| August 23, 2016—The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in collaboration with IBM, will have new analytics lab this fall. The Advanced Analytics Lab, IBM Enabled, was established with technology donated by IBM and developed as a joint resource for UT’s College of Engineering and Haslam College of Business. Approximately 3,800 undergraduate and graduate students in the business, electrical engineering, and computer science programs will work in the lab, which officially opens August 25. Both the engineering and business colleges will use the lab for classes focusing on analytics for big data, database management and design, supply chain, marketing, and information technology (IT), among others.
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August 1, 2016—In partnership with Webster University’s George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology, Eden Theological Seminary has launched the Walker Leadership Institute, which aims to bring together top business, faith-based, and leadership educators. The institute offers a variety of certificate courses, executive-level classes, and educational programs, including a Master of Arts in Community Leadership. George H. and Carol B. Walker donated US$1 million to fund the launch of the institute.
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July 11, 2016—Audencia Business School in Nantes, France, recently opened its Cooperative Center for Studies in Ivory Coast in partnership with the Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny (INP-HB) in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, Africa. The center, based on the INP-HB campus, is Audencia’s second such center outside of France—it opened its first in China in 2014 at the Beijing Institute of Technology. With this partnership, Audencia dean Christophe Germain and INP-HB director general Koffi N’Guessan have agreed to develop joint programs, foster joint research projects, and promote student and faculty mobility between the schools.
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June 30, 2016—The Wine Spectator Learning Center recently broke ground at Sonoma State University (SSU) in Napa Valley, California.
The US$9.2 million facility will be the centerpiece building for SSU’s Wine Business Institute, which offers BS and MBA degrees focused exclusively on the business aspects of the wine industry. Slated for completion in summer 2017, the 14,500 square-foot center will house three dedicated classrooms, a student commons area for collaboration and student-run businesses, and an industry center for professional and academic faculty and program leadership.
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June 30, 2016—Walsh College in Troy, Michigan, has created a custom learning space for training future cybersecurity professionals that offers realistic, hands-on opportunities to experience the physical security countermeasures faced in information technology environments. Designed in response to the growing demand for cybersecurity experts, the Cyber Lab includes workstations, virtualization screens, and threat maps pinpointing virus and malware infestations around the world. It provides a “cloud” environment to provide penetration testing and defense deployment from anywhere in the world. It also offers modern infrastructure equipment where students can learn about the latest technologies used in business environments. One of Walsh’s four IT degrees is a dual MBA/MS in IT Leadership.
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June 8, 2016—In June, Florida International University (FIU) announced the launch of StartUP FIU, an initiative designed to promote innovation on its campus and in the community. As part of StartUP FIU, the school will open three incubators that will serve a diverse mix of entrepreneurs from both the university and the community. The first will be a 10,000-square-foot space on its main campus, which is currently under renovation; the second will be Food FIU, a space for food entrepreneurs to be opened on its North Miami campus; the third will be developed in a commercial building in Miami’s West End district. In addition, the school is starting an accelerator program that welcomes its first class of entrepreneurs in September. Within all of this activity, the initiative also will focus on commercializing FIU faculty research. StartUP FIU’s initial activities are supported by nearly US$2 million in grants from Citi Foundation’s Community Progress Makers Fund and the State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
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May 31, 2016—Harvard Business School (HBS) will dedicate its new executive education center, the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, during a ceremony on June 6. The 90,000-square-foot, four-story building includes a reception and registration area, an open theater-style forum, state-of-the-art classrooms, meeting rooms, offices, dining facilities, and an elevated outdoor terrace. It is the first building named after a woman on the Harvard campus and the first named after an American of Chinese descent. |