Simon partners with new school

eginning in the fall of 2005, the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration will offer a dual-degree weekend executive M.B.A. program in the Netherlands in partnership with Tias Business School, the graduate management school of Stilburg University and Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. This follows a recent decision by the University and the Netherlands' Universiteit Nyenrode to discontinue their nine-year affiliation after the executive M.B.A. class of 2004 graduates in June.

According to Hans Palm, dean at Nyenrode, and Mark Zupan, dean of the Simon School, the two institutions have determined that their strategic goals have diverged.

"We feel that this is a good move for all the schools involved," Zupan says. "Each institution gets to focus more strategically on attaining its longer-term vision by serving different constituencies in search of a high-quality executive M.B.A. degree."

The Simon School first partnered with Erasmus University in 1986, moving to Nyenrode in 1995, when Philippe Naert was dean there. Rochester also runs a long-standing weekend executive M.B.A. program with the Universität Bern in Bern, Switzerland, in addition to its U.S. programs.

Both Zupan and Naert, now dean of Tias, say they are pleased with the new relationship because it meets both schools' common goal of targeting experienced executives and, more important, allows the two institutions to align in support of bolder, more far-reaching aims.

"Like Tias, the Simon School is determined to raise the program to Top 10 stature worldwide within the next five years," Zupan says.

The deans of both business schools say that their institutions want to be active facilitators of technology transfer for the benefit of their regions, as well as their institutions and corporate partners.

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