BC Business
Trinity Western University is the latest B.C. school to offer a foreign MBA program, which is set to launch next month in China’s fourth-largest city, Tianjin. The program, called the Great Wall MBA, is a partnership with Tianjin University of Finance and Economics (TUFE) and follows an executive residency model. Students will take classes taught in English on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays every six weeks for two consecutive weekends. The MBA takes 18 months with six pre-course foundation classes in business English, accounting, finance and economics. A total of eight classes will be taught by Trinity Western staff with the remaining six to be taught by the partner university’s staff. “Tianjin University of Finance and Economics is a strong university and we are proud to be connected to it,” says Trinity Western MBA director Murray MacTavish, adding that the university is ranked highly on the list of top finance and economics schools in China. In recent years, universities across the province have been partnering with international schools to boost their MBA programs. UBC launched a 20-month part-time International MBA in Shanghai in 2002, and Simon Fraser University partnered with schools in Brazil, Mexico and the United States to launch its “Americas MBA for Executives” in 2011. Nearly all other MBA programs in B.C. offer some form of internationally focused study. Trinity Western has long focused on globalizing its campus, says MacTavish. All students can take travel study courses in May, with locations that correspond to their field of study. The new foreign MBA program is similar to an existing International Business MBA, which was started in 2009.
The new partnership came about in 2011 when TUFE approached Trinity Western to take over the partnership from an American university. The schools had already worked together through the EDGE program, where Chinese students spend three years of their undergraduate at TUFE, followed by an eight-month undergraduate exchange and 14-month MBA program at Trinity Western.
MacTavish says that Trinity’s professors and scholars have also had a connection to Tianjin through research since 1990. “We are involved internationally with faculty research and so on, so this is just a continuation of our passion to be engaged in the global community,” he says. So far, MacTavish says that 24 to 27 students are enrolled for the first foreign MBA cohort, which will have a cap of 35 students. Most are Chinese executives and business people, though the program is open to anyone who can meet the requirements for an MBA and pass an English language proficiency test.
MacTavish predicts that more Canadian business people will be entering the program to gain exposure to China. “For Canadian executives this is a great opportunity to study in the Pacific Rim, in what is one of the most dynamic economies in the world,” he says.
This article has been updated from a previous version.