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front on issues. They even play a significant role in framing issues." viewpoints. "It will be an opinion leaders' conference, designed to get national exposure at the level of public debate," Hundley says. Public Awareness Many CIBER administrators see one of their roles as helping schools and other institutions focus that public debate on important topics. "When you look at what CIBERs are doing and what they're proposing to do, you can see they're very much out front on issues," says Hundley. "They even play a significant role in framing issues." In the wake of September 11, some of those front-runner that language and feel very comfortable in another culture," degrees for MBA students earning master's degrees in area studies such as Chinese or Japanese. "An MBA usually takes two years. If you get an MBA in conjunction with a master's in Chinese studies, that's going to take three years, and the CIBER will pay for that additional year," says center sored by Columbia's CIBER, which is a collaborative effort between the business school and the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). "While the business school gives students information in functional areas, SIPA gives con- text," says Yu. "SIPA covers a wide range of topics, from MBA students on the Lawrence campus and part-time stu- dents in Kansas City. "For part-time MBA students, going to a traditional study abroad program for a semester doesn't work, so we developed a set of weeklong student abroad opportunities for these students," Rose says. Recent pro- grams have been set in France and Mexico, and the CIBER for its fully-employed MBA students (FEMBAs). "The students all do an international field study program. Half of them work with a large company, and half work with start-ups in Australia, France, Chile, Finland, and the U.S.," says Tucker. "The start-up companies are identified by a high- tech incubator in their countries. Teams of five or six stu- dents are assigned to work with them and develop a busi- ness plan or an investment plan that will help this company present its technology to a venture capital firm." is developing one in China. ■ The UCLA CIBER encourages study abroad programs area studies to conflict resolution and human rights." ■ A study abroad program at KU focuses on full-time director Brad Farnsworth. ■ A similar three-year dual degree program is spon- says UCLA's Sara Tucker. ■ At the University of Michigan, the CIBER sponsors joint topics will be redefined. "One of the things we're considering now is how terrorism affects international business," says Shao Ping Yu of the CIBER at Columbia University in New York City. "Before September 11, people had a certain set of ideas about how international trade was going to function for the next few years, and now that's changed." While CIBERs are poised to react quickly to world events programs evolved, there was considerable concern aboutU.S. competitiveness," says Hundley. "There's less concern about that than there used to be. The CIBERs can't take all the credit, but when I look at all that's been done, it's clear there's been a pretty significant payoff." "To say the CIBER program has had an enormous impact that affect American business, it's difficult to measure pre- cisely the impact they've had in making American business more internationally focused. Globalization obviously would have occurred without them—but many believe their efforts have made their marks. "It's certainly true that in the late 1980s when the CIBER ness,McIntyre of theGeorgia Institute of Technology believes it's essential for CIBERs to be visible. "The office of the gov- ernor knows about us, the university administration is aware of us—they give us a call whenever there's a chance for us to be relevant. It's true that the budget is not very large, but it's true also that universities should institutionalize the programs. Once we get them going, we show that they can be done and done successfully; then we're not needed any more." ■ z BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2002 31 panies that are really committed to being successful interna- tionally," says Farnsworth ofMichigan. "And I think we have been able to deliver some really valuable services to that group. Certainly those who attend our executive education programs are finding what we do extremely valuable, but they are self-selecting. They saw the ad and paid the money and came to Ann Arbor to learn. The thing is, they're still a minority. I think we've been much less successful persuading those companies that really have no international interest that they really should spend more time developing exports or becoming internationally active. We're very effective when we're preaching to the converted, and I think we've made them more successful." To continue to promote the success of international busi- on American competitiveness would be overstating the case, but it's certainly had an impact," says Kerry Cooper of the CIBER at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. "Because we work with other business schools, both in the region and nationally, the cumulative effect is a large multiple of the fed- eral funding level." "What I see in the business community is a core of com-