeline initiative called the Accelerated Business Program, says it gave her an early window into telly culture. “We met with a lot of Terry’s faculty and the USS office,” she says, recalling staff sharing “what Terry offers, what the curriculum is, how many resources there are.”
“The amount of what this school has to offer was truly incredible,” she added.
AI everywhere – with rules and reality
Henry Munneke: “When you think about higher education, it’s about critical thinking. If you’re not thinking critically, you have to understand how big of a problem that can be.”
Terry’s AI strategy is not built on the idea that all students will become developers. The goal is to build faculty support for areas that change from week to week, and to develop broad literacy and responsible usage across majors.
“Whether you think of AI as just hype or as the next best thing, it won’t get you anywhere,” says Dr. Mark Ragin, associate professor of risk management and insurance.
Ragin points to the pressures currently facing business education. Employers already expect graduates to be more competent in AI than the generation that managed them.
“I think we need to teach students how to use AI responsibly and ethically,” he says. “But I also think employers expect them to be better at using AI than the oldest generation when they get to work.”
In response, Terry launched an AI task force with an aggressive schedule and multiple breakout sessions focused on employer input, classroom integration, and faculty productivity.
“We’re trying to align with our industry partners,” Reizin said, describing focus groups with major employers who hire Terry’s students.
Terry leaders say they can move forward more quickly by updating existing courses and revamping assessments, rather than waiting for lengthy approvals to create entirely new classes.
“It’s affecting all the courses,” Muneke said. “We need to incorporate that into everything.”
This change is already forcing us to rethink how we assess students. Reijin, who is taking over the risk management major’s capstone course, is replacing 50-page papers written over many years with simulated market interactions and live conferences designed to reflect how the industry actually works.
“Perhaps with the help of AI, I’m evaluating what they’re saying to each other and the artifacts they put together,” he says. “When they sit at that table, they really know what they’re talking about.”
AI certificate – and what it shows
Gerald “Jerry” Cain: “We’re not going to make you an AI developer. But we can provide the practical knowledge that will make you the AI person in the room.”
One of Terry’s most notable moves is the newly launched Undergraduate AI Certificate. Early numbers suggest it’s hitting a nerve.
“We launched on October 1st,” says Dr. Jerry Kane, Director of Management Information Systems. “212 students applied and 112 were accepted.”
Kane said half of the students who enrolled were from non-MIS majors, such as finance or marketing. This is a five-course program, with the goal of having a stable enrollment of approximately 200 students at any given time. There are also long-term plans to incorporate courses from other departments, such as AI in Finance and AI in Marketing.
Within MIS, Cain says the department has integrated AI into all four core courses and pivoted programming languages from Java to Python.
Cain said the goal of the required MIS course, which all Terry students take, is to ensure that second-year students receive basic training in AI literacy, rapid engineering, and ethical use.
For the seniors graduating this year, the award serves as a symbol of Terry’s pace. Daniela Villalobos, a marketing major who will graduate in 2026, said one thing people outside of Georgia may not realize is that Terry is already building.
“I’m very sad. I wish I had done it because I’m about to graduate,” she says. “It’s not going away. It’s only going to get bigger. It’s here for the long term.”
Mr. Kane frames his purpose in practical terms.
“We’re not going to make you AI developers,” he tells his students. “But we can provide practical knowledge that will make you the AI person in the room.”
International Business Minor – Globalization of Every Degree
Kari Sicard: “When we reached out to companies, we found that they were looking for truly global-minded employees.”
If AI is reshaping how work gets done, Telly leaders say, global fluency is increasingly defining how work gets done.
That idea lies behind one of the university’s quiet structural innovations: the international business minor, designed not as a second field of study but as a way to internationalize students’ major areas of expertise.
“That doesn’t mean it’s a double major that students can apply for,” explains International Business Program Specialist Kari Sicard. “It’s the minor that actually changes the major to internationalize it.”
For example, marketing students can replace their traditional coursework with an international marketing class while completing their required foreign language studies. The program also mandates an international immersion experience.
The model is working. Approximately 84% of students in the minor complete a study abroad program and approximately 15.6% pursue an international internship.
Terry has dramatically expanded the financial support behind these experiences. Annual funding through the Passport Terry Scholarship Program has increased from approximately $50,000 to $320,000, supporting nearly 200 students in the most recent cycle. All students who demonstrated financial need received aid.
“This is a really great way for them to get that experience,” Sicard said.
As employer expectations evolve, the university is also expanding its geographic footprint. The program now spans Europe, South America, and Asia, with new programs offered in Vietnam and Uruguay, and the recently added program in India, in part related to the country’s growing role in technology and AI.
A particularly notable pilot is an undergraduate consulting program in Uruguay that places students inside companies to solve real-world business problems. This is an experience commonly associated with an MBA education.
“Our students will be doing consulting projects with Uruguayan companies. This is to give them consulting experience that undergraduates don’t usually get,” Sicard said.
This push reflects what Terry has heard from recruiters.
“As we reached out to companies, we learned that they were looking for truly global-minded employees,” Sicard says.
Even graduates who remain in the United States are increasingly working within multinational organizations, she notes.
“Many of them are international companies,” she says. “So even if you don’t plan on living abroad, you probably have colleagues who are going abroad or who are from overseas.”
For Terry administrators, who are building a future-ready undergraduate program, the implications are clear. Technical literacy alone is no longer enough.
Students must be able to work across borders, cultures, and time zones. The minor is designed to incorporate the competency directly into the degree, rather than treating it as an optional add-on.
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