There have been some weird tales coming out of a tiny place in Canada a couple of university president making an attempt to kick the shins of the Govt Chairman of a multi-billion dollar international actual estate conglomerate. Weird tales demand further investigation!
The smallest Canadian province, Prince Edward Island, has a quaint little university with just over four,500 college students. The story goes that the University President tried to woo a multi-million dollar donation from Richard Homburg, the Executive Chairman of the Homburg Group of Corporations.
No large information there. As authorities funding to universities has declined, universities have turn out to be adept at elevating funds from the private sector. This particular deal didn’t happen. No large information there either, not all deals go ahead.
Nonetheless, the actual estate developer felt that educating folks is a great thing, even if he didn’t like that specific take care of the university. As a substitute of donating his cash to a different college, he decided that he would favor to do it himself and found his personal college.
Major corporations have been creating ‘company universities’ for their own internal coaching for many years. There at the moment are over 2,000 company universities and a few of their campuses have state-of-the-art lecture rooms, sports activities and recreation amenities - and yes, multiple helicopter pads - that would be the envy of any public college. Firms know they can arrange corporate education, and do it rather well.
Firms additionally know that ‘educational freedom’ prevents corporations from giving recommendation to the enterprise school. The angle is "You possibly can have your identify on the door (for several million dollars), however don’t carry your ideas inside, we’ll decide what’s finest". And simply how many Business Faculties are so flush from enterprise success that they have several million of their very own?
Forty years in the past, Richard Homburg started having innovative ideas, and at the moment he nonetheless retains his $four.5 billion empire forward of the sport with a keen sense of business and impeccable timing. So, Homburg launched one thing known as the "Homburg Global Education Undertaking". He assembled students from a few of the greatest real estate colleges around the world, and got here up with one thing novel.
And this is where we discover the surprise. As an alternative of paying out to hold his title over the door of somewhat business school, Homburg’s International Training undertaking spans two continents, with an Academy in Zurich, an Institute in Canada, an eCampus for international training delivery, a research ebook sequence with Oxford University Press, and modern Bachelor and Masters programs in Real Estate that are related to the enterprise world, taught by a few of the best professors and professionals from all over the world. Wow.
The President of the little college obviously didn’t like this, and went all around the media saying how this may destroy the fabric of schooling and end the world as we all know it. He by no means came proper out and mentioned what he was most afraid of: Richard Homburg showed the business world that they'll do that too. Let’s face it: starting new initiatives is what business folks do. And if the enterprise world begins their very own alternatives to the traditional college, the schools’ tried and true method of getting millions from main firms could possibly be threatened.
Let’s strive the thought experiment: spend millions for a sign over a door, or put money into a world delivery system for trade-relevant Bachelor and Masters applications drawing from the perfect college on this planet? No business individual would get that one improper.
The lesson: don’t upset a thousand-12 months tradition of preserving a tight monopoly on college education and anticipate to maintain it quiet. Nicely, 2011 is the 12 months that tradition has been upset.
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