May 8, 1998

Business school part of International Management Center

Loyola joined Peking University in Bejing, China and 24 other American business schools in creating the Bejing International Management Center, according to J. Patrick O’Brien, dean of the College of Business Administration.

This new cooperative educational venture will offer the first foreign MBA in Bejing to be recognized by the Chinese State Council, the government’s highest administrative body. It will be located on the campus of Peking University, China’s oldest and most prestigious university. The MBA will bring an American curriculum and American business courses into a Chinese context, combining the best of each tradition. The program will be entirely in English with professors provided equally by Peking University and by the U.S. consortium. By combining the resources of 25 universities, the U.S. consortium has a combined business faculty of well over 1,000 professors holding doctorates in business fields, and access to most of the major markets in the United States. The 25 consortium universities are all part of the Jesuit university system located in most major United States cities.

The China Center for Economic Research (CCER) will administer the program for Peking University. Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business, accredited by the AACSB–The International Association for Management Education, will grant the official degree for the U.S. Consortium, offering an MBA in international management, recognized in both countries. In addition, the graduates will receive a diploma signed by Peking University and the business deans of all 25 U.S. universities in the consortium.

In making this announcement to the Loyola community, Dean O’Brien said, “We are excited to participate in this global educational venture. Our participation will add a new dimension to our business curriculum which will strengthen our students’ educational experience in global business matters. In addition, it will allow our faculty the opportunity to teach future business leaders of China.”

Ernest Scalberg, dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Fordham, said that he was privileged to represent the U.S. university deans at the signing ceremony and expressed confidence that this MBA program will “turn a group of young enterprising individuals into business leaders around the world.”

The Chinese government estimates that its economy needs 300,000 MBAs in order to help privatize state-run companies and enable Chinese industry to better compete globally. This Chinese-American International MBA will accept an initial class of 80 students, half in a part-time program and half in a full-time program. While the MBA is designed for Chinese students, about 20% of the student body are expected to be full-time students from other countries who wish to get an American MBA in China. In addition, students enrolled in the MBA program at Loyola University New Orleans and other consortium institutions will be able to spend a semester at the Bejing International Management Center if they should so chose. “This collaboration will give our students a unique opportunity to study in China, a country which will be a major trading partner and a major market in the 21st century” adds Dean O’Brien.

Pre-requisite courses and courses in intensive business English will start as early as June 1998 with the first of the MBA courses starting in May 1999. In addition to the four, 10-week modules of upper division courses, the students take summer classes at Loyola or any of the consortium universities, or do an internship in the United States or China, or participate in a United States study tour.