Center for Global Business Closes Out the Virtual Academic Year 2020-21

The Center for Global Business (CGB) successfully closed out a fully virtual 2020-21 academic year delivering programming that continued to support its mission of being the driving force behind global learning at Maryland Smith. With the launch of the #KeepGlobalSmith initiative, CGB leveraged technologies and resources to support and encourage innovations in global teaching and programming that gave students opportunities to engage with peers, companies, content, and cultures around the world in the following new and exciting ways:

Undergraduate Programming

International Business Agility Lab Series: New and innovative virtual case competitions that allowed 271 undergraduate students to learn from global business leaders, collaborate with international peers and focus on business resilience to solve a real global business issue.

Global Young Professionals Institute (YPI): A Maryland Smith students' first introduction to a global mindset and the launching point for their self-guided discovery of the competencies that make up a global mindset, this event consisted of two parts. The first was the Global Competencies for the 21st Century Workplace virtual event, where over 400 students learned the meaning of global mindset and heard from Maryland Smith alumni about how to be globally competent in business and what they can do now to be successful in the future. The second was Virtual Embassy Day, which gave 395 students an opportunity to travel virtually outside the U.S. to learn about culture, business, and society at an embassy.

Global Marketing Virtual Internship program: Pairing 30 students with 15 companies, this program will be held this summer to give students an opportunity to gain professional experience with a small to midsize Maryland company that conducts business abroad.

Graduate Programming

Managing Global Business Risks and Opportunities: This brand-new virtual MBA course focused on doing business in five countries: Chile, Israel, Poland, South Africa, and Vietnam and provided students the opportunity to meet virtually with global business leaders and subject matter experts in these five countries, connect with normally inaccessible leadership, engage in discussion with MBA students from across the world, and work with a US-based firm on a global consulting project.

Ace the Case Global Business Challenge: In partnership with the University of Washington and Florida International University, CGB held this first annual MBA Global Case Competition in which 40 students from 5 US universities and 3 international universities participated.

International Business Trek in Maryland: Hosted by CGB and in partnership with two Maryland companies, this event gave 24 students the opportunity to virtually visit the Maryland Port Administration and FlyWheel Digital, two Maryland-headquartered companies that have global operations.

Maryland Global Consulting Program: Pairing 10 students with two companies, this program will be held this summer to give MBA students an opportunity to work with a real company seeking to expand their global business or solutions to an international business challenge.

CGB also continued its signature thought leadership programming, export education webinars and events, and faculty development initiatives, including:

Global Pulse, including 57 total videos and over 3,000 total views from this year.

Distinguished Speakers in International Business Series (DSS), consisting of seven live, virtual thought-leadership events featuring a wide variety of professionals who discussed some of the most critical global business trends this year which brought in over 1,400 participants.

Teaching Guides to provide critical thinking and discussion questions for each of the DSS events. Each of the Teaching Guides can be used by faculty to supplement course lessons in international business education.

MAPIT Alliance webinars, consisting of four total webinars including a series on risk which brought in over 150 live participants and over 180 who viewed the recordings. 

International Education Week, an annual program including 11 campus-wide virtual events that recognized the global mindset, activities, research, and global footprint of the Smith school and saw participation from over 500 members of the school community.

Maryland Business Adapts, is a year-long initiative that creates opportunities for students and industry to learn about business continuity. The initiative will culminate in an event occurring on June 3, where we will celebrate the resilience of five Maryland-based companies who continued to conduct global business despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Esteemed VIP speakers include US Senator Ben Cardin, MD Secretary of Commerce, and McCormick’s Vice President of Human Relations Anthony Roche.

ExporTech™, a national export assistance program that helped 6 companies entering or expanding in global markets achieve results.

"This year was certainly not without challenges," said Rebecca Bellinger, executive director of the center, "and I think that the team not only delivered a robust set of programs to serve our students and partners but also redefined what it really means to "keep global." We know that there will always be interest in travel and immersion programs and that those experiences are hard to mimic in a virtual environment. But online collaborations have allowed us to create learning environments that would have been just impossible otherwise. How else could you get students from the US, Hong Kong, Tunisia, and Austria all in one place at one time to work with a company in Brazil? Virtual global programs are here to stay."

Visit CGB's website to learn about our existing programs and upcoming events, read wrap-up stories, and watch videos of some of our thought-leadership initiatives that took place during the academic year.

These programs were supported in part by CIBE, a Title VI grant administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

— Jordan Heitzner, graduate assistant, Center for Global Business.