A Summer of Globalization

With the beginning of fall and the campus outside my window starting to bustle with new and returning students, I reflect on another eventful summer at the UO Lundquist College of Business. One of our biggest summer successes was certainly the relaunch of the University of Oregon-Nyenrode Business Universiteit partnership.

Fifty-eight participants—twenty-seven executive MBAs and thirty-one international MBAs—joined us from Nyenrode for the new program's first session in July.

Along with coursework, students had the option to take in a Eugene Emeralds baseball game or the Oregon Bach Festival, tour the world-class athletic facility at Autzen Stadium, dine on American fare, and feel the sand under their toes at the Oregon coast.

Executive MBAs were invited to the Oregon Executive MBA campus in Portland for additional instruction and networking.

Founded in 1946, Nyenrode is located about sixteen miles south of Amsterdam on a thirteenth-century estate boasting a castle with a surrounding moat. The University of Oregon and Nyenrode began exchanging students in the 1960s. The program continued through the decades but tapered off then ended in the early 1980s. With staff, faculty, and alumni support, we were able to reboot the program for MBAs and plans for the future include incorporating other business students from both institutions.

As the UO-Nyenrode tour bus wound its way through forested hills beyond the city limits of Eugene on a sunny July day en route to one of Oregon's premier wineries, King Estate, several students commented on their UO-Nyenrode experience.

One student said he was most interested in sustainability and was glad he was able to dive into the topic with fellow participants and his UO professors, whom he described as "experts" who were "enthusiastic, dynamic, with lots of energy."

Reviews of the coursework and activities were also overwhelmingly positive, and we are already expanding our exemplary relationship with Nyenrode Business Universiteit.

Building on the success of this renewed partnership, this December about twenty-five UO Master of Accounting Program (MAcc) students will travel with director Robin Clement and professor Steve Matsunaga on a weeklong visit to Nyenrode.

Students will spend mornings in the classroom with afternoons and evenings off-campus visiting various companies and locales. Planned curriculum topics include Dutch regulation in monitoring and evaluating the quality of audits, as well as an examination of how international companies determine multiple exchanges between borders and the effect of those decisions on investor relations in communicating financial earnings information.

Attending UO MAcc students will have access to CFOs and leaders from some of the Netherlands premier corporations, including Dutch Central Bank, The Netherlands Institute of Chartered Accountants, and The Authority for Financial Markets—the Dutch counterpart to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.

Clement had this to say about the upcoming December visit: "I think there is much insight to gain from this type of face-to-face interaction. It's something few programs offer, and we look forward to exposing our students to these global perspectives."

Another summer at the Lundquist College of Business has passed, but not without setting the groundwork for an exceptional academic year, both in Eugene, Portland, and abroad. And the Lundquist College approach to teaching and learning—collaborative, experiential, global—continues.

I hope you will join me in thanking all those—alumni, faculty, staff, and students—that are making the revival of the UO-Nyenrode exchange a success. By showing your support for these and other initiatives at the college, you are helping to make a positive impact on the lives of students and the businesses of tomorrow.

Cordially,