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New Distance Education Opportunity Available to International Business Professionals
The first online course in a planned Capstone Certificate in International Affairs (IAC) was offered this summer to business professionals, educators, and military personnel around the world who can benefit from a better understanding of cultural, historical, and geographical relations between the United States and other countries. Taught by Jeremi Suri, a professor of history and a Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) senior fellow at UW-Madison, “American Foreign Policy: A History of U.S. Grand Strategy” ran from June 15 through August 7.
CIBER funding supported the development of this pilot, graduate-level course that offers a fresh perspective on America’s foreign policy successes and failures by exploring how grand strategy shaped U.S. interactions with states, peoples, and cultures during the 20th century. An understanding of such interactions and an appreciation of their consequences can help international business professionals build better relationships with their global contacts now and in the future. Like the courses Suri teaches in the Wisconsin School of Business Enterprise MBA programs, “American Foreign Policy” addresses “how one anticipates international opportunities and threats, and how to forecast and prepare for those challenges,” he said. “The key thing is to mix intellectual activity with real-world experience.”
Students will complete the three-credit course without visiting the UW-Madison campus. New lectures and downloadable reading assignments are made available each week on the course Web site, allowing students to view materials at their convenience. They also may post comments and questions on a class message board, and engage in online discussion with the instructor and fellow classmates.
Suri hopes to begin offering the IAC within a couple of years, assuming an assessment shows that the pilot course meets the high standards he and university administrators have set for the program. Scott Mobley, a graduate student in history and the coordinator of the pilot course, said the certificate program can be shaped “based on what the needs of the consumer are.” The breadth of academic expertise available at UW-Madison makes it possible to create courses of value to the business, education, and military audiences, he said. Each course in the IAC will be taught by UW-Madison professors.
“This is a logical step for the Wisconsin Idea,” said Suri. “The UW-Madison campus pioneered this type of outreach, and we need to do more of it in a globally competitive environment.”
The pilot course is sponsored by the UW-Madison College of Letters and Science with additional support from CIBER, the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), Division of Continuing Studies, Department of History, Learning Support Services, UW JASONS, Wisconsin Alumni Association, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). For more information, visit http://iss.jasons.wisc.edu.