King's College

KING’S INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PROGRAM BOOSTED
School gets $183,000 in fed funds to assist its project to internationalize business curriculum.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 12:08 pm
Times Leader

WILKES-BARRE – As businesses continue to enter a fast-expanding global market, today’s college students would be wise to learn the international aspects of business, government and law.

To aid that, the U.S. Department of Education’s Business and International Education Program awarded King’s College a $183,000 grant to support a two-year project to internationalize curriculum in the college’s McGowan School of Business and to develop international study abroad, internship and research opportunities for King’s students and faculty.

King’s will partner with the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance and The Sustainable Energy Fund, based in Allentown. The network will use the initiative to try to improve regional companies’ international business competitiveness through entrepreneurship and ethics activities.

The grant, one of 22 awarded nationally by the department, will cover half of the budgeted expenses of the project; the rest of the project costs will be provided by King’s, the McGowan School of Business, the McGowan Center for Ethics and Public Life, and other non-governmental sources.

“For King’s students, it is no longer enough to acquaint students with the global economic, cultural and political environment in the classroom,” the Rev. Thomas O’Hara, president of King’s said in a school-issued release. “Students must learn firsthand how these factors influence the way people interact and how their culture impacts business relationships in the United States and abroad. Funded activities, along with the College’s Study Abroad Program, will better prepare King’s students for citizenship in a dynamic global environment.”

Grant activities will focus on four objectives that include: undergraduate business curriculum development, origination of faculty development initiatives, increasing student opportunities for both cross cultural and experiential learning and increasing collaborations with the regional business community to develop educational programming in international business.

“This grant helps King’s fulfill its recent strategic initiatives of responding to a diverse and changing society and building collaborative connections to the community and the world,” said the Rev. Jack Ryan, dean of the McGowan School of Business.

Bindu J. Vyas, associate professor of business administration and project director, said faculty development initiatives include study tours to universities in Chile, England and Ireland that are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The McGowan School of Business is one of only 42 solely undergraduate programs in the United States to hold AACSB accreditation.

“Curriculum development will involve the development of five new courses including e-commerce, export and import management, global entrepreneurship, and international legal and regulatory issues,” said Vyas.

According to the release, faculty members will evaluate the international business programs as they relate to international business certification, research activities, and the development of affiliations with study abroad and internship programs to provide King’s students with greater opportunities for overseas international business study.