BC Business
The main foyer at SFU's Surrey campus.
The main foyer at SFU’s Surrey campus.
Marketed to full-time professionals in Surrey and the Fraser Valley as a business-education option that doesn’t require a commute north of the Fraser River, the program will welcome its first class in January 2014. The two-year program will be SFU’s first part-time MBA and will be based on the same curriculum as the full-time MBA program currently offered at the downtown Vancouver campus.
The program has garnered strong interest among Surrey’s business community and students based in the south Fraser region, according to Colleen Collins, associate dean of graduate programs at SFU’s Beedie School of Business.
“I think that this is a big step for the business school and a big step for Surrey,” says Collins. “With graduate students, you’ve got people who are practising professionals, so bringing them into the Surrey campus is really going to add a whole new component of integration into the campus community.”
For SFU MBA alumnus and Surrey resident Andy Baryer, it means that future students will spend less time commuting and more time learning. “When I went to SFU I would always have to trek out to Burnaby, and then later into Vancouver,” says Baryer, “so for students to be able to get that world-class education right out in Surrey, one of the fastest-growing suburbs in Canada, I think it’s a sure bet that it’ll be a very popular program.”
SFU opened its Bing Thom-designed Surrey campus in 2002, adjacent to the Surrey Central SkyTrain station. SFU offers hundreds of credit courses and continuing-education programs at its Surrey campus, including a bachelor in business administration. With about 13,000 registered businesses, Surrey is an economic hub and continues to hold the title as one the fastest growing communities in B.C.
SFU’s Beedie School of Business launched Canada’s first executive MBA program in 1968, and has introduced a wide set of graduate business education offerings in the past few years, including an EMBA in Aboriginal Business and Leadership, and the Management of Technology MBA program.