SMITH BUSINESS - SPRING 2005

SMITH BUSINESS: Home - Site Index - Previous Issue - Archives

Subscribe to the print version. It's free!

LEADERS Digest: Grading "The Apprentice" • Global EMBA Program • Goodwill Gets a Helping Hand • More

The Smith School has launched a new program with the Graduate School of Business Administration (GSBA) in Zurich, Switzerland. The two schools will offer a global executive MBA (EMBA) degree for U.S. and international executives. Students in the new program will have the opportunity to take classes on three continents, at GSBA, in China and at the College Park campus, to add even more value to their Smith degrees. GSBA has been ranked as one of Europe’s Top 12 Executive Business Schools by the Financial Times.

“We’re bringing together the strengths of two of the world’s best business schools to deliver programming specifically designed to help executives succeed in today’s global, technology-driven economy,” says Dean Howard Frank. “There are differences between businesses and economies in North America and the rest of the world, differences you can’t fully understand by reading a book about China or exchanging e-mail with someone in Europe. Having the opportunity to study and interact with counterparts in Europe will give students a depth of experience that cannot be replicated in any other way.”

Dean Frank announced the partnership in his keynote speech at the Zurich MBA Congress on March 23. The Smith-GSBA Executive MBA is Smith’s second expansion in Europe, following Smith’s non-degree-granting management education program at the University of Lodz in Poland.

In addition to expanding Smith’s global presence and bringing a deeper global perspective to its academic programs, the GSBA partnership opens a new base from which to reach out to alumni in Europe. The partnership also offers the opportunity for joint research activities and the exchange of scholars for seminars and conferences.

Smith’s executive education program offers opportunities for alumni to hone their skills and develop their leadership abilities. For more information about this program, please contact Christine LaCola.

The fall 2004 semester started out on a high note for the full-time MBA students, each of whom received a Nextel BlackBerry 7510™ wireless handheld device. The BlackBerry™ combines cell phone functions and wireless Web and e-mail access in one device. The intiative was sponsored by Nextel.

Smith hopes that students will use the devices to explore the potential of “always on” technology and discover ways to leverage that technology in the educational experience—and later, in their professional careers.

The Smith School’s Scott Koerwer, associate dean for executive education, entrepreneurship and marketing communications, has been honored with the World Trade Center Institute’s 2004 International Leadership Award. The annual award goes to business champions who have been selected from more than 150,000 Maryland companies as individuals who have led their firms to new global heights.

The award recognizes Koerwer’s role in the school’s increasing global accomplishments, particularly the executive MBA and custom MBA programs in China, which the institute says make the Smith School a “wonderful model for other Maryland educational institutions on the global horizon.”

SMITH BUSINESS