The Anderson School of Management at The University of New Mexico has established an educational pipeline designed to prepare Chinese students for graduate-level courses at UNM to obtain business degrees.

The Chinese universities, which include the Beijing Institute of Technology in Zhuhai and The University of Technology in Dong Guan, recently signed agreements to create the pathway that enables senior-level graduate students to study at ASM to complete their undergraduate degree, and then pursue Graduate MBA (GMBA) studies.

The GMBA program is designed to encourage collaborative research and intellectual interaction between the activities of the participating students and their advisors; and to educate students with rich and meaningful experiences across nations so they become competitive in a globalized market.

The Chinese educational market is now open to international collaborations where X+Y initiatives or joint programs, such as 3+1+1.5, can be established with concerted effort. The Beijing Institute started the program last fall with about 70 Chinese students. The University of Technology is in the process of recruiting its first freshman class.

“With the rising economy in mainland China, many Chinese mid-class families are eager to send their children to other countries, such as USA, Canada, and England, for advanced degrees,” said Associate Professor Robert Luo, a Chinese national. “The collaborative programs that Anderson has built will create a win-win situation where our US students will have an international perspective and international students will further get to know American culture and academic system. This international educational platform will help UNM to be exposed to many other international universities.”

Not only will the collaboration help Chinese students pursue a GMBA, the program also affords UNM students the chance to collaborate with international students.

The idea for the collaboration began about two years ago when Dean Emeritus Douglas Brown, Dean Craig White and Professor Robert Luo, along with other ASM faculty including Suleimam “Sul” Kassicieh, who initiated conversations with several Chinese universities including Sichuan University, Xiamen University, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.

UNM hopes this agreement, and others in the works, helps to create a permanent academic pathway of students in the next several years. The region where the Chinese Universities are located, Guangdong province, is a high-tech economic region says Kassicieh.

“This is a great opportunity for our students to interact with students from other countries,” said Kassicieh, who is a Distinguished Professor and also the Management of Technology chair. “In a globalized world, this should help our American and Chinese students in building bridges to other countries and cultures.”