In 1996, Dr. Jeffrey Steagall
submitted a proposal for the University of North Florida to develop a
national
reputation in the field of international business. It was a monumental
task,
considering UNF had no international business program at the time and
only a
handful of professors in what was then the College of Business expressed
interest in the subject.
But
Steagall, newly tenured and in
his sixth year on the faculty, had the backing of then-dean Earle
Traynham and
the temerity to shoot for the moon, figuring Traynham, who had asked him
to
develop the plan, would approve only a fraction of it. To Steagall’s
surprise,
Traynham approved every detail.
“We
can do all of this,” Traynham
told him.
Today, the
International Business
program in what is now the Coggin College of Business is thriving.
The
program attained flagship
status in 2006. It is one of only four UNF programs to do so. The
flagship
designation brought with it extra funding, increased emphasis on
developing a
national reputation and a contagious excitement about a program that is
sending
record numbers of students abroad for what the University describes as
transformational learning opportunities.
“Going
abroad is opening students’
minds to see how other people live and what different perspectives they
have of
how to do business,” said Dr. Andres Gallo, an associate professor of
economics
and one of the two directors of the flagship program. “For students to
actually
be able to go and see these differences and appreciate these
differences, it
opens their minds. You know there is not only one way of doing things in
the
world. There could be multiple ways to get to the same goal, but you
have to
learn how to live with that and you have to learn how to collaborate
with
people from other cultures.”
UNF
ranks seventh nationally in the
number of short-term study-abroad students and 20th for the total number
of
study-abroad students among universities offering master’s degree
programs,
according to the 2009 Open Doors report published by the Institute of
International Education.
In
the 1990s, UNF was still a very
young school, and Traynham wanted to focus on areas where the business
college
could excel. Although business had become more global in the 1980s with
the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Japan and South Korea
as
economic powers, only about 80 U.S. business colleges offered
international
business (IB) programs. IB dovetailed nicely with Jacksonville’s
economy, which
relies on its port and international trade.
“It
was clear that the old model of
the U.S. and Western Europe being the main parts of the global economy
was
starting to fade, so we figured we’d get out ahead of that,” said
Steagall,
UNF’s 2009 Distinguished Professor of the Year.
The
idea was that an IB program (and
a transportation and logistics program, also a UNF flagship) gave UNF
its best
shots of developing a top 10 business program.
“It
seemed plausible and it seemed
like a good fit,” Steagall said.
The hard part was
convincing a
faculty with little expertise in IB to require every teaching applicant
to have
an international aspect to their research or backgrounds so the college
could
build the program. Opponents wanted to hire the best applicants, not be
limited
by an IB requirement. But Traynham backed the plan, and the faculty
began to
change.
“What we found was
that after a
couple of years we didn’t really have to try very hard, that often times
people
doing the international stuff were more go-getters, more risk taking,
more
adventuresome, and so what happened was that although it was a
requirement for
a long period of time, we stopped talking about it very much. We put it
in the
ad that we wanted to have an international background and that was it.
We got
great people applying. We hired the best one.”
Applicants
who otherwise might not
have considered UNF were attracted to the University because of the
international business program and the opportunity to participate in
researching foreign economies and study abroad.
“We
actually may have increased the
quality of our faculty because of that requirement, and none of us
expected
that. We never even thought about that,” Steagall said.
Today,
the business faculty has an
international flavor and such a high level of international business
expertise
that the subject is infused into nearly every course in the Coggin
College.
Coggin faculty travel abroad to attend research conferences, visit
foreign
businesses, lecture at overseas universities and collaborate in projects
with
partner universities. Visiting professors from as far away as China,
Africa and
Argentina come to UNF as guest lecturers offering a foreign perspective
to
Coggin students.
Each year
since 2000, Coggin has
hosted an International Business Research Conference at which experts
from
around the globe discuss such topics as “understanding and
integrating Chinese culture into business,” “economic
crises and policy in developing countries,” and “emerging economies and
the
global economy.”
The
flagship also hosts an annual International Business Week.
The program, which is open to the public, features two lectures each
evening by
experts in international business. This year, for example, Thomas J.
Linsmeier,
a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, opened the program
with a
talk about “Financial Reporting in the Global Economy.” Dr. Alojzy Z.
Nowak, a
dean and economics professor at the University of Warsaw, lectured on
“Economic
Development in Europe 20 Years after the Fall.”
The
last night the program features
a panel of students who have participated in study-abroad experiences,
which at
UNF includes faculty-led trips, summer school, semester abroad, year
abroad and
longer for graduate students. Students talk about their experiences and
answer
questions from the audience. They are the biggest proponents of the
program,
and their message is clear. They loved it and want to go back.
This
year, Coggin faculty taught
undergraduate study-abroad courses in 10 countries and graduate trips in
another two. The trips, which generally last 10-15 days, included
courses in
such diverse countries as China, Egypt, Austria, Argentina and Guatemala
for
undergraduates, while graduate students traveled to India or Italy for
courses.
This summer,
undergraduates can
choose between several one-month study-abroad programs in Argentina,
France
(Paris or Marseille) and Germany.
Students
also can apply to spend a
semester or even a year at universities in Europe, Asia, South America
or the
Middle East in one of 13 countries with exchange programs with UNF.
Students
from those countries can attend UNF as well. The students pay tuition at
their
own university and earn credits toward their degree.
Chelsi
Henry, a 2009 graduate with
a bachelor’s in business management, said that when she was considering
studying
abroad, managers at Convergys Corporation’s Jacksonville site, where she
was
interning in the Office of Global Inclusion and Diversity, recommended
it and
assured her that it would increase her opportunities both internally and
externally when she returned. A number of managers pooled their
frequent-flyer miles
to book her airline ticket.
Henry
spent a semester in Belgium,
where she studied European business strategies, policies and management
techniques, learned French and used it as a base for travels throughout
Europe.
She said the experience was life-changing.
“I
grew as a person mentally,
spiritually and culturally,” she said, “I grew out of my comfort zone.
That’s
the biggest thing.”
Henry is
grateful for the
scholarship opportunities that were made available to her through UNF
and its
donors. She said it “truly made a huge impact on the success and meaning
of my
trip.”
Amanda Sieusahai, a
senior
international business major and First Generation scholarship recipient,
could
be a poster child for study abroad. She participated in faculty-led
trips to
India and South Korea, and then spent a semester attending classes in
Paris.
Quiet and shy when she first arrived on campus, Sieusahai is now a
confident
young woman comfortable speaking to an audience of more than 200.
“Study
abroad has just made me
become a much more dynamic person, made me really understand a lot
more,” she
said. “I understand a little bit better how everyone is more connected
and that
the world is a lot smaller than we think it is, so it’s really important
to
know more.”
Sieusahai said
the more she travels
the more she wants to get other people to travel and the more she wants
to give
back. During spring break this year, she traveled to Peru to volunteer
at an
orphanage.
“I think it’s something that’s
really special to UNF. I think it’s kind of unique that so many students
study
abroad at UNF,” Sieusahai said. “I’m happy that everyone’s learning that
it’s
so important.”
Senior
business management major
Meredith Hough said she gained a open mind and a greater understanding
of the
world around her during a semester in Alicante, Spain.
“I
now understand that there truly
is more than one way to live life and I am starting to put the pieces
together
on how I would like to live my own,” she said.
At
the graduate level, Coggin’s
GlobalMBA program has won international recognition for its approach. In
the
GlobalMBA program, 10 students from each of the four participating
universities
spend 15 months in a cohort taking classes and studying together in the
United
States, Germany, Poland and China. They graduate with two master’s
degrees, one
from UNF and one from two European universities. The GlobalMBA program
won a
Best Practices in International Education Award in the United States and
it was
one of two programs featured as models of business education in
Germany’s
leading news weekly.
“As
GlobalMBA students we are responsible for
organizing our travel, living arrangements and all aspects of life
abroad. This level of responsibility causes us to take a closer look at
the culture of the country we're staying in, and creates new
opportunities for
learning experiences and personal development,” said Nathan Hall, a
GlobalMBA
student now in Poland. “The teaching styles and university
organizational
structures also vary from country to country, so there is much to learn
from in
this program beyond the classroom.”
Hall
said living abroad presents
more extensive challenges and opportunities than just visiting another
country
for several days. Although GlobalMBA classes are taught in English, life
outside of the classroom is in the language and culture of the host
country. Intermingling with local students and experiencing even the
more
mundane aspects of life in the host countries has enabled him to learn
about
subtle differences between cultures, as well as surprising similarities,
he
said.
“Another thing that is
really interesting about living
abroad is how it has changed my self-image,” he said. “When I experience
other
cultures firsthand, I compare what I see to my own culture. In doing
that,
it has made me take a second look at my own culture; my ideas of what
are good
or bad about life in the U.S. have been impacted by this reflection. I
have started to appreciate little things from life back home, yet also
seen
some ways that life could be improved based on things here abroad.”
This
year, Coggin launched the
Ibero-AmericanMBA, a bilingual double-degree program with universities
in Spain
and Argentina. The bilingual requirement illustrates the importance of
foreign
languages. The collapse of most American business overseas is due in
part to
their failure to understand foreign cultures, and language is an
important part
of that.
Dr. Jeff Michelman,
a professor of
accounting and one of the two flagship program directors, said the lack
of
foreign language skills hinders UNF students from fully taking advantage
of
study-abroad opportunities in which classes are taught in the language
of the
host country.
Recognizing
that problem, Anne
Sheridan Fugard, the director of the Study Abroad Department, tries to
reach
business students in their freshman and sophomore years, which gives
them time
to pick up a second language so they can spend a semester abroad.
Coggin
College gave a portion of
its flagship money to the Department of World Languages in the College
of Arts
and Sciences to hire someone to teach Chinese. The class is growing in
popularity. In addition, Fugard and Michelman have begun recruiting at
local
high schools that offer Chinese language classes.
Michelman
and Fugard smile at the
thought of enrolling first-year students with a working knowledge of
Chinese.
By the time they have taken Chinese classes at UNF and spent a semester
or two
studying abroad in the world’s fastest-growing economic power, they will
be
bilingual graduates prepared to make their marks in international
business.
Employers look for
job applicants
coming out of college who can live in another country, in another
culture and
speak another language, Michelman said.
“That
says a whole lot about that
student,” he said. “Can that student deal with complexity? Can that
student
deal with diversity? Can that student deal with change on the job?”
While the
short-term, faculty-led,
study-abroad trips are valuable for opening students’ eyes to the world
around
them, the real benefit comes from spending a semester or more living
abroad, he
said.
“It’s not just about
taking classes
in a foreign language,” Michelman said. “It’s not just about learning
about how
business works in another country. It’s learning about themselves.”
