Georgetown and FIU collaborate on new program, sends participants to D.C.

By: Victor Jorges/News Director

FIU’s College of Business and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business are collaborating to host a series of classes allowing students to learn on both campuses.  

The five-day program is aimed at giving executives and other professionals tools they need to explore U.S. governmental policies, programs, and regulations’ impact.

The FIU end of this partnership is led by Jerry Haar, executive director of executive and professional education at FIU Business.

“It consists of classroom instruction in the morning and site visits in the afternoon,” said Haar.

The program will take place Sept. 9 to 13, 2019 and be broken into two segments. For $3,500, excluding travel fees, students will attend classes at FIU and Georgetown.

“After five days, they get a non-degree certificate in international commerce from FIU,” said Harr.

This should be especially appealing to young professionals that may already have their MBA or those students who are in an MBA program, according to Haar.

The first part of the program takes place at FIU and will include a visit to the Visa’s Innovation Center.  The second part takes place in Washington D.C., at the Georgetown campus. Students will visit the Inter-American Development Bank, as well as Capitol Hill while they’re in Washington D.C.

“Anything dealing with international trade and commerce, global affairs tax policy; this will wet their palate,” said Haar. “It’s going to give them an exposure to this.”

Georgetown, according to Haar, has a very powerful brand, network, and graduates. Their graduates are in very high-level positions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Georgetown is one of the most premier schools of both business and international affairs,” said Haar. “Since I’m from Washington myself, it occurred to me:  we have this huge disjuncture of business training and business education, and we then we also have education in international affairs, but there are no close ties between the two.”

The coursework includes Innovation in Emerging Markets, Entrepreneurship, Digital Media, Supply Chain Management, Finance and Investment, Government’s Influence on Business, Foreign Market Development and more.

Additionally, Haar believes that this program is beneficial in today’s climate.

“There are certain politicians, shall we say, and groups that are not enamored of trade and you want to understand how that affects my industry, how does it affect my country?” said Haar.  “That’s what this program is for. It’s continuing professional education.”

Haar recognizes the uncertainty about whether or not five days will be enough time to cover all the material.

“I think five days is enough to expand knowledge, pique the curiosity even more and provide something tangible that these people can use when they go back home,” said Haar. “Will it be enough? Probably not.”

However, Haar thinks that this is a good way to gather feedback from participants.

“It’s better to offer it than not have it,” said Haar. “We get the feedback. ‘This was too short. Why don’t you guys do it a two-week program?’ We will. If we have 22 participants, and 17 of the 20 say, ‘Wow, we would really like to come back for another week,’ we can do something called the advanced program.”

This is going to be a learning experience for all parties involved, according to Haar.

“We’re trying it out. We’re going to see how it works,” said Haar.

FIU faculty is also having conversations towards a potential partnership with additional schools like Cornell and University of California – Berkeley.

“We’re so fortunate to be here in Miami, which is, you know, one of the nation’s – one of the world’s capitals of global business,” said Haar.