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And with 307 students enrolled in the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics and Government heading into the 2004-2005 school year, the business school near Latrobe is looking forward to its biggest development yet.

On Aug. 1, contractors are expected to finish renovating the school's new home. Four of seven floors in Aurelius Hall are undergoing a $3.5 million transformation into a state-of-the-art facility, complete with a sun-lit, two-story atrium entranceway, offices for professors that are larger than broom closets, conference and meeting rooms, and even an incubator to help new companies get off the ground. Move-in is slated prior to Dec. 31.

Formation of the McKenna school began more than four years ago.

It began with an informal conversation between the Saint Vincent's chancellor, the Rt. Rev. Douglas R. Nowicki, who is archabbot of Saint Vincent Archabbey, and T. William Boxx, chairman of the Philip M. McKenna Foundation Inc.

The idea they discussed was to bring together disciplines that existed at Saint Vincent, combine them with other business-related entities and create a new school of business -- all under one umbrella.

"The archabbot initiated discussions with me in 2000 on ways to further improve the business offerings of the college," Boxx said. "We had achieved (success) in working with economics and political science, and the public policy center associated with them."

Like many traditional liberal arts colleges and universities looking to expand curriculums and increase attendance, 1,400-student Saint Vincent saw promise in melding business-related parts into a unified business school program. But with a twist -- adding a four-year bachelor's program.

"It's been a general trend ongoing for some time" at traditional liberal arts colleges, said Douglas Viehland, executive director of the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, an Overland Park, Kan., accreditation agency for business education. "Many schools are adding two-year associate programs, or perhaps a masters of business administration component, rather than a four-year bachelor's program."

Starting a four-year business school requires significant funding, for classrooms, equipment, supplies, courses and professors to teach those courses.

"We were very fortunate to have the McKenna foundations as benefactors," said Gary Quinlivan, the McKenna School's dean and former chairman of Saint Vincent's economics, political science and public policy departments.

The Philip M. and Katherine Mabis McKenna foundations had a history dating to the mid-1970s of partnering with Saint Vincent.

That history was based on the friendship between the late Alex G. McKenna and the late the Rev. Cecil G. Diethrich, president of the college. McKenna, who was then chairman of the foundations, also was the founding general partner and chairman, president and chief executive of Kennametal Inc., the Latrobe-based industrial tool maker.

The foundation contributed $5 million.

"Of the $5 million endowment, 60 percent would be used to support the salaries of the professors hired, $1 million would be used for technology-related support and the other $1 million would be used for operational support," said Quinlivan, a Saint Vincent professor since 1981, and from 1989 to 2001, an adjunct economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Finding the right professors, Ph.Ds in their fields, was a challenge.

"Accounting and marketing Ph.Ds are extremely difficult to find," said Quinlivan. "The going rate for accounting Ph.Ds is between $85,000 and $140,000, and it's tough competing against the major universities." Female Ph.Ds carry a price tag $5,000 to $10,000 higher than for a similarly armed male, he said.

Thomas W. Cline is one of 11 Ph.Ds teaching at the McKenna School. He liked what he saw both in the school and in Saint Vincent as a whole. He has been there two years, coming from the executive director's position at West Virginia Wesleyan College's business and economics department.

"What attracted me to Saint Vincent was the school's rich Catholic history. The McKenna School was attractive to me because it embodies my philosophy in that it is most important to focus on teaching, but that research is also important."

Cline said the biggest surprises he found since coming to the school were the students' work ethic, and how technologically advanced the school is.

Students were an easier sell, Quinlivan said.

Albert Ciuksza Jr. was ready for a change. He had started his college education in his home of El Paso, Texas, but decided he wanted a smaller school.

"I started out at the University of North Texas, which is a very large school, 25,000 students," Ciuksza said. An uncle had attended Saint Vincent, another uncle had gone to Carnegie Mellon, and Ciuksza had spent a number of summers in the Pittsburgh area. He decided upon Saint Vincent, relocating nearly 2,000 miles in the spring of 1999. He graduated in 2002 with a business management degree.

"I had two internships, the second with McKesson Automation, that I parlayed into a full-time job as a pharmacy services analyst," Ciuksza said. At the end of this month, he is leaving McKesson to take a marketing position in Pittsburgh with Krakoff Communications Inc.

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