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Economics and Business

Randolph College is the ideal place to study economics and business. 

Economics professor Jeff Heinfeldt leads group discussion.

Why Study Economics and Business at Randolph?

Given our small classes, you will have opportunities that would simply not be feasible at larger schools: technology-based research projects, independent studies, chances to present your work to your professors and peers.

The department offers a wide variety of opportunities for experiential learning beyond the classroom.

At Randolph, you will…

  • Discover how business and economic theories and policies shape our lives.
  • Make connections between theory and the real world.
  • Gain new perspectives on social and political problems by delving into the philosophical foundations, history, and theory.
  • Build your quantitative and analytical skills.

Degrees offered

Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business

Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics

Minor in Business

Minor in Economics

Curriculum and Courses

Related Programs

Mathematics

Political Science

Sociology

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The Randolph Experience

Senior Capstone
Randolph economics and business students complete their degree with an intensive, research-based project under the guidance of the faculty. 

Internships
Randolph students gain real world experience through required off-campus internships in a variety of fields, disciplines, and industries.

Cool Small Classes
Randolph professors offer unique, engaging courses on topics like food and social justice, labor, banking, and international economics, which often take students outside the classroom.

Intercultural Competence
All Randolph students learn global citizenship with the capability to accurately understand and adapt to cultural differences and find commonality.

Outcomes
Randolph students are prepared for success and find careers in industry, government, and service, as well as acceptance into top graduate schools.

Unique Experiences

Outcomes

Historic Preservation Law

Janie Campbell ’12, history major
Preservation Consultant, law firm of Rogers Lewis Jackson Mann & Quinn, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina

Janie’s group works with developers seeking tax credits for rehabilitating historic properties.

“I work closely with project architects to ensure that historic, character defining elements of each building are preserved and restored, which can vary tremendously as what is significant to a 1929 airplane hangar is vastly different from what makes a 1963 mid-century modern motel unique!”

She writes National Register of Historic Places nominations and Historic Preservation Certification applications, which detail the property’s significance.  She also conducts site visits to ensure work is being completed as described and photographs the before, during, and after conditions of each project.

“Randolph certainly laid the foundation for my research and writing skills. The Summer Research Program, in particular, prepared me for the type of place-based research I do now. “

Opportunities

Top Ranked Professors

Randolph College’s faculty are consistently recognized as among the best in the nation. The Princeton Review ranked the College in the Top 20 for most accessible professors in the 2021 edition of its flagship college guide, The Best 387 Colleges.

Randolph has been ranked in the top 20 for most accessible professors for four consecutive years.

Business and Economics Faculty

Jeff Heinfeldt

Professor of Economics and Business

Read More... Jeff Heinfeldt

John Abell

Professor of Economics, Carl Stern Chair of Economics

Read More... John Abell

Elizabeth Perry-Sizemore

Professor of Economics, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Read More... Elizabeth Perry-Sizemore

ATM Sayfuddin

Assistant Professor of Economics and Business

Read More... ATM Sayfuddin

Only at Randolph

Randolph students can take advantage of unique programs which give them a more enriching education than can be found anywhere else.

Money for Your Research

The Randolph Innovative Student Experience (RISE) program provides every student a $2,000 grant to fund research, creative work, experiential learning or other scholarly pursuits.

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The Liberal Arts Advantage

Randolph graduates learn to think critically, solve problems and work well with others. They are prepared to succeed in all aspects of life.

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TAKE2

Two courses per half-mester means you get to focus in and dig deep into your coursework while still having time for the rest of the college experience. Two classes. Seven weeks. Repeat.

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The Randolph Plan

Randolph students work with faculty mentors to explore a broad range of disciplines as they chart their academic path.

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Department News

Summer catch: Daniel Bickey ’23 working as stadium operations intern for Colorado baseball team

“It’s given me the opportunity to go behind the scenes on the field and see everything that it takes to run a sports organization from a business perspective."

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Natalia Hernandez Berrios ’23 completes fellowship at Princeton

This summer, Berrios earned a spot as a Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute (JSI) Fellow at Princeton University.

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The financial viability of rainwater harvesting at the center of summer research project

Rainwater harvesting—the collection of run-off from a structure to store it for later use—can be a powerful tool in combating water supply problems, but questions still remain about its financial viability.

Read More

Summer catch: Daniel Bickey ’23 working as stadium operations intern for Colorado baseball team

“It’s given me the opportunity to go behind the scenes on the field and see everything that it takes to run a sports organization from a business perspective."

Read More

Natalia Hernandez Berrios ’23 completes fellowship at Princeton

This summer, Berrios earned a spot as a Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute (JSI) Fellow at Princeton University.

Read More

The financial viability of rainwater harvesting at the center of summer research project

Rainwater harvesting—the collection of run-off from a structure to store it for later use—can be a powerful tool in combating water supply problems, but questions still remain about its financial viability.

Read More
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Department Chair

Jeff Heinfeldt

Professor of Economics and Business

Credentials:B.S., Bowling Green State University
M.B.A., Bowling Green State University
Ph.D., Kent State University
Associated Departments:Economics and Business
Office:Main 9
Phone:4349478503
Email:jheinfeldt@randolphcollege.edu

News Headlines

I earned my BSBA and MBA degrees from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and received a Ph.D. in Finance from Kent State University, also in Ohio.

I have professional experience in the areas of banking and corporate accounting. I have taught a wide range of courses in the past: finance, accounting, management, and economics. The students and their education are my main priorities. In keeping with this focus on student education, I enjoy conducting research that is applied and pedagogical in nature. I am particularly interested in topics that improve the classroom experience for the students and enhance my teaching effectiveness. Specific areas of research have included financial education/pedagogy, stakeholder theory, and firm value.

As for outside interests and activities, my wife, Denise, and I enjoy sports (biking, jogging, tennis, etc.), travel and relaxing (when possible).

I sum up my thoughts on business, and specifically finance, education as follows: I believe financial education is of value to students whether they pursue a career in the discipline or not. In particular, basic financial literacy is an important life skill. As a teacher, I would like students to gain an understanding of, and an appreciation for, finance and to have had a positive experience along the way.

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John Abell

Professor of Economics, Carl Stern Chair of Economics

Credentials:B.S., Centre College of Kentucky
M.S., University of Kentucky
Ph.D., University of Kentucky
Associated Departments:Economics and Business
Office:Main 7
Phone:4349478502
Email:jabell@randolphcollege.edu

News Headlines

John D. Abell, Professor of Economics, holds the Carl Stern Chair of Economics at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. He received his Masters and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kentucky (1983,1985).

His formal training was in the areas of macroeconomics, monetary economics, and finance. His early research employed traditional macroeconometric time series techniques to analyze the employment impacts of monetary and fiscal policies as they were distributed along racial and gender lines. His teaching and research have evolved over the years in the direction of food, sustainability, and local economics. This work has taken him from the central highlands of Guatemala to the streets of Lynchburg, Virginia.

In 2011, he offered a course on the “Economics of Food and Sustainability”. He and his students conducted research to determine the extent to which Lynchburg’s urban core constituted a food desert. They investigated convenience stores and nearby grocery stores to compare prices and food availability. They found prices averaging 90 percent more in the convenience stores and virtually no fresh food. Their findings were published in the Virginia Economic Journal in 2011.

Sabbatical research in spring semester 2014 on the topic of hunger and poverty in Lynchburg was documented in a video blog titled: “The hunger-poverty nexus. Food? What is its proper role? Case study of Lynchburg, Virginia.” The findings were also published in the Virginia Social Science Journal in 2015.

His current research connects the poverty in Lynchburg of the present, especially for blacks, with the racism of the past, in particular, the real estate redlining practices of the 1930s. Preliminary findings were published as an opinion piece in the News and Advance in April 2018.

Professor Abell has won the Gillie A. Larew Award (2005-06) given for outstanding teaching, and the Katherine Graves Davidson Award (2012-13) given to faculty who have brought distinction to the college.

Beyond Randolph’s “red brick walls,” Professor Abell has served on the board of directors of the Lynchburg Area Food Council (2012-14), serving one year as president and also serving on the board of Lynchburg Daily Bread (2016-19). He has assisted in the planning and construction of three community gardens: Randolph College’s own organic garden 2010), one in the Daniel’s Hill neighborhood (2013), and more recently at New Vistas School (2014).

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Elizabeth Perry-Sizemore

Professor of Economics, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Credentials:B.A., Randolph-Macon Woman’s College
M.A., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Associated Departments:Economics and Business
Office:Main 10
Phone:4349478504
Email:epsizemore@randolphcollege.edu

News Headlines

Liz is the past director of the competitive and college-wide Student/Faculty Summer Research Program at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and past chair of Randolph’s Symposium of Artists and Scholars. In her earlier role as an Assistant Dean, she helped design and participate in the selection process for the Randolph Innovative Student Experience (RISE) program, which awards grants to Randolph students to pursue scholarly and creative endeavors.

Liz is an elected Social Sciences Councilor with the Council on Undergraduate Research and an experienced facilitator at CUR’s Social Science Institutes, helping teams of faculty and administrators from other institutions develop proposals for enhancing undergraduate research on their own campuses and speaking on curricular scaffolding for undergraduate research experiences. Within her own discipline, she is a former faculty advisor to the online student-refereed journal Illinois Wesleyan Undergraduate Economic Review (IWUER). She is the student research module coordinator for the National Science Foundation-funded Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics, a pedagogic portal project developed by economists in collaboration with the Science Education Resource Center of Carleton College (National Science Foundation Grant DUE0817382, $497,953, PIs: M. Maier, C. Manduca, K. McGoldrick, S. Simkins). She is the coauthor of The American Economist article “Creating Quality Undergraduate Research Programs in Economics: How, When, Where (and Why)” with Steve DeLoach and Mary Borg.

Liz advises independent undergraduate research projects in a number of her classrooms, but also engages in student/faculty community-based research collaborations with undergraduate students through paid summer research positions, independent studies, experiential learning opportunities, and her service learning public economics course. Currently, she and several students are working in service to the Tinbridge Hill neighborhood of Lynchburg, Virginia to assess the City Council-approved, neighborhood-owned Growing Tinbridge Hill Neighborhood Plan. Earlier student projects included collecting and analyzing data to help inform the goals of the Plan. A number of Liz’s students have presented their work to the local community and at regional conferences.

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ATM Sayfuddin

Assistant Professor of Economics and Business

Credentials:Ph.D., Middle Tennessee State University
M.A., Middle Tennessee State University
M.B.A, University of Greenwich
B.S., University of Dhaka
Associated Departments:Economics and Business
Office:Main 5
Phone:4349478567
Email:asayfuddin@randolphcollege.edu

News Headlines

Professor Sayfuddin’s professional experience and interests lie in the fields of business and economics. Before beginning his academic career, he served as a marketing professional.

His research focuses on interdisciplinary topics: Environmental Economics, Industrial Organization, Real Estate Economics, and Marketing. He has interests in data science and data analytics and incorporates recent developments from these fields into his business and economics courses.

He seeks to help students acquire knowledge inside the classroom as well as apply that knowledge to address real-life issues. With his passion for teaching, Professor Sayfuddin looks to continuously improve the learning experience of his students.

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