People and Places: April 26, 2022

New Programs

This fall, the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business in Iowa City is adding a fully online component to its part-time Master of Science in Business Analytics program. The program will require 10 graduate-level courses that include weekly online discussion sessions so students can interact with instructors and classmates. Because the program will continue to be offered in-person in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, students will have the option of taking a mix of online and in-person classes.

ESCP Business School—which has locations in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin, and Warsaw—has extended delivery of its MSc in Big Data and Business Analytics to its new branch campus in Dubai. The program comes about at the request of the government of the United Arab Emirates, which asked the school to train Emirati executives and senior civil service servants in data sciences and business analytics as part of the country’s smart cities and digital development projects. The program is fully funded by excellence scholarships from the Al Rostamani family business. ESCP’s branch campus in Dubai is hosted by the Dubai International Financial Centre and is located in a major financial and economic hub.

The Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is launching two fully online, credit-bearing graduate certificates, designed for learners who hold undergraduate degrees but currently are not interested in pursuing full graduate degrees. One of the 12-credit-hour certificates is in accounting data analytics, the other in strategic leadership and management. Each certificate program can be completed online in as little as four months and will be fully stackable into any of Gies’ three online degree programs: the Master of Business Administration, the Master of Science in Management, and the Master of Science in Accountancy. The school plans to offer up to six more certificate programs within the next year in areas such as marketing, innovation, and managerial economics.

Aalto University Executive Education in Espoo, Finland, has launched a new online course on emotional intelligence. Participants will learn about the impact of emotional intelligence on individual performance, team results, and company culture. The five modules of the course include topics such as what emotional intelligence is, how everyone can increase their emotional intelligence, and why it is important on individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels.

Collaborations

The University of New Haven in Connecticut has announced an agreement with Sacred Heart Academy, a women’s college prep high school in Hamden, Connecticut. Under the agreement, qualified Sacred Heart graduates will be eligible for a 50 percent tuition scholarship that will be renewable for up to four years. The university will establish and fund the scholarship program. As part of the agreement, Sacred Heart Academy graduates will be guaranteed paid on-campus jobs while they’re at the university, and while they’re in high school they will have the opportunity to take up to three courses for free at the university. University faculty will periodically deliver guest lectures at the academy, and educators from both institutions will develop a Women in Business summer program for high school students. At the same time, Sacred Heart Academy will offer 40 percent tuition scholarship to qualified daughters of full-time University of New Haven faculty and staff.

Kaseya, a provider of unified IT management and security software for managed service providers and small to medium-sized businesses, has teamed up with Florida International University in Miami to create a workforce pipeline that trains students for jobs in technology and helps Kaseya fill multiple positions across the company. Kaseya, a global company with its U.S. headquarters in Miami, plans to fill 400 roles in sales, research and development, customer and product support, and finance. As part of the partnership, Kaseya will offer input on the curriculum, provide mentorship on senior capstone projects, and create co-branded credentialing programs within the university. Kaseya also is actively supporting the FIU Sales Society and recruiting graduates for account management roles.

Gifts and Donations

The University of South Florida (USF) has received new gifts totaling 14 million USD from philanthropists Kate Tiedemann and Ellen Cotton. The money will support the USF Muma College of Business’s vision to become a hub of excellence in fintech. The gifts, made through the USF Foundation, are intended for the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance, one of six schools in the Muma College of Business. The school’s home is on the USF St. Petersburg campus, and it has students and faculty on each of USF’s three campuses, all of whom will benefit from the gifts. The gifts will support the school’s four-pillar vision for fintech: hiring world-class faculty, embedding fintech modules into core curricula, sharing expertise with the community through events and programs, and becoming a place where students and entrepreneurs can receive training and mentoring.

Thanks to an 11 million USD commitment from Michael G. and Robin Psaros, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business in Washington, D.C., has launched the Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. The center will provide thought leadership on global finance through research, industry events, and student engagement. The gift builds on years of collaboration between Michael Psaros and his mentor, Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and director of the Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy.

Harvard Business School in Boston has established the Robert K. Kraft Family Fellowship Fund, which will provide financial aid to first-generation college students and those from underrepresented backgrounds. The 24 million USD fund is made possible through the generosity of Robert Kraft, founder, chairman, and CEO of the Kraft Group and the Kraft Family Foundation; and his son Jonathan, president of the Kraft Group. In recognition of the gift, the School has named the Financial Aid Office and Director of MBA Financial Aid position in the Kraft family’s honor.

Centers and Facilities

emlyon business school in France is launching a new Ethnographic Institute which will rely on the three pillars of research, education, and public debate to examine the social transformations of the world. It will be led by David Courpasson, professor of sociology at the school. Among other activities, the institute will provide a platform for debating research results through lectures, documentaries, and photographic exhibits designed to engage the public. Courpasson explains that the goal of the institute is to analyze social relationships to “better understand the interactions that shape the human experience in organizations on a daily basis, and more globally, the very functioning of societies.”

In March, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business opened the doors to a new campus in central London. The campus replaces the school’s former London location and will be the school’s base of operations in the region of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Among the offerings on the new campus will be Booth’s Executive MBA Europe program, nondegree executive education classes, conferences, and seminars. Chicago Booth’s London Conference Centre occupies 43,000 square feet and is situated near some of the city’s leading centers of banking, finance, and tech.

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