U.S. Dept. of Education Awards BYU $1.4 Million for International Business Training

PROVO, Utah — May 09, 2006 — The U.S. Department of Education awarded BYU a four-year grant worth $1.4 million to continue its work as a Center for International Business Education and Research. The grant allows BYU to work with other CIBER schools across the nation to improve international business and language courses.

Brooke Derr, director of the Marriott School’s Global Management Center, spent last summer drafting the proposal with help from center staffers and Associate Professor Kristie Seawright. According to Derr, some of the key factors in winning the grant include an extensive offering of business language courses, BYU’s geographic location and several proposed programs.

BYU currently offers 11 upper-level business language courses that place the school at the head of the nation in this category. In an effort to stay on the cutting edge, BYU is working with Michigan State and the University of Texas to develop courses in Turkish and Arabic.

“We want to not only be good in languages, but because we have so many people that have lived abroad, we want to be really good in culture,” Derr says. “We are developing an instrument to measure cultural competency, to demonstrate that students not only speak a language but will actually be able to effectively conduct business in different regions of the world.”

The grant also allows BYU to create other programs, which could be implemented at schools across the nation. One such program would make BYU the national resource for international business ethics. Seawright, who drafted portions of the proposal, explains BYU’s role in creating the course outlines and materials for the program.

“We have international expertise that many other schools don’t have and support from Marriott School administrators to become a center for ethics and the training of ethical business managers,” Seawright says. “There are ethical issues that come up in international business that don’t come up in domestic business. We can help schools identify and teach these issues.”

There are 31 CIBER schools nationwide that work together to help train other colleges and universities about international business issues. This year more than 100 schools applied for CIBER status.

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems, organizational behavior and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.