Jose R. de la Torre, professor and dean emeritus at the Chapman Graduate School of Business at Florida International University (FIU), designed an innovative solution to a study abroad problem and graduate students worldwide are benefiting from his brainstorm.
Like some other universities, FIU’s Executive MBA, one of 14 graduate programs in the College of Business Administration, has an international study option open to students and program alumni.
“But arranging the travel and study was time-consuming for us and sometimes the results weren’t exactly what we wanted,” de la Torre said.
His idea? To have a set of international universities provide a week of high-quality education to EMBA participants from each other’s programs on an annual basis, in sort of a barter arrangement. The EMBA Consortium for Global Business Innovation was born.
“This has immensely smoothed out the details of study abroad and allowed member universities to focus on providing an outstanding curriculum for visiting students,” said de la Torre, serving as executive director of the consortium.
Along with FIU, the current EMBA Consortium members are:
- Alma Graduate School, University of Bologna, Italy
- COPPEAD Graduate School of Business, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- The Moscow International Higher Business School, Moscow, Russia
Business schools in China and London are expected to join this year, with others to follow.
First EMBA Consortium travel succeeds.
For October 2011 travel, 78 EMBA students and alumni from the four Consortium members selected which university to attend for their International Week experience.
Bruce Wolf chose Russia for the opportunity to visit a country not easily accessible.
“We were immersed in the Moscow business world with visits to top companies such as Wimm-Bill-Dann, IFD Kapital, URALSIB Bank and Shtokman Development AG,” he said. “At the Council of Federation (the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Senate), we met with Deputy Chairman Alexander Torshin.”
Studying in Italy allowed Michelle Casale to expand her international business acumen.
“It was very educational especially with respect to the current euro zone crisis,” she said. “The Alma Graduate School did an exceptional job providing learning opportunities.”
