World Colleges Information

Specialised business programmes gain precedence

A Prospective Students Survey on mba.com (the official GMAT site), of 12,000 registered individuals has revealed that 40% of students prefer the full-time MBA programmes. Part-time MBA programmes were observed to be receiving the thumbs-down appealing to only 33% compared to 39% in 2009. Students es-pecially women, were seen to favouring specialised masters programmes over the traditional degree. 20 per cent of prospective candidates said they were fo-cussed solely on business masters programmes.

Yale goes to China

Yale School of Management is all set to further its global footprint with an entry into Beijing through the establishment of a leadership centre. The Yale Lead-ership Centre in Beijing that plans to open in October will host programmes from schools across the uni-versity. Yale partners with prominent b-schools from around the world. The collective is known as Global Network for Advanced Management (GNAM) and brings under its umbrella with this new move, Ren-min University School of Business in Beijing, Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

To be a reality: BSNL technical varsity

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has start-ed work on establishing a technical university that will offer engineering and management courses.

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) approvals is planned to be sought in about 6 – 8 months once the offerings are finalised. Shrivastava, Chairman and Managing Director elect said the institute will have a capacity to train 1,500 to 3,000 students at one time. BSNL claims it has the staff and infrastructure to run these programs and intends to add courses on cyber security at the centre to contribute in the gov-ernment’s target of creating 500,000 professionals skilled in this domain by 2018. BSNL’s plan to set-up the institute is a part of its asset utilisation plan to help it reduce losses.

Reverse mentoring

A specially set up programme that went live last September between management students at the Uni-versity of Miami and Citi is creating new waves with the concept of ‘reverse mentoring’. Here students turn mentors to corporate executives, teaching them a thing or two about the new world order. The pro-gramme helps both the university and Citi achieve the end means. Students while understanding the busi-ness from the inside-out, get to interact closely with top executives at Citi. Citi benefits by getting outsider views of how millenials use social platforms and also how they bank. The arrangement caters to Citi’s spe-cific interest in understanding banking in social me-dia, and also helping research on preferred banking options of the millenials.

IIM-A revamps faculty development programme

Beginning June 9, 2014, the refurbished FDP will see its 36th rendition this year at IIM-A. The enhance-ments have been made based on inputs provided by various constituents during IIM-A’s recently conclud-ed series of interactions with its external stakeholders. The modifications aim to build in the management faculty of the country skills that are the need of the hour. The programme concentrates on skill updation in the areas of Finance, Marketing and, Organization Behaviour and Industrial Relations. A total of 703 faculty members have completed their FDP at IIM-A. Participants include faculty from countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka as well.

Mooc is rocking

Massive open online courses (moocs) are report-edly finding increased enlistment. Moocs like Cours-era and edX partner top universities to offer courses that are on par with in-class content of the respective universities. Trending Mooc programmes include topics like Analysing global trends for business and society, Debt Sustainability analysis, Financial pro-gramming and policies, topics on entrepreneurships and start-ups, etc.

Manipal Institute of Technology has more reasons to smile

First it was Satya Nadella, now it is Rajeev Suri. Students and professors of Manipal are excited at the elevation of their alumni to key positions in global conglomerates. While Nadella was declared head of Microsoft, Suri is the new CEO of Nokia under Mi-crosoft. Nadella was a year senior to Suri at MIT. The institute said that Indian talent is getting noticed glob-ally. This is expected to change the global perspective on students from Indian institutes.

Women focussed MBA course

With increased focus on women in leadership po-sitions in the corporate world, McDonough School of Business (Georgetown University, Washington DC) is offering a specialised course titled “Developing Women Leaders: Cultivating your Human and Social Capital”. The programme aims at helping change the dynamics in the workplace for McDonough’s female grads.

Iconic Louis Kahn Plaza at IIM-A to get a make-over

Built by American architect Louis Isadore Kahn in the 1960s, Louis Kahn Plaza (LKP) has over a period of time undergone certain damage. While restoration has been happening in bits, IIM-A has decided it is time for a complete overhaul. The estimated project cost is Rs. 15 crore per annum for the conservation and restoration. Peter Inskip + Peter Jenkins Archi-tects have been hired as the conservation consultants for restoration study and M/s Somaya & Kalappa Consultants as Conservation Architects. The institute issued a statement that it would welcome corporate donations to manage the cost.

BUDDING MANAGERS

MAY 2014 ISSUE