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64 BizEd JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015 people+places classes will be held during the league's off-season. The 18-month program consists of six two-week residency modules at the school's main campus in Coral Gables. The University of Rhode Island's College of Busi- ness Administration in Kingston has designed new healthcare-focused courses within its evening MBA program. These include classes on organizational behavior, supply chain management, accounting, and IT. Courses were developed by a committee drawn from the College of Business Administration, the College of Pharmacy, and the department of sociology within the College of Arts and Sciences. Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Busi- ness and Management in Los Angeles, California, is opening a new Silicon Valley campus to offer an EMBA program to students from the Bay Area and northern California. The University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management in Canada will offer a new doctoral program in 2015, subject to government approval. The PhD program will encourage interdisciplin- ary scholarship and focus on five areas of study: entrepreneurship, health systems, accounting and control, finance, and organizational behavior and human resources management. In January, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University in New York launches MBA@Syracuse, a revamped version of the school's existing online iMBA program. The revamp includes a transition to the cloud-based platform 2U, which makes content accessible online or offline via mobile apps. The 12-week, 54-credit program includes face-to-face weekly seminar-style sessions and new immersive course content. Like the school's on-campus program, MBA@Syracuse requires students to complete several three-day residencies in global city centers and on the univer- sity's campus. As part of MBA@Syracuse, the school also has launched Accounting@Syracuse, an online master of science in professional accounting. ESSEC Business School, based in Cergy-Pointoise, France, and Ecole Centrale Paris will jointly deliver a master of science in data sciences and business analytics. Set to begin this fall, the program will be offered through the newly opened ESSEC Center of Excellence for Digital Technologies. Audencia Nantes in France and the School of Continuing Education at Tsinghua University in Beijing will launch a joint doctorate of business administration that will have a focus on corporate social responsibility. NEW FACILITIES & CENTERS The National University of Singapore will establish three new research centers within the NUS Research Institute in China. They include the NUS Business School China Business Centre, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Suzhou Center, and the Insti- tute of Real Estate Studies Global Logistic Properties Research Centre. All three will aid Suzhou Industrial Park, which is located in China and has strong ties to Singapore, with issues that are related to public administration, commerce, finance, real estate, and urbanization. The University of Maryland's Smith School of Business in College Park plans to create a multidisci- plinary research center with a US$6 million gift from the Koch Foundation and the Snider Foundation. The Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets will promote collaborative research across campus. Audencia Nantes of France recently opened the Cooperative Center for Studies Audencia-BIT at Beijing Institute of Technology in China. The center will be the base for all activity between the two schools, including the launch of several joint mas- ter's level programs. These include a semesterlong English-language study program, a two-year MBA, an international master's degree, and a dual-de- gree program for those with bachelor's degrees in engineering or management from BIT. The University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Commerce in Tuscaloosa has partnered with Lockheed Martin to create a data analytics labora- tory and research center to provide students with hands-on experience with analytics technology and act as an analytics research hub for government, industry, and academia. The Sloan School of Management at the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge has launched its Center for Finance and Policy (CFP). The center was formed to address the need for innovation in public-sector financial practice and education. The cross-disciplinary center will drive research and policy analysis for policymakers, regulators, and others in the finance industry. It also will serve as an incubator for new educational initiatives. CFP faculty also plan to use MIT edX, the university's MOOC platform, to deliver free educational content to the public, as well as offer Grand Opening at Darla Moore Last fall, the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business in Columbia opened its new LEED-Platinum-rated building. Designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects of New York, the US$106.5 million facility has 251,891 square feet over six levels and features a trading room and 35 tech-supported classrooms. Addition- ally, the USC School of Music needed a larger venue for performances, so it gave $1.5 million to the business school to include a 500-seat auditorium with ideal acoustics for lectures and musical concerts. Permeable terrace and roof pavers, self-shading windows, and a rainwater capture system contribute to the build- ing's LEED rating. In phase II of the project, the school will work with the U.S. Department of Energy to pursue a "net-zero energy" rating, which applies to buildings that generate as much energy as they use.