Attention alumni: Your stock just went up. With the announcement of a new Graduate School of Business campus in Singapore to teach an international executive M.B.A. program, Chicago now has campuses on three continents.
Chicago is the first business school to offer a “globally integrated
executive M.B.A. program on three continents taught entirely by
its regular faculty at permanent campus locations,” said Dean
Robert S. Hamada at a press conference in Singapore on January
25.
Consequently, the value of a University of Chicago M.B.A. has
increased, said Gary Eppen, deputy dean for part-time programs.
“Any time the international representation of the school is improved,
it’s not just current students who benefit. We all gain,” said
Eppen. “Alumni are winners–their stock just went up.”
Eppen said going global in the truest sense of the word is the
only way to remain on top. “As competition evolves, there will
be a relatively small set of schools that will be recognized around
the world, that will achieve that level of brand equity. If we
want to continue to attract the best students and faculty, we
have to be one of those schools. And we can’t achieve that by
sitting securely here in Chicago.”
Alumni apparently share such sentiments. “Almost from the time
we announced plans for our campus in Barcelona, alumni in Asia
have been saying, ‘Why not here?’” said Bill Kooser, ’81, associate
dean of executive M.B.A. programs. More than one thousand alumni
are located in the Asia-Pacific region, including two hundred
in Singapore.
Two alumni who played critical roles in bringing the GSB to Singapore
were on hand for the announcement: Jack Wadsworth, ’63, chairman
of the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation and of Morgan Stanley Asia Limited,
and Cheng Wai-Keung, ’73, chairman and managing director of Singapore-based
Wing Tai Holdings Ltd. Cheng’s company heads the consortium that
owns the House of Tan Yeok Nee, the historic building that will
house the school, and Cheng arranged the school’s use of the building.
Jack and Susy Wadsworth, through their W.L.S. Spencer Foundation,
will help fund the cost of outfitting the classrooms.
“This is not just another business school. This is one of the
world’s leading graduate business schools whose faculty have had
a major impact on creating present day global capital markets,”
Wadsworth said. “Given the questions that are currently being
raised about the role of capital markets in the continuing development
of Asian and world economies, the timing could not be better for
Chicago to spread its wings in Asia.”
One of the oldest structures in Singapore, the building will undergo extensive restoration and renovation as it evolves into the school’s Asian campus. Click here to learn how this national historic landmark will become the GSB's home in Asia.
Think you know Asia? Click here to get the facts on Singapore.
The program will provide participants with “a truly global immersion in the fundamentals of business,” Hamada said. Four weeks of the program will be joint IXP sessions. Students in the Asian program will join students in the North American and European programs for joint sessions in Barcelona, Chicago, and Singapore. The program adds a global dimension to all GSB classes, Eppen pointed out, with advantages extending to all current and future M.B.A. students. Since regular faculty teach IXP courses, they bring the benefit of intense interaction with international executives back to classrooms in Chicago.
“All GSB students will encounter faculty who will be much more attuned to what is going on around the world,” said Eppen, Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Operations Management, who noted that he was “not the same person” when he returned from teaching in Barcelona. “Our teaching materials here had been too North Americancentric, I think. Before we opened our Barcelona campus, most of our classroom examples were of North American companies, for instance. Since then, we’ve worked with companies–with alumni at ING Bank, for example–to develop European-based teaching materials, including cases.”
The Singapore campus adds a further dimension, introducing faculty to Asian companies and ways of doing business. “I can testify that firsthand exposure to the unique cultural, social, and historical factors that are special to Asia provides an invaluable overlay to conventional wisdom,” said Wadsworth, who has lived and conducted business in Asia for twelve years. Wadsworth points out yet another benefit: the Singapore campus introduces the Chicago school of business to the Asian economic community.
“It is more apparent than ever that macroeconomic success at the local and regional level requires a precise understanding of the global forces that result from global capital markets,” Wadsworth said. “Coming out of the Asian financial crisis is growing recognition that capital markets will favor governments and companies that are well managed and transparent with investors. Since the GSB’s academic tradition and research are central to capital market development, a better-educated business community in these disciplines will help Asia to compete effectively. A generation of managers and owners better equipped to deal with the efficient markets of the future will get the ‘Asian miracle’ back on track and keep it on track.”
The government of Singapore is especially interested in a better-educated business community. With a national initiative of becoming the “knowledge center” of Asia, the country has welcomed the GSB with open arms. Part of its support is financial, with the Singapore Economic Development Board providing start-up funds for the restoration of the House of Tan Yeok Nee.
Chicago’s presence will help Singapore increase its competitiveness
and business capabilities, said Teo Chee Hean, Singapore’s minister
of education. “It will also help us harness the skills and forces
that will successfully propel us into the knowledge era of the
twenty-first century,” he said.
In addition to its stance on education, Singapore was chosen for
the GSB’s Asian campus for several logistical reasons: its central
location in Southeast Asia (just four to six hours away from major
cities in Australia, China, Hong Kong, southern India, Japan,
Korea, the Phillipines, and Taiwan, and much closer to Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Thailand); its strong infrastructure, including
good transportation within the city and a modern international
airport that is easy to reach from campus; and state-of-the-art
communications. “In addition, everyone speaks English,” Eppen
noted. All things considered, Singapore can be summed up in one
word, Eppen said: “It’s easy.”
It helps, he added, that “they want us.” The country’s Economic
Development Board has been aggressively recruiting prestigious
educational institutions to teach in Singapore. In addition to
Chicago, Georgia Institute of Technology, European Institute of
Business Administration (INSEAD), Johns Hopkins, and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology have also announced plans to teach classes
in Singapore, although the only other institution to establish
a permanent campus there is the France-based INSEAD, which will
offer a full-time M.B.A. program.
As for considerations of academic freedom, the Singapore government
has guaranteed full academic freedom to Chicago. A statement of
the university’s policy on academic freedom was given to Singapore
authorities, who “agreed that they could live with that,” Hamada
said. In the event that something unexpected should occur that
violates university policy, a faculty committee would be formed
to determine a course of action.
With all logistics worked out, the next step is selecting the
first class. “One of my first jobs as head of this program will
be to select participants for the first class that starts in mid-year
2000,” Eppen said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult, because there
are so many well-qualified executives throughout the Asia-Pacific
region.” And as has been demonstrated, he added, “We know we will
get great support from our alumni.”–C.N.