Those of you who know me would say that I am adamant about globalization being a key ingredient in our School of Business. My mantra, “We can’t be a business school unless we’re a global business school” is something I truly believe to appropriately prepare our students for the real world of business.
A few days ago I served on a visitation team of academicians that evaluated specific programs for SKEMA’s licensure application in North Carolina. (This is part of my service responsibilities to my profession.) SKEMA is the School of Knowledge Economy and Management, based in Nice, France. It was established in 2009 by the merger of two French institutions: Lille School of Management (established in 1892) and CERAM Business School (established in 1963). It is a private, not-for-profit entity. Its mission is “To train and educate students to be ‘Global Knowledge Economy Talents’ prepared to face the challenges of the Knowledge Economy”. Its vision is “to be the global business school developing future leaders able to manage in the knowledge economy”.
I am extremely impressed by SKEMA. It has six campuses (3 in France, 1 in the US–NC State University as a partner on the Centennial Campus in Raleigh, 1 in China and 1 in Morocco) where they educate students in each market and share students at each campus. SKEMA is already accredited by highly-respected EQUIS (based in Europe), and is working on accreditation by AACSB (based in US) and AMBA (based in the UK). They intend to be one of a few business schools that obtain the “triple crown” of accreditation within three years. An amazing accomplishment if they can pull it off.
Why am I telling you all this? Because SKEMA’s global market plan is exactly what we–the College of Charleston–need to do. We should aggressively expand to markets abroad and open the windows of our campus wider to foreign students and faculty. It is common to hear how important it is to educate South Carolinians first and foremost. I wholeheartedly agree. But the only way to appropriately educate SC students is to expose them to the real world. In business that means major markets and their people throughout the world.
So how do we do this? First, use the name “University of Charleston, SC” as our name in foreign markets since the term “College” connotes a third-tier institution in most locations abroad. (I am not advocating that we abandon the College of Charleston name in the U.S.) Second, allow qualified foreign students to study at CofC at a reasonable cost. (Many universities offer scholarships or tuition abatements to exceptional students–regardless of where they come from. We should do the same.) Realize that foreign students will enhance–not impede–the classroom experience for all students since new cultures will be introduced in open discussions. Third, make foreign students feel welcomed on our campus. Since we have no dedicated dormitories for them, no foreign languages on our institutional website, and few scholarships available to them, they can hardly feel like they are embraced on our campus.
Fourth, our institution should reward faculty who integrate global topics into their curriculum. They should also reward faculty who take CofC students abroad, host cohorts of foreign students on our campus, and conduct international research. By globalizing our campus, foreign students will feel more welcomed. Fifth, every student on our campus should be required to learn about foreign cultures. It seems to me that we are not sensitive enough to other walks of life. It’s about time we talk about the benefits of people who are different rather than make them feel like there’s not a place for them on our campus. Lastly, our campus needs to dramatically update all technology to allow foreign students, professors and practitioners to virtually enter our classrooms without hardship.
Since our campus strategic plan (aptly titled “Gateways to Greatness”) calls for globalization throughout our campus, we are certainly heading in the right direction. However, we need to aggressively make the world our stage and show everyone that we welcome non-South Carolinians to our campus.