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lem," explains Jensen. "Often students are finishing their exams at their own schools at the time they're supposed to start our program. We have to work with our partners to enable students to be here." Christian Koenig, associate dean at ESSEC Business School in Paris, agrees. "We have 60 different partners. The quarters in Chicago, the bimesters at Duke, or the semesters at Georgetown are not the same as the quarter systems at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmeda bad," he says. "But you have to put some measure of flexibility in the process, or you won't have an international program." The scope and types of international opportunities must of Mexico, the Rotterdam School of Management of the Netherlands, and the University of North Carolina's Kenan- Flagler Business School in the United States. The executive degree program requires students to spend one week work- ing face-to-face in each of the regions—Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America—studying topics that suit each school's expertise. "This is the first time that a consortium of schools is offer- also be flexible to accommodate students faced with tight budgets. Students from a larger range of schools are now seeking international experience, according to David Harrison of the University of South Carolina at Aiken. He notes that many faculty, especially at smaller regional schools, are faced with the challenge of planning study tours that allow students to fulfill both their educational aspirations and budgetary requirements. "We often go to the Czech Republic and Slovakia by Tricia Bisoux illustrations by Scott Roberts ing a truly global program," explains Julie Yu, director of the OneMBA program at CUHK. "It includes five globally coordinated courses plus four global experiential learning modules over 21 months, so it requires close coordination among all the partners. The five cultures represented have both similarities and differences. Their values, by nature, will also differ somewhat. During the program planning process, the members of the executive committee meet at all five loca- tions to gain an understanding of the various cultures involved in the program." Koenig of ESSEC points to the school's participation in because of the value," explains Harrison, who arranges fund-raising activities to help students pay for the three- week trip, which costs around $2,000. "Costs are low there, while the business opportunities are very high. It's also per- fect for the students to see an economy in transition from centrally planned to a market economy. I doubt we would have the resources to get such visitations in countries like German, Italy, or England." Trend #2—Degrees Without Borders. Simple student exchange programs may become a thing of the past. Increasingly, busi- ness schools are partnering to create jointly designed degrees that reflect the best of both cultural contexts. Programs such as the OneMBA program, for instance, are already taking steps in that direction. The OneMBA program combines the efforts of five schools, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo of Fundação Getulio Vargas of Brazil, the Monterrey Tech Graduate School of Business Administration and Leadership the European MBA—which it developed in partnership with the Warwick Business School of England and the University of Mannheim of Germany—as the future of international management education. "In the future, I think we'll see a shift from an increase in the number of student exchanges—I send you X students and you send me X stu- dents—to an increase in the number of either dual degree or joint degree programs," Koenig says. Such double degrees, he adds, will be following the lead of the larger corporate arena where companies are expanding their reach into the global marketplace. "For example, European companies are developing in China and Korea very quickly," says Koenig. "They have a need for students with double competencies, who know the keys to European business and the local environment." Trend #3—One Language. Business schools are being pulled in two directions when it comes to language requirements. On the one hand, fluency in a language other than one's native language is of the utmost importance to students who plan an international career. On the other, it can be impractical to expect fluency in a two-year MBA program, or even a BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003 35