Kent State’s College of Business will offer the full-time Master of Business Administration program online (MBA) beginning this fall.

Kent will be one of three accredited schools in Ohio to offer an online MBA program for students around the world.

This has been accomplished with the help of Robert Hisrich, associate dean of graduate and international programs, who has been traveling out of the country to work with the marketing aspects of the program.

“There will be a decrease in international students all over the country over the (next) few years, unfortunately,” Hisrich said. “Launching this program will benefit Kent (State) a lot with those students who won’t be able to stay here and study and can study (in) their home country.”

One of Hisrich’s duties is to create marketing strategies to connect to students.

“I go to China a bit, and I know there are students who would love to have a U.S.-based business degree who may not have the support from the Chinese government for a VISA to come over and study,” Hisrich said. “Several international students have shown interest already.”

To qualify, students must have a bachelor’s degree of any type and between one and two years of work experience.

Business administration graduate student Laxman Panthi from Nepal said he believes others can benefit from this program, even if he wouldn’t.

“As for me, I would still have chosen to come to Kent, instead of staying in my home country and studying online,” Panthi said. “I do know a lot of people back home aren’t as fortunate to come over and study, so this program would be very beneficial.”

Panthi, who graduates in May, said going through the program in person was right for him.

“Personally, being face-to-face in a classroom (as) a graduate student was the best because a lot of your work requires you networking with others,” he said.

Associate professor of management Julia Levashina said the MBA program is similar to the traditional face-to-face curriculum and answered some concerns students may have, especially how the work will reflect globally.

“Our graduate program is designed to expose students to different management and human resource management practices in different countries and global companies,” Levashina said.

Kent makes an effort to incorporate global situations in their curriculum, “so opening our doors to others will help,” she said.

Levashina said there will be alternatives to the face-to-face communication that Panthi mentioned.

“Virtual teams, message boards, web conferences with professors and other tools could be used to enhance the student interaction,” Levashina said.

Malcolm Murray is the Colleges of Business and Technology reporter, contact him at [email protected].