Gonzaga Helps Set Up Chinese Mba Program

Gonzaga University and Seattle University have joined 23 other Jesuit-run universities in the U.S. in starting a master’s of business degree program in China.

The MBA program will start this fall at Peking University in Beijing, with an American curriculum and American-style business courses. Classes will be taught in English by an even split of professors from China and the consortium of U.S. colleges. As a pool, the consortium has 1,000 professors holding doctorates in business.

The first class will have about 80 students, with about 65 of them Chinese. The rest will be foreign students, who also have the option of spending a single semester in Beijing.

Larry Lewis, associate dean of GU’s Business School, said no Gonzaga professors have immediate plans to teach in Beijing, but he expects eventually one will go every two years.

The Chinese government estimates its economy needs 300,000 MBAs to help privatize state-run companies and enable China to better compete globally.