Clarification: SKEMA is an acronym that stands for School of Knowledge, Economy and Management

Globalization is an important aspect of college that the University is exploring.  According to interim Provost Warwick Arden, globalization is needed to prepare students for a global workplace experience.

“The main purpose of globalization for the University is to benefit the students and faculty,” said Arden.  “Everyone benefits from international interactions.  It gives the faculty more connections when doing research and helps students form more connections for later in life.”

One prospect began a little over a year ago, under the previous Provost, Larry Nielsen.  According to Arden, the University was approached by a group from South Korea and the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ), with the prospect of being part of a global university in the IFEZ.  

“South Korean is broken up into economic zones,” said Arden. “IFEZ includes the international airport, which is one of the largest and busiest in the world.”

According to Arden, the original plan would have taken five years to reach its full potential.  At the end of the five years, the plan was to include about 1,600 students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as about 100 faculty members.

“The original plan was pretty big, but financially it was too risky and too ambitious.  N.C. State was at the risk of losing too much money,” said Arden.  “This is a rough economic time for the University and we can’t risk the integrity of our Raleigh campus.”

The original plan was decided to be the wrong route for the University to take, according to Arden.  Because of this, the University came up with a different plan to present to the South Koreans.  

“The new plan would have been a smaller suite of only graduate programs, consisting of about four master’s level programs,” said Arden.  “It would have been less than 100 students and about ten faculty members.”

However, according to Arden, this smaller plan still would not work.  The South Koreans wanted an undergraduate program. The University still had a potential of losing money. The plan for the Korean school has now been put on an indefinite hold.

“The deciding factor about the Korean school was mainly financial.  This is a rough economic time for the University.   We don’t know how much money we’re going to lose this academic year from the budget, we can’t risk losing more in South Korea,” said Arden.

According to Arden, the University is maintaining a good relationship with South Korea with the possibility of creating a study abroad base.

Bailian Li, the vice provost for international affairs said, “South Korea is a very important country for us to have a good relationship with.  We have over 350 alumni that are involved in business in South Korea.”

Li said the benefits of the Korean school would have been many.  The University would have the ability to send more students abroad to study as well as the faculty having access to more research.

Another possibility of globalization came from the French business school, SKEMA.  According to Arden, this came through the College of Management.  SKEMA is one of the top ranked business schools in France.

“SKEMA was particularly interested in the University because of our proximity to the Research Triangle Park area,” said Arden.  “To begin with they were looking at locating the branch campus in Research Triangle Park, but soon realized their needs would better be met on our Centennial Campus.”

According to Arden, SKEMA would bring their own students and faculty to the business school on Centennial Campus, kind of like Prague is for N.C. State.  The faculty and students would use resources available to N.C. State students as well.

“SKEMA kind of jumped the gun and issued a press release in France, saying they were creating a branch campus in Raleigh,” said Arden.  “This concerned me.  There was no agreement, no lease and no application for educational licensure in North Carolina.  SKEMA was excited and wanted to announce their choice of Raleigh, but it was taken as an agreement had already been made.”

According to Arden, there is a draft agreement now.  However, there are outside factors that can still impact SKEMA opening.  They will need to lease space on Centennial Campus from an outside entity, as well as apply for educational license in North Carolina.  Also, Arden wants to make sure that students from SKEMA pay for their share of resources they are using.  According to him, this is an important part of the agreement.

“So far the draft agreement between SKEMA and the University is looking good.  We still need to show the draft to more university officials,” said Arden.  “SKEMA business school coming to Centennial campus could be positive for the College of Management and the University.”