Chicago University Now Offers MBA Degrees in Four Countries

Twenty-one students began their studies toward a DePaul University Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in January in the Czech Republic when the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business opened its newest overseas program.

DePaul’s highly ranked part-time MBA program expanded its international reach to Europe as part of an agreement between Kellstadt and the Czech Management Center (CMC). Located near Prague, CMC was founded in 1991 with funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Its goal is to bring Western universities and Western-style education to Central European nations in the process of economic rebuilding.

Petr Chadraba, DePaul professor of marketing and director of the new program, said he is pleased by the enrollment in the program’s inaugural class, which primarily comprises students from the Czech Republic but includes a few Americans, a French citizen and a person from the Republic of Estonia. Most students work for Western firms, such as McDonald’s, Deloitte and Touche and Goldman Sachs, but several work for Czech enterprises, such as CzechInvest, a government office that encourages foreign investment.

Advance research for the program indicated a great demand in the region for Western-style business education—especially an accredited MBA program with DePaul’s reputation for excellence and growing international presence. Chadraba said a second cohort of students will begin the program in September, with likely enrollees from such countries as Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany and Poland.

The curriculum of the new, 18-month program focuses on marketing and finance. Its 16 courses are tailored to accommodate working professionals, with each course taught in an intensive, weekend format. The program’s capstone course, Strategic Analysis for Competing Globally, will be taught in Chicago over a two-week period and will include a classroom component, as well as site visits to local firms and organizations.

“This program takes the DePaul mission of educational access to developing countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and it represents opportunities for everyone involved,” Chadraba said. “Students will gain a cutting-edge, Western-style MBA education from a prestigious school—highly valued in Europe—and learn how to help their companies become more competitive in the European Union.”

“DePaul definitely benefits from this exchange, as well,” he noted. “The 10 DePaul faculty members who will teach courses in the Czech Republic will be broadened by experiencing a variety of regional European business climates and practices firsthand—knowledge that they can bring back and use in the classroom.”

Chadraba also cites the importance of expanding in the global marketplace, beyond DePaul’s established MBA programs in Hong Kong and Bahrain. “It’s difficult being considered a great university today unless you have an international presence,” he said.

Kellstadt opened its Bahrain MBA program—the first MBA program in the Middle East taught entirely by faculty from an accredited American business school— in September 2001 at the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance, a leading executive training center in the region and DePaul’s partner in the educational endeavor. DePaul’s Hong Kong MBA program was launched in 1997 with the International Bank of Asia (IBA). DePaul conferred its first overseas honorary degree at the Hong Kong MBA program in November, honoring former President George Bush.